Bodkin / Patterns

Red Horse

Streamer · Baitfish · Trout · Advanced · 2 versions

Savage Flies dressing

  • Hook streamer, 4-8
  • Thread Black

Materials

  • Tail Red and yellow hackle tips
  • Rib Silver oval tinsel
  • Body White wool
  • Throat Red and yellow hackle tips
  • Wing Dun saddle hackle outside olive hackle feathers
  • Cheeks Jungle cock (optional)

How to tie it

  1. Mount the 6X long limerick bend streamer hook and lay a base of black thread all the way back to the start of the bend.
  2. Bunch two red and two yellow hackle tips together for a short tail, without worrying which colour sits on top. Take a wrap of thread underneath them so they cannot slide around the shank, then several tight wraps.
  3. Trim the tail butts to a slight taper and keep them short; a lump here will show through the wool body.
  4. Take the thread up front and bind in small oval silver tinsel down the full shank - a size smaller than you might expect for the hook.
  5. Bind in two strands of white wool up front and run the thread back over them along the top of the shank to keep the underbody consistent.
  6. Wrap the wool forward as one, spinning it counter-clockwise to flatten it or clockwise to cord it up, to just past where the thread was parked. Tie it off.
  7. Counter-wrap the oval silver tinsel forward over the body, eight or more evenly spaced turns on a size 6, and tie it off.
  8. Turn the fly over and set one red and one yellow hackle tip as the throat, checking it comes off the bottom cleanly, then trim the excess up front.
  9. Pair two olive saddle hackles with two dun on the outside, measure the wing, and hold it with loose wraps and a little extra thread to keep it in the plane of the hook. Snip the butts up front.
  10. Optional: set a jungle cock eye on each side with about three wraps, matched for length, leaving a little of the white showing up front.
  11. Spend some time building up a full head, whip finish, check for stray fibers, and drop head cement on it.

Other versions

1 more in the app: Tyer Recipe.

Tying videos

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