Bodkin / Patterns

Colonel Bates

Streamer · Trout · Salmon · Advanced · 1 version

Classic Recipe

  • Hook 6x streamer, 4-8
  • Thread Red 6/0

Materials

  • Tail Red duck quill (section)
  • Body Flat silver tinsel (smooth)
  • Throat Dark brown hackle (beard)
  • Wing Yellow saddles flanked by white saddles (4 total)
  • Shoulder Gray teal shoulder (each side)
  • Cheeks Jungle cock (1 pair)

How to tie it

  1. Mount the long streamer hook and run red thread back to the bend.
  2. Tie in a narrow section of red duck quill as a tail, about a half-shank long, curving up.
  3. Catch in flat silver tinsel and wrap a smooth body forward to just behind the eye, then back and forward for a flawless finish and tie off.
  4. Turn the hook and tie in a beard of dark brown hackle fibers under the throat, reaching to the point.
  5. Pair a yellow saddle inside a white saddle for each side, cup them together so the wing curves inward, and mount the two matched slips flat along the shank as a slim wing extending to the tail tip.
  6. Set a gray teal shoulder feather flat against each side, roughly one-third the wing length.
  7. Tie a jungle cock eye feather over each shoulder as a cheek, then build a neat head.
  8. Whip finish and lacquer the head glossy.

Tying videos

← All fly patterns