Bodkin / Patterns

Light Needle

Wet Fly · Trout · Grayling · Beginner · 1 version

Classic Recipe

  • Hook wet fly / spider hook, down-eye, 14-16
  • Thread orange 8/0

Materials

  • Silk body Orange silk No. 6a (full length of shank)
  • Hackle Feather from a young starling thigh or flank (1 feather)

How to tie it

  1. Run the orange silk from behind the eye to above the barb, then forward two-thirds. The slim bare orange body is deliberate, no dubbing.
  2. Wind a very slim orange body over the rear two-thirds of the shank; needle flies are among the thinnest spiders you can tie.
  3. Tie in the soft young-starling flank feather by its tip behind the eye.
  4. Take 1.5 sparse turns of hackle, secure, clip the stem.
  5. Build a tiny orange head, whip finish and varnish.

Tying videos

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