- Wrap the hackle directly behind the oval tinsel and, take
two or three turns at the head.
- You can do the Teal a number of ways. This is one way to
tie a throat hackle. First, strip a small bunch of Teal and,
tie it to the bottom of the fly with one or two turns of thread.
Now, do the same thing on the near and, far side of the fly. Tie
the sides high on the sides as shown. This procedure has only
consumed six turns of thread and, eliminates the bulk of the
feather shaft.
- Cut waste ends of the Teal and, select two Jungle Cock and,
flatten the shafts with smooth faced pliers. If needed, twist
the flat portion of the shaft so, it will lay flat on the side
of the fly.
- Tie the far side JC to the side of the fly low, with two
separated turns of thread. Do the same on the near side. This
has only consumed four or, five turns of thread. You can see,
the thrifty use of thread wraps has a direct influence on the
size of the finished head on the fly. Try to get into the habit
of using just enough turns to secure each material. When we
get to the full dressed patterns, you may be attaching 30 more
or less individual materials on at the head. If you tied each
one off with six or eight turns, even 8/0 thread would be a
significant factor on the head size.
- Select two fairly narrow strips of Turkey tail or other
feathers and, tie them in as shown. Do not overlap the butt
ends. You want the wings to sit a little elevated by the Spey
wing standard and, to the sides. As with the Spey wing, don’t
tie the Dee wings over the sides of the fly.
- The finished fly. I use one or two coats of black (usually
although, there are other colors I use sometimes) fingernail
polish followed by two or three clear coats. The black will
cover any defects in thread wraps and, the clear will give the
head a glossy depth. Do thin coats rather than trying to do the
heads in one step, the flies will look better being built up.
Here are more flies tied the same method.
Originally published c. December 1, 2008 on Fly Anglers Online by Ronn Lucas.