Bodkin / Patterns

Gravel Bed

Wet Fly · Trout · Beginner · 2 versions

Classic Recipe

• Hook wet fly / spider hook, down-eye, 14
• Thread blue-grey 8/0

Materials

• Silk body Blue silk No. 7 (full length of shank)
• Dubbing Blue-grey fur from opossum flank, sparse (pinch)
• Hackle Greyish feather lightly tinged brown from a partridge neck (1 feather)

How to tie it

1. Run the blue silk from behind the eye to above the barb, then forward two-thirds.
2. Twist a wisp of blue-grey opossum fur onto the silk and wind a slim body over the rear two-thirds of the shank.
3. Tie in the grey-brown partridge neck feather by its tip behind the eye. The gravel bed is a long-legged fly, so this soft mottled hackle can be a touch longer than usual.
4. Take 1.5 to 2 sparse turns of hackle, secure, clip the stem.
5. Stroke fibres back, build a small head, whip finish and varnish.

Other versions

1 more in the app: Gregg Dressing (1940).

Tying videos

• Gravel Bed — Davie McPhail (YouTube)
• Gravel Bed — Davie McPhail (YouTube)
• Gravel Bed — The Orvis Company (YouTube)

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