Bodkin / Patterns

Dark Snipe

Wet Fly · Trout · Grayling · Beginner · 1 version

Classic Recipe

• Hook Standard wet fly / spider hook, 14-18
• Thread Orange (Pearsall's Gossamer 6a) 8/0

Materials

• Silk Pearsall's Gossamer orange, waxed (full body)
• Body The waxed orange silk (shank)
• Hackle Dark feather from the outside of a snipe's wing (snipe covert) (1 turn)

How to tie it

1. Start the waxed orange silk behind the eye and run it in touching turns to above the barb, then back to the two-thirds mark; the orange silk is the body.
2. Select a dark snipe wing covert; tie it in by the tip at the two-thirds mark, concave side toward you.
3. Take a single sparse turn of the hackle and secure with two turns of silk.
4. Stroke the fibres down and back, build a small head, whip finish and varnish.

Tying videos

• Dark Snipe — Robert Smith (YouTube)
• Dark Snipe — Davie McPhail (YouTube)
• Dark Snipe — North West Fly Dressers Guild (YouTube)

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