Because it has long hackle wings swept back over the body
and is tied on a long-shank hook and swum beneath the surface,
the Black Ghost is a streamer; and it is a classic. . .
Materials List:
Hook: Any 4X to 6X long hook with medium to heavy
wire (some manufacurers will simply call this a "streamer," "bucktail,"
or "streamer-bucktail" hook) sizes 4 to 12.
Thread: Black 8/0 or 6/0.
Tail: Yellow hackle fibers.
Rib: Medium-fine flat silver tinsel.
Body: Black floss.
Throat: Yellow hackle fibers.
Wing: Four white hackles.
Cheek: (optional) jungle cock eyes or substitute.
Tying Instructions:
1. Measure the tail fibers and tie them in at the bend.
2. Advance the thread; then tie in the butts of the fibers
using the pinch.
3. Tie in the tinsel, tie in the floss, and wrap a floss body.
4. Lift and fold the tinsel.
5. Spiral the tinsel up the floss body.
6. Strip another bunch of hackle fibers, invert the hook,
and use the pinch to tie in the fibers as a beard.
7. Trim the butts of the beard fibers.
8. Select two matching sets of hackles for wings.
9. Measure and prepare the wing hackles.
10. Hold all four hackles by the stems to align them.
11. Tie in the wing using progressively tighter turns of thread.
12. Snip the hackle stems.
13. Jungle cock is optional; shown is a prepared eye on the left
and one unprepared on the right.
14. Tie in an eye of each side.
15. Snip the eye's stems and complete the fly.
Tying Tip:
There are some good substitutes for expensive, often hard-to-obtain
jungle cock. Synthetic jungle cock is one. You can also snip
a jungle-cock shape out of a guinea feather - simply find a dot on
the stem (guinea feathers have dots everywhere) and snip around it.
This idea I got from fly tier-auther Dick Talleur.
~ Skip Morris
Credits: The Black Ghost is one of the many excellent
instructional flies presented in Skip Morris's book,
Fly tying Made Clear and Simple, published by
Frank Amato Publications.
