Bodkin / Patterns

Improved Sparkle Dun Baetis

Dry Fly · Emerger · Trout · Intermediate · 1 version

Classic Recipe

  • Hook Tiemco TMC 2488 or Umpqua U201 (light-wire, wide-gap dry/emerger hook), #18-22. Daiichi 1310 also works, #18-22
  • Thread Olive dun 70 denier / 8-0 (Uni-Thread 8/0 olive dun)

Materials

  • Tail / trailing shuck Crinkled Zelon (Z-lon), medium dun. A short tuft (small pinch)
  • Wing Comparadun/Sparkle Dun deer hair, natural or dyed dun. Short, fine tips (small bunch)
  • Abdomen Olive dun tying thread (built slim), no dubbing on small sizes (-)
  • Thorax Superfine dry-fly dubbing, gray olive (BWO/Baetis) (pinch)

How to tie it

  1. Start the olive dun thread and run a smooth base from behind the eye to the bend.
  2. At about the 65% point (roughly one-third back from the eye), stand a small bunch of dun deer hair up as an upright wing fanned in a 180-degree arc across the top of the hook. Tips forward first, then post it upright with wraps in front. This is the 'Comparadun' style wing (no hackle).
  3. Tie in a short tuft of medium dun crinkled Zelon at the bend as a trailing shuck about a shank length long; carry a few Zelon fibers up along the underside of the deer-hair wing for extra flotation (this is the 'improved' step).
  4. Build a slim abdomen with the olive dun thread from the shuck forward to the wing, on these small sizes the thread body alone gives the slimmest, most natural profile.
  5. Dub a sparse gray-olive Superfine thorax around and just in front of the wing base to lock the wing upright.
  6. Whip finish behind the eye. No hackle. The fanned deer hair floats it in the surface film.

Tying videos

← All fly patterns