Bodkin / Patterns

February Red

Wet Fly · Trout · Grayling · Intermediate · 1 version

Classic Recipe

  • Hook standard wet fly, 12-15
  • Thread orange (waxed) 8/0

Materials

  • Body Orange silk (with a turn or two of claret at the thorax), bronze peacock herl at the shoulder (full shank)
  • Hackle Dark grizzled dun / red-brown cock hackle (or a feather from a partridge or grouse) (1)
  • Wing Landrail wing (or hen pheasant / brown mottled feather) slips (matched pair)
  • Head Orange silk (small)

How to tie it

  1. Lay a waxed orange silk base for the body, adding a turn or two of claret silk toward the thorax for the reddish belly of the natural.
  2. Wind one or two turns of bronze peacock herl at the shoulder to form the dark thorax.
  3. Tie in a dark reddish-brown cock hackle (or soft game hackle for the wet version) and take one to two turns as a sparse collar or beard.
  4. Set matched slips of landrail (or mottled brown hen) low over the body as a downwing sloping to the bend.
  5. Whip finish a small orange head and cement.

Tying videos

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