There have been a lot of questions regarding Marc
PetitJean’s Magic Tools lately. Personally, I think
Marc is a genius; not because of his tying style, but
because of his observation and ingenuity. His tools
are unique and work very well.
I’ll show you more patterns using the Magic Tools in
the future, but I want to start by showing you a basic
mayfly using Marc’s style of tying. Since no two tiers
tie alike, my flies won’t look like Marc’s, but they
will show you the basic steps required to tie with a
Magic Tool set.
First, I need to show you what a Magic Tool set looks like.
It consists of three tables, two clamps and three grooved
dowels. You’ll see a table and clamp used in this article,
and future articles. The dowels are for wrapping long
materials like Crystal Flash around them so the material
can be trimmed to an exact length. You just wrap the
material and trim it by cutting it with a razor or fine
point scissors. The grooves serve as a guide for
scissor points or a razor.
Since there are a lot more pictures in this article,
I won’t use up any more space with text here. You’ll
get the idea as we go along.
Materials Basic Magic Baetis Mayfly:
- Hook: Any standard dry fly hook.
I’m using a size 16 Mustad 94840 dry fly hook.- Tail: Dark dun hackle fibers.
- Body: A twisted CDC feather.
- Thread: 6/0 - Black monocord.
- Wing: CDC fibers, spun in a split
thread technique.
Tying steps:
- Start the thread.
- Add a tail of dark dun hackle fibers.
- Tie a CDC feather in by the tip using one or
two loose wraps.
Originally published April 26, 2004 on Fly Anglers Online by Al Campbell.