Bodkin / Patterns

Cigar Bomber

Dry Fly · Salmon/Steelhead · Topwater · Salmon · Advanced · 2 versions

Joe Penich Custom Flies dressing

  • Hook Partridge Carrie Stevens XL Heavy Weight Streamer Hook, 4
  • Thread Semperfli White Nano Silk 12/0

Materials

  • Tail and Wing White calf tail
  • Body Deer hair
  • Hackle Two Dyed Brown Grizzly Saddle Hackles
  • Collar Dyed Brown Grizzly Hackle

How to tie it

  1. Start the Semperfli White Nano Silk at the halfway point of the shank and trim the tag.
  2. Take a clump of White Calf Tail less than half a pencil in diameter, even the tips, taper-trim the butts, lay it on top with the tips slightly past the bend, and bind with edge-to-edge wraps until the thread is level with the hook point.
  3. Advance the thread toward the eye and stop short, leaving a space behind it. Set an equal clump of White Calf Tail as the wing, measured the same length as the tail, bind edge to edge, build up the thread, cement and let dry completely.
  4. Bring the thread back level with the point. Bind the tail down to the bend with wire and wrap wire around the wing to hold it together and out of the way.
  5. Fold the Two Dyed Brown Grizzly Saddle Hackles and tie them in by the tips one at a time from underneath the hook at the base of the tail, then secure both hackles around the tail and hook with lead wire.
  6. Spin Deer Hair from the tail base forward to the wing in clumps about a pencil in diameter, compressing each with a brassie before the next. At the wing, pull the hair away from the wing, build up thread in front of it, whip finish, trim and cement.
  7. Trim the body: long curved scissors first to take off the bulk, straight scissors for the taper away from the tail and any high spots, then a razor blade to finish.
  8. Restart the thread behind the wing, trim the tag, and remove the wire from the wing and tail to free the hackles. Palmer the first hackle forward on a slight angle in evenly spaced turns and bind the stem in front of the wing; palmer the second over the same area and bind its stem behind the wing. Build up thread between the wing and the body.
  9. Fold a small Dyed Brown Grizzly Hackle of the same size, trim the tip for the tie-in, seat it underneath the hook in the space between body and wing, wrap it forward edge to edge, and bind the stem in front of the wing.
  10. Build up the head, whip finish, cement, and brush out the hackle to free any trapped fibers.

Other versions

1 more in the app: Joe Penich.

Tying videos

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