Bodkin / Patterns

Dotterel

Wet Fly · Trout · Grayling · Beginner · 1 version

Classic Recipe

  • Hook wet fly / spider hook, down-eye, 16
  • Thread orange or primrose yellow 8/0

Materials

  • Silk body Orange silk No. 6 (or primrose yellow silk No. 3) (full length of shank)
  • Hackle Light-tipped fawnish feather from the marginal/lesser coverts of a dotterel (or dun starling substitute) (1 feather)

How to tie it

  1. Run the silk from behind the eye to above the barb, then forward two-thirds. The body is bare silk, no dubbing.
  2. Wind a very slim body over the rear two-thirds of the shank; the fine translucent silk is the whole point of this delicate pattern.
  3. Tie in the pale fawn dotterel-type covert feather by its tip behind the eye.
  4. Take just 1.5 sparse turns of the soft hackle, secure, clip the stem.
  5. Stroke fibres back, build a tiny head, whip finish and varnish.

Tying videos

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