Here's my recipe for a P Hare's ear. Pretty standard recipe really.
My most successful dry by far. Makes a great general mayfly/attractor. Also a good indicator fly. For some reason, grayling seem to especially love this pattern. The deer hair underbody and the parachute hackle makes if float well, but the body still rides low in the water, so fish find it very tempting. (At least they do in S. Wales where I do most of my fishing).
Hook: Dry fly (size ten here)
Thread: 6/0 brown
Tail and underbody: Deer hair (not spun)
Rib: Pearl flash
Body: Hare's ear
Wingpost: Calf tail
Hackle: Grizzle cock
1. Start the thread and wrap to about 1/3 of the way down the hook in even turns. Take a pinch of calf's tail. Cut it as close as you can, so that you have a nice long length. Now, pinch it together in your right thumb and index finger, run it under the hookshank with your right hand, grasp the other end with your left, and pull them both up together evenly to make a post wrapped around the hook shank.
2. Now the tricky part (if you don't have a gallows tool): Transfer all of the post to your left hand, keeping upward pressure on it to keep the post in place. With your right, make several quick loops around the post with the bobbin holder. I sometimes just 'throw' the bobbin around it for the first two. You'll see what I mean if you try it. 2 loops around the post and you should be able to let it go. Give it a couple more wraps and some wraps above and below on the hookshank to secure it. It should look like this.
3. Continue wrapping the thread in even turns down to the bend and tie in the rib. Leave it hanging for now. Wrap thread back up loosely to the wing post.
4. Now, take a pinch of deer hair. About this much for a sz 10:
and tie it in on TOP of the hookshank behind the wing post. Be sure not to let the hair spin. Make nice soft loops over the hair, back underneath the hook and then pull up gently, holding the hair in place on the top of the hook. Make 2 gentle loops this way.
4(a). If you need to at this point, you can adjust the length of the tail by pulling the deer hair towards the eye of the hook. (I find I almost always tie it in too long if I haven't tied this pattern in a while). Just make sure that you get all of it, or your tail will come 'unstacked.' Also make sure that the deer hair still runs all the way along the shank from bend to wing post, as the deer hair underbody helps with flotation.
5. Make 2 more loops with a bit more pressure (making sure the hair does not spin) towards the bend of the hook. Now the deer hair should be fairly stable. Wrap to just before bend, making sure to keep the tail 'bushy' and flat (don't wrap past the bend). Now dub on a hare's ear body, wrap a tapered body back to wing post, rib in opposite direction, and tie off rib. (Its hard to see the rib in the remaining photos, but it is there.)
6. Tie in a grizzle cock feather with the shiny side towards you. Strip off bottom fluff, but leave a bit of stem before the feather fibers start so that you can begin to wind on the post before the fibres start to splay out. (This helps you to avoid those wayward fibres pointing downwards where you tied in). Trim off tag end of stem, and dub a hare's ear thorax onto the thread.
7. Wrap the thorax behind and in front of the thorax - making sure to cover the bend of calftail on the bottom of the hook, and any exposed under wrap thread. Also make sure that you have created a thorax that is big enough to continue the tapered body. The extra calftail underneath should help.
8. Wrap thorax forward, allowing the dubbing to run out in a quick reverse taper just before the eye. (I find its easiest to tie off a parachute hackle on as bare a hook as possible).
9. Wrap parachute hackle around post. Number of wraps varies with hook size. This is meant to be a bushy fly. For a 10, you would want at least 4 wraps. For a 16-14, you can get away with 3. In this illustration it took 5 wraps - but thats because this is not an especially good feather. Tie off as neatly as possible - trying to preserve as a much of the front parachute as you can. (This gets easier with practice. I try to pinch as much of the parachute as I can in my thumb and forefinger of my left hand). Whip finish and trim post to similar length as parachute fibres. I also like to round my posts a bit, but this is personal preference. Finished fly should look something like this.
Enjoy!
Parachute hare's ear.
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