Bodkin / Patterns

Paint Brush

Salmon/Steelhead · Steelhead · Salmon · Intermediate · 1 version

Classic Recipe

  • Hook Heavy wet-fly iron (Mustad 7970 5X-strong or TMC 7999), 4-8
  • Thread Red 6/0

Materials

  • Body Wide flat gold mylar tinsel (1)
  • Body hackle Red-orange soft saddle, palmered (1)
  • Front hackle Purple soft hackle (1)
  • Veil Turquoise blue hackle (1)

How to tie it

  1. Tie in the wide gold tinsel and a webby red-orange hackle by its tip at the bend, no tail, no wing; this fly is all hackle.
  2. Wrap a smooth gold tinsel body forward to three eye-widths behind the eye.
  3. Palmer the red-orange hackle forward over the tinsel in 5-6 evenly spaced turns, choosing feathers that get progressively longer toward the eye.
  4. Take 2-3 turns of soft purple hackle in front of the palmered body.
  5. Finish with a single turn of turquoise blue hackle as a veil over the purple, the layered soft fibers pulse like the Indian Paintbrush flower the fly is named for.
  6. Build a red thread head, whip finish, and cement.

Tying videos

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