Bodkin / Patterns

Greenwell's Glory

Wet Fly · Trout · Grayling · Intermediate · 3 versions

Classic Recipe

  • Hook Wet or dry, 12-16
  • Thread Yellow waxed 8/0

Materials

  • Body Waxed yellow silk (olive) (slim)
  • Rib Gold wire (fine)
  • Wing Starling or blackbird (slips)
  • Hackle Coch-y-bonddu (sparse)

How to tie it

  1. Mount the hook and start the yellow waxed silk mid-shank; the wax darkens the silk to that olive Greenwell hue, so don't over-wax.
  2. Catch in a length of fine gold wire at the mid-point, then wind the silk in tight touching turns back to just above the barb and forward again to build a slim, even body ending one eye-length short of the eye.
  3. Spiral the gold wire forward over the body in 4-5 evenly spaced turns, rib in the opposite direction to the silk for durability, tie off and snip.
  4. Strip and tie in a sparse coch-y-bonddu (furnace) hen hackle by the tip, then take 2 turns as a wet collar and stroke the fibres down and back to sweep along the body.
  5. Cut a matched pair of slate starling wing slips, marry them dull sides together, and set them low over the body as a wing, tips reaching the bend.
  6. Build a small neat head, whip finish and add a drop of varnish.

Other versions

2 more in the app: Classic Recipe (2), Gregg Dressing (1940).

Tying videos

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