Thread: Burnt Orange - whatever colours of spinners are on your river
Hook: For smaller sizes I use B160's, larger any dry fly hook.

Body: Thread or Stripped dyed Peacock quill or dyed hackle stem
wings: CDC - I generally use 3 White with one Rusty Brom on top or 3 natural
on olive bodied spinners

Cut of 4 " of the thread you are using - keep for step 2

Step 1

Wrap on the thread to gibe a smooth body , tie in two or four microfibetts.



Step 2
Just to show a different method of splitting the tails. Take 4 " of thread and loop around bend of the hook -hold the two ends to-gether. Separate the tails and bring the thread ends up between the tails and lay on top of hook shank - make a few loose wraps of thread from the bobbin to secure the 4" thread. Pull the 4" thread to tighten it up and splay the tails.
D



Having done this bring thread backup to start of body up near the eye.



step 3: Preparing the CDC
Take the 4 CDC feathers, for each one stroke the fibres downwards to expose the tip of the feather - cut of the tip so that the top of each feather is V shaped. Place the feathers on top of each other, the rusty tan one on top and line them up so that the tips are level.



Lay the feathers on top of the shank with the tips projecting over the eye and secure with one loos wrap.



Maintain a little tension on the thread with your left hand draw the CDC back through the thread until you are within approx 1/8th " from the tip of CDC hackle stems. Secure the CDC with further wraps of thread , try and keep the thread wraps on top of each other - as u can seen from picture below I didn't do this as good as is possible - the better you do this the better the final wings will lie. Trim of waste end of CDC.



Stoke back the CDC so that you have an even amount of CDC on each side of the hook, secure in place with figure of 8 wraps.



Stoke both wings forward and cut of ends to make each wing the lame length.



Step 3:

Continue down the body and back up again with the thread to just behing the eye giving a thin slightly tapered body and whip finish. On one of the versions of this fly use a small amount of muskrat dubbing around the wings when doing the figure of 8 - the dubbing helps keeping the wings in position.

and volia the finished product.



An excellent little catcher of trout.





a good faller of spinners

Nice tyings Otter, thanks for sharing.
Very nice touch with the last two pics.

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ukflydressing A UK based fly tying site packed full of flyting tips and photographic step by steps. Now with added fly fishing section.

Nice one otter.

I dare say they will come in useful at some point next year.

Thanks for the step by step

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Wild, Dangerous, Unfettered and Free

Yeah i agree you will get some smashing takes on the rivers.

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Cromie

As a noobie these step by steps are superb, Theres always something to learn from the differnent ways people are tying.

Many thanks


Jason

Doing a step by step is a great way to examine your own skills or lack off.
As the saying goes "The camera never lies".

The one thing I have learned in doing this is that I don't pay enough attention to detail and rush too much when tying. ( take a look at some of the photos, the background aint big enough but that dosent prevent me from steaming ahead at full throttle. My next step by step will have a proper background, I'll take my time and hopefully the results will be much better.
Doing a step by step really does add a new dimension to your tying and is good fun as well.

I guess the real test of ones skill is to tie 5 of a particular pattern and compare the results. If you are an average tier like me then you will end up with 5 variants - which is okay if you believe that the trout are in generally are not that fussy, or at least there are enough of them that aren't.

I now have the greatest of respect for pro tiers that can produce peas in a pod flies.

Otter



How in the name of Jaysus do you see these lying flat on the water in Dusk ?

D'ont need to see them - from many years sea trout fishing I can hear a bat fart @ 100metres - i just listen for the sip

Good step by step Otter. Another one I must tie up for the box!

Cheers,
Brennan