Description

This is an old pattern that comes from England. It is a good fly for beginning fly tiers. A friend of mine from Tasmania fishes this pattern for trout in the lakes in Tasmania. It is one of his favorite flies for very selective trout. He also fishes this pattern in a dry fly variation. You can add a tail of dyed red rooster hackle fibers and a dark brown rooster hackle to float the fly. This is one of my best small stream flies for brook trout and cutthroats. Green sunfish and bluegill like to eat these during the summer. Tie some and have fun fishing them!

Materials

Hook: Tiemco 3769, Size 8-16

Thread: Ultra Thread Black 70 Denier

Tip: Small Flat Silver Tinsel

Tag: Red Floss

Ribbing: Ultra Wire Gold Small

Body: Peacock Herl

Hackle: Whiting Brahma Hen, Dark Brown

Step 1

Start by placing your hook in the vise.

Step 2

Start your tying thread on the hook just slightly behind the hook eye and wrap back towards the bend of the hook. Stop your thread where the hook bend begins. I call this the starting point.

Step 3

Tie in the flat silver tinsel at the starting point and wrap over the tinsel with the tying thread towards the hook eye and then back towards the starting point. Again, this is the spot where the hook bend begins to curve away from the hook shank. It is important to keep the underbody smooth and even so our body will be smooth and even on the finished fly.

Step 4

Wrap the silver tinsel down the bend of the hook and then back up to the starting point. Then tie off the tinsel with your thread to form the tip. I like to wrap about one fifth of the way down the bend.

Step 5

Now tie in the red floss directly in front of the silver tinsel. I like to tie this on the bottom of the hook shank to help even out the thread wraps on the top and bottom of the hook.

Step 6

Now wrap the red floss back over the silver tinsel. Leave one or two turns of the silver tinsel exposed to make the tip. Then wrap the red floss forward over the previous wraps to from the red tag. Tie the floss off with your tying thread at the same point it was originally tied on.

Step 7

Wrap the tying thread forward towards the hook eye and stop about three quarters of the way up the hook.

Step 8

Capture the end of the fine gold wire with the tying thread at this point and begin to wrap back towards the tag.

Step 9

Stop wrapping over the fine gold wire directly in front of the tag.

Step 10

Select four to six peacock herls and trim the tips so they are even. Tie them in directly in front of the tag with the evened up tips extending forward up the hook shank approximately three quarters of the way towards the hook eye. Then wrap over the tips to complete tying in the herl and forming a smooth, even under body to wrap the peacock herl over.

Step 11

Begin wrapping the peacock herl forward to form the body. If the herls seperate and do not wrap together you can try twisting them to form a rope.

Step 12

Continue wrapping the herl forward and tie it off with your thread approximately three quarters of the way up the hook shank. After you have secured it with several wraps of thread, trim off the excess material close to the hook shank.

Step 13

Next, wrap the wire ribbing forward over the peacock herl body. Make sure your wraps are spaced evenly. I like to wrap the ribbing the opposite direction over the herl body to help make the fly more durable.

Step 14

Wrap the wire ribbing to the front of the herl body and tie it off with the tying thread. Once it has been tied off you can pull on the wire with light tension and rotate it in a circle. This will cause the wire to break off right where you have tied it down to the hook with the thread. This is a good technique with small wire so you do not dull your scissor blades by trimming it off.

Step 15

Select a hen neck feather and trim the stem just above the soft fluffy part of the feather. Note: you are cutting off the thickest part of the stem and removing the soft fluffy fibers that do not make a good hackle for the fly. Then trip along each side of the feather where you cut the stem to make short barbs sticking out from the stem. It should look like the feather in the photo. Sort of like a small comb on each side of the stem. Only trim four to five of the fibers when doing this. This gives the tying thread to grab onto when the feather is tied onto the hook so it will not pull out when you start to warp the hackle feather.

Step 16

Tie the hackle feather on the hook directly in front of the body with the natural curve of the feather curving towards the hook shank. I tied this one on top of the hook so it is easy to see the curve. Normally I tie the feather in on my side of the hook with the curve of the feather going away from me.

Step 17

Wrap the hen neck feather forward towards the eye. Make sure to start the first turn right in front of the peacock body. Also make sure not to twist the hackle feather when wrapping. This will make sure the hackle fibers point backwards over the body because of their natural curves.

Step 18

Continue wrapping the hackle feather forward and tie off the feather just slightly behind the hook eye. Be careful to not crowd the hook eye which will make it hard to whip finish and make a clean head on the fly.

Step 19

Once the hackle feather is secured with several wraps of thread trim off the excess feather as close to the hook as possible. Then hold the hackle back over the body with your finger tips and wrap a small thread head to cover up any stray fibers from the hackle.

Step 20

Whip finish the head and trim off the tying thread as close to the head as possible. Note: if you keep slight tension on the thread when triming it off it will help eliminate any frayed thread fibers from appearing on the head of the fly.

Step 21

Congratulations! You just completed the Red Tag.

Step 22

Angle view from the front of the fly.