Bodkin / Patterns

Quasimodo Pheasant

Nymph · Trout · Grayling · Intermediate · 1 version

Reference Recipe

  • Hook curved scud/nymph hook (e.g. TMC 2488), 14-20
  • Thread Brown 70 denier

Materials

  • Bead Brass or Tungsten (gold/copper) bead (1)
  • Pheasant tail fibers (tail & abdomen) Natural pheasant tail fibers (small bunch)
  • Ultra wire (rib) Copper wire (fine)
  • Flash (flashback) Pearl / Polarflash (1 strand)
  • Ice dub or peacock (thorax) Peacock/brown or fine dubbing (pinch)

How to tie it

  1. Slide the bead to the eye, mount the curved hook, and start brown thread.
  2. Tie in a few pheasant-tail fibers as a tail, about half a shank long, at the bend.
  3. Tie in fine copper wire and a bunch of pheasant-tail fibers.
  4. Wrap the pheasant tail forward to the 60% mark for the abdomen, then counter-rib the wire forward in 5 turns and tie off.
  5. Build a pronounced raised thorax bump behind the bead with dubbing or thread; this hunchback profile imitates a mayfly nymph swollen with emergence gases.
  6. Tie in a strand of pearl flash, pull it over the thorax as a flashback, and tie it off behind the bead.
  7. Whip finish behind the bead and cement.

Tying videos

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