Thorax Pale Yellow Superfine Dubbing (or desired color)
How to tie it
Start the Yellow 50D Semperfli Nanosilk just behind the eye, dress the front half of the shank with a thread base, and back up to about 25% of the shank length behind the eye.
Wing: cut a good chunk of Ginger Bleach Varner's Short Fine Deer Hair, clean it, stack it and measure it one shank length long. Give the thread a slight spin and lay the hair in at the 25% point: one turn around it, the next turn right behind that turn. Tilt your hand toward you and press an index finger into the far edge as you tighten so the hair flares down, then build a band of thread traveling backward toward the bend.
Trim the butt ends as close as you can without cutting the thread, taper them if needed, bind down over the butts and come back up to the base of the wing.
Stand the wing without a big thread dam: lift the rear 50% of the hair, bring the thread in front of it and put a couple of turns at its base; lift half of what is left and repeat; crease the last bit up with a thumbnail and build just a small dam to prop it.
Shuck: a third to a quarter of a strand of Brown Z-lon, tied in behind the wing and bound back to the bend, kept on top.
Abdomen: five or six Natural Pheasant Tail Fibers, tips clipped square, bound in at the bend; run the thread forward to the base of the hair butts. Wrap the fibers forward in overlapping turns to build taper, right up onto the butts, and tie off with a few turns without catching the wing. Trim the butts.
Rib: spiral the tying thread back over the abdomen to the bend, then change direction and spiral forward again, making crosshatched X's so the yellow peeks through the pheasant tail.
Thorax: dub Pale Yellow Superfine Dubbing on the thread (more than you think). Start just behind the wing for a yellow band, sweep the wing back, cross to the front, cross to the back and repeat once more; this covers the tie-down on the underside. Sweep the wing back and build the rest of the thorax, tapering up to the wing base and running out right at the eye.
Whip finish, add one more for good measure, and trim. Roll a thumb back over the wing to spread it into a 180-degree splay. Trim the shuck to about a shank length, cut a little ragged.