Bodkin / Patterns

Micro Mayfly Copper Bead

Nymph · Trout · Grayling · Intermediate · 1 version

Reference Recipe

  • Hook Short curved nymph hook (e.g. TMC 2488), 16-20
  • Thread Camel or brown 8/0

Materials

  • Copper tungsten bead Copper bead (1, sized to hook)
  • Pheasant tail fibers Natural pheasant tail fibers (3-4 for tail and legs)
  • Stripped peacock quill Natural peacock herl (1 for abdomen)
  • Pearl Flashabou Pearl flashabou (1 strand for flashback)
  • Mottled turkey tail Natural mottled turkey (2 thin slips for wingcase)
  • Peacock or synthetic peacock dubbing Peacock ice dub (small pinch for thorax)

How to tie it

  1. Slide the copper bead to the eye and mount the hook. Start thread behind the bead and run to the bend.
  2. Tie in 3-4 pheasant tail fibers for a tail three-quarters of a shank long.
  3. Tie in a stripped peacock quill and wrap it forward in touching turns to the 60% mark to form a segmented abdomen; bind off.
  4. Tie in a pearl Flashabou strand and two thin slips of mottled turkey pointing back over the abdomen for the double wingcase (two slips keep the coating from bleeding through).
  5. Dub a peacock thorax up to the bead, then fold three pheasant tail fibers along each side as legs.
  6. Pull the turkey wingcase forward over the thorax, then the pearl flashback over that, bind both at the bead, whip finish, and coat the wingcase with a dot of UV resin or cement.

Tying videos

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