Bodkin / Patterns

CDC Pheasant Tail Copper Jig

Nymph · Trout · Grayling · Intermediate · 1 version

Fischer's Flies

  • Hook Fulling Mill FM5045 Jig Force hook, 16
  • Thread Fl. orange 100 denier twisted

Materials

  • Bead Copper bead (Fulling Mill 3.2mm slotted tungsten)
  • Tail Dark pardo (Whiting Farms Coq de Leon)
  • Ribbing Copper thorax stripe (UTC Ultra Wire, small)
  • Body Rusty brown (Fulling Mill Tactical Microflash Dub)
  • Collar Brown permanent marker (Fulling Mill CDC feathers)
  • Resin Clear uv resin (Solarez Bone Dry)

How to tie it

  1. Slide a 3.2mm copper slotted tungsten bead onto the Jig Force hook, seat it at the eye, and start the fluorescent orange 100D thread behind it.
  2. Wind back to the bend and tie in a short tail of dark pardo Coq de Leon, half a shank long. CDL is stiff and speckled, so it holds its shape wet and does not matt down like softer fibres.
  3. Catch in the small copper wire at the tail tie-in, then wind the orange thread forward leaving a deliberate band of fluorescent orange showing at the rear as a tag.
  4. Dub a slim body of rusty brown Tactical Microflash from the tag forward to just behind the bead. The microflash in the blend does the work of a flashback without any extra material.
  5. Rib forward with five or six open turns of copper wire and tie off behind the bead. Copper over rusty brown is the pheasant tail colour scheme without the fragility of natural fibres.
  6. Tie in a brown CDC feather by the tip behind the bead and take one or two turns as a collar, sweeping the barbs back to just past the hook point. The CDC is the reason for the fly: it breathes and pulses on the slow, hanging part of the drift where a stiff hackle sits dead.
  7. Whip finish, then touch Solarez Bone Dry on the thread head only, leaving the CDC untouched.

Tying videos

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