return to halfway point, tie in Elk. Length of Elk hair is equal to the distance from hook eye to tips of tail. Make sure the hair stays on top of the hook. Start with tight wraps, decrease tension towards tail
Fold over Elk hair and tie down. Space behing wing should be a little less than in front of wing.
Separate wings, make thread wraps around each wing.
Post wings; the difference in diameter behind and in front of wings will cause trouble when hackling, so build a thread slope in front of wing.
AFAIK this is the original way to tie them. Good cleaning, stacking and above all sizing of the deer hair is critical for the end result. And a small mistake in step 3 can result in a very short or overly long wing in later steps, which you cannot change unless you start all over again. So a lot of folks devised different ways to tie them. For instance, by tying in Wulff style wings and subsequently making the hump from a separate bunch of deer hair. But this is kind of cool and it’s fast and efficient, so that’s why I shared it. These pix have been used for an article with explanatory notes, which will be published in April.
Mart
Very elegant fly and beautiful photos; thanks for posting.
I made that small mistake all the time so I switched to the way Charlie Craven ties his Improved Humpy and have found it much easier to get the proportions right; just another way to skin a cat.
](http://s958.photobucket.com/user/martwest/media/YellowHumpy1small.jpg.html)
Hackle, SHHAN - done!