Mirage/mirror tinsel Pearl flashabou (0.4 mm extra-small, one length)
Scud dubbing (Craw Cray Ditchbug) Ditchbug (olive-brown) (Small pinch. Keep the body thin)
CDC Golden olive (bright) cdc (2-3 feathers for the wing/post)
Hackle Ginger or furnace hackle (1 feather)
How to tie it
Start copper nano silk on the hook and tie in the 0.4 mm mirage tinsel, binding it back around the curve to the rear of the body.
Wax the thread, spin on a very small amount of scud dubbing and wrap a deliberately thin body forward to the 70% point. Keep it thin. A fat body will not sink the way an emerger should.
Counter-wrap the mirage tinsel forward over the body in five to seven open turns, tie off and trim. It is only there as a hint of an attractor.
Choose two or three full, straight golden olive CDC feathers, stack them tips together facing the same way, and tie them in at the 70% point as a single upright wing about three quarters of an inch long. Deliberately oversized, since mayfly wings look almost out of proportion. Pinch-wrap them, centre them on top of the shank, take five or six wraps forward and back, and trim.
Strip the fluff and hard base quill from a ginger or furnace hackle and tie it in in front of the wing with the coloured side facing out, waxing the thread first and pulling firm but not hard enough to cut the quill. Lift the CDC, take the thread in front, then back again.
Spin a tiny amount more dubbing onto the thread and wrap it in front of and behind the wing to hide the hackle tie-in and build a small thorax.
Bend the hackle stem forward with pliers to soften it, then wrap at least four turns behind the CDC wing and two or three in front. The front turns help prop the wing up. Tie off.
Stroke every fiber back, catch the last stray barbs under the thread, and finish with a two- or three-turn whip finish. Add head cement to the thread wraps.