Grizzly hackle tips Natural grizzly (dyed brown also works) (2 (wings))
Head cement (1 drop)
How to tie it
Wrap.020 lead-free wire the length of the shank all the way up to the eye.
Start brown 70 denier thread, build a small dam behind the weight, run the thread up front to lock the wire in, then take it back to the tail with a slight taper over the wire.
Tie in a small bunch of light brown hackle fibers at the bend for a tail a little more than a hook-gap long; trim the excess.
Dub the muskrat/rabbit blend on a fairly loose noodle. It will take two or three applications, and build a football-shaped body: narrow at the rear, fat through the middle, narrow again at the front.
Tie in the brown rooster hackle with three or four wraps, pull it back to lock it, and trim the tip.
Take four or five wraps of the hackle, then build a small ramp of thread in front of it and use medium wraps sweeping backward to lay the barbs back nymph-style. They should NOT stand out like a dry fly. (You can wrap it fully around as here, or tie it as a throat only. Both versions appear in the literature.)
Pull two grizzly hackle tips and set them dull sides together so the dark sides face out; size the wing to about two-thirds to three-quarters of the body length.
Cant the wing slightly toward you rather than standing it vertically, so the tips lie back partly flat over the body; tie in with a loose wrap, then a medium, then tight wraps to secure. Trim the butts.
Push everything back, take the thread to the eye and build a small ramp; a nymph head does not need to be tiny.
Whip finish with five turns, trim any rogue hackle barbs, leave the guard hairs alone, and add a drop of head cement.