Hook: 3/0 Mustad Stainless hook

Thread: White 3/0

Tail: 6 rooster saddle hackles

Body: Green and white craft fur;

Wing: Green and Pearl Flashabou. Peacock herl.

Throat: Red saddle hackle fibers

Head: Wrapped thread, stick-on eyes, glitter epoxy.

This fly is fairly straight forward to tie. We start with a standard Mustad 3/0 s/s saltwater hook (3407DT). I like to start my thread about 1/8th of an inch behind the eye of the hook to give me something to shoot for when finishing the head. Wrap the thread all the way back until the thread is just over the point of the hook.

Next, we’ll tie in our tail. Marry three white saddle hackles with the concave sides toward the hook. We want the tail to be about 3 inches long, so cut and trim your feathers and then tie three saddles for each side. Secure the tips and make sure your hackles come straight out the back. Trim the tips and secure with thread.

The next step is to build the body of the fly just in front of where the saddle hackles are tied in. Use the white craft fur first. Cut about a finger’s diameter of fur and grab the fibers about halfway down. You’ll need to pull the under fur out of the clump just as you would deer hair. You should be left with a manageable bunch of long fibers about the diameter of a pencil eraser. Tie in the fur doing two easy wraps, pull tight on the third wrap, and then secure with about four more wraps. Don’t worry about trimming the fur in front of the thread yet; we’ll do all trimming last. Fluff the fur on the bottom of the fly to make sure everything is even.

Next, let’s tie in the pearl Flashabou over the white fur. Use four or five strands on each bottom side of the fly, about the same length as the craft fur, or just a little longer.

Now tie in one piece of peacock herl on each side of the fly in line with the hook shank to form a lateral line for your fly. Once you have done this, let’s go ahead and tie in the throat, or your gills. I like to use the fibers from a red saddle hackle for this. Just grab 10 or 12 fibers and pull them from the stem. Straighten and bunch them together, then tie the fibers point down and backwards. Do this on each side.

The last piece of the body work is to tie in the green back and the green flashabou. Just as you did with the white craft fur, cut a clump of the green craft fur about the diameter of your finger, and remove all of the under fur. Now, tie in the green craft fur on the top of the hook shank using two loose wraps and then tighten on the third wrap. Use a few more tight wraps to secure the fur. Last, tie in 8-10 strands of green Flashabou over the green fur to finish out the body of the fly. Take a few tight turns and go ahead and tie in a few half hitches.

At this point you have all of the left over pieces of the fly materials in front of your fly. All of this material becomes bulky when you try to finish out the head, so I like to now taper the material using a curved pair of scissors. Taper the material almost to where you started your thread. You should be creating a smooth cone shaped taper on all sides that your thread will pull down on.

Once you have your tapered head, begin to wrap your thread and build the cone shaped head. Build the head size up to the size of your eyes. When you are satisfied with your taper, whip finish. Next, super glue your eyes to each side of the head. Once dry, I now like to a an epoxy to the head. For these flies I use Sally’s Hard-As-Nails where I have mixed in fine craft glitter. It generally takes 2 or 3 coats of the mixture to seal the head as I like it.