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Gunnison River Trude

Dry Fly · Trout · Advanced · 1 version

Tyer Recipe

  • Hook 1X long barbless dry fly hook, #12 (range #12-20; hard to tie much below #16)
  • Thread Black 70 denier (8/0)

Materials

  • Moose body hair (tail) Natural dark moose body hair (One stacked tuft, fairly thick)
  • Floss (rear body) Orange floss (One length)
  • Peacock herl (front body) Natural peacock herl (3 strands)
  • Calf tail (wing) White calf body hair (One tuft)
  • Rubber legs Orange (barred orange is fine) (One piece, folded to give a leg each side)
  • Hackle Grizzly hackle (One long-barbed feather)

How to tie it

  1. Start black thread and take it back close to the bend. Stack a small tuft of moose body hair and tie it in long and fairly thick as the tail. Tight wraps first, then medium wraps working back over the flare to keep it from splaying too much.
  2. Bind the moose butts forward to about the halfway point, add a couple of tight wraps and trim. Leaving that bulk gives the rear body a slightly thicker profile.
  3. Tie in the orange floss at the halfway point, take the thread back to the base of the tail and wind the floss back and forward to fill the rear half of the shank; tie it off and trim. A wrap or two of floss right at the tail base also helps lay any flared moose hair down.
  4. Tie in three strands of peacock herl and take three wraps forward to make a short front body section, keeping it short. There are several components still to come; tie off and break away the excess.
  5. Tie in a good tuft of white calf tail as the Trude wing, angled slightly up over the body, and trim the butts as short as you can, then smooth them over with thread.
  6. Fold a piece of orange rubber leg material over the shank and secure it with two loose wraps so you can position a leg on each side; tighten once they are set, then spread them apart to leave a gap of bare shank between them wide enough to pass tippet through.
  7. Take the thread to the back of that gapped area and tie in a long-barbed grizzly hackle. Snip the nub and wind five heavy turns of hackle in the gap, all of them behind the front legs; tie off.
  8. Whip finish right behind the front rubber legs and in front of the grizzly hackle, then trim the thread.
  9. Split the front legs, pull them back out to the sides, and trim them short. Do not leave them long unless you are fishing it for panfish.

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