Hook Standard length barbless dry fly hook, #12-18 (tied here in #12)
Thread Brown or rusty brown 70 denier
Materials
Calf tail White calf body hair (A fair-sized clump for the wing, a smaller clump for the tail)
Superfine or similar synthetic dubbing Cream / pale yellow superfine or similar synthetic dubbing (A small pinch)
Dry fly hackle Brown or ginger hackle (One feather)
How to tie it
Lay a short thread base and leave the thread hanging about a third of the way back. The wing goes on first.
Take a fair-sized clump of white calf tail (no need to stack it, just pull the short fibers out of the butts) and tie it in on top at the one-third point with a couple of wraps, checking it is still on top, then lock it with tight wraps.
Before standing it up, lift the butts to 30-45 degrees, cut them off with the scissors parallel to the shank and bind them back to build a taper.
Take a smaller clump of calf tail, pull out any over-long fibers, and tie it in at the bend as a tail about one hook gap long; cut those butts at an angle too so they fill the gap between the tail and the wing.
Return the thread to the wing and take enough wraps in front to stand the calf tail upright, then split it in half with your fingers and set the two halves with a couple of X-wraps.
Take the thread back to the tail, tie in the brown hackle there and bury the tip along the shank.
Wax the thread, dub a short cream body forward. It is a short body because the wing sits a third of the way down the shank, and bring the thread all the way to the front where the fly will finish.
Palmer the hackle forward in four well-spaced turns, then take three or four turns tight together right behind the wing and another four in front of it, so the fly is sparse at the rear and heavily hackled at the front. Tie off and trim.
Push the hackle back, build and whip finish a small head, trimming any fibers crossing the eye.
Last step: trim the calf tail wings to length, just a little taller than the hackle, keeping them split.