Body hackle Whiting Farms red label dry fly, medium ginger (1)
Body Peacock herl (3 fibres)
Wing Nature's Spirit select cow elk (a pencil thickness)
Head Peacock herl (3 fibres)
Head hackle Whiting Farms red label dry fly, medium ginger (1)
Glue Zap-A-Gap (a light coat)
Head cement UV resin (as needed)
How to tie it
Mount the Firehole 718 size 10 and start Semperfli waxed 8/0 red, working down the shank and using the tag end to keep the wraps close, the shank carries a lot of material on this fly, so a uniform base is worth the effort.
Brush the underfur from about half a pencil thickness of bleached select cow elk and stack it. A sparse tail is easier to work with here.
Tie the tail in with loose wraps run up the shank to the 65% mark, then crank down hard at that point and work back down with firmer wraps, the butts left there form the hump that the wing will later be built against. Keep rolling the hair back on top as you go so it does not spin round the shank.
Clean up the butt ends. Leave the wraps up at the cut end a shade looser and pull down hard back at the tail root, which builds the body taper.
Tie in five or six inches of 0.2mm gold wire along the top of the shank. Keep it light, this is a dry fly.
Tie in a medium ginger dry fly hackle by the butt, leaving about an eighth of an inch of bare stem before the fibres start so the first turn seats properly.
Tie in three peacock herls by the tips, which are the most brittle part, without cranking down hard enough to break them.
Brush a very light coat of Zap-A-Gap over the body so that if a herl breaks, or a fish crushes the fly, the body does not unravel on the first take.
Twist the three herls together and palmer them forward to the hump, take securing wraps behind and a few in front, then snip the ends rather than tearing them so nothing slips out.
Palmer the ginger hackle forward in evenly spaced turns, segmenting them slightly to make the body look buggy and caterpillar-like, and tie off with a wrap over, two behind and a couple in front.
Counter-rib forward with the gold wire, weaving and zigzagging between the hackle fibres and keeping roughly the same spacing as the hackle, so the wire crosses the stem and locks it down without trapping fibres. Tie off and snip.
Trim a few hackle fibres off the top so the wing lies down properly. Stack a pencil thickness of cow elk for the wing, a larger bunch gives more wing but makes the head very hard to form.
Set the wing with a couple of loose wraps, work back to the hump, then crank down, pulling some fibres round the shank, and work forward again. Trim the butts and clear the eye before the head goes on.
Tie in a second medium ginger hackle by the butt on the far side of the shank, leaving a little bare stem again, and trim the butt.
Tie in three more peacock herls, wind them forward as the head in place of the usual dubbing or hot spot, palmer the head hackle through them and tie off at the eye.