Complete White River Fly Fishing Website

Step 1.

Tie on the thread and wind to the bend of the hook.

Step 2.

Tie in your marabou for the tail. Depending on how full you want the tail you can add another strand of marabou as well. For smaller flies I like to use either wooly bugger marabou or strung. You can see in the picture I left the shaft in place and wound it in along the hook shank as I went forward. I do this for more durability. To cut this off without having a lot of excess to tie in, twist the feather and then make the cut. You’ll notice a big difference then just cutting it.

Step 3.

If you can tell I didn’t have any excess marabou to tie in. If you do have some excess tie it in and then wind back a little. Next you will tie in the chenille.

Step 4.

Tie in the chenille a little up past the bend, then wind back until you meet up with where you tied in the tail.

Step 5.

Make two turns up and tie it down. Don’t cut it because you will keep using this piece as you advance up.

Step 6.

Shape a piece of foam like the one you see in the picture. I like to use a midge curved scissor when making the two side cuts.

Step 7.

Tie it in on top with the “V’ facing back. Make sure you tie a little up from the straight line you made when shaping the “V”. It needs to hang back further then you think.

Step 8.

Lift up on the foam and wind up the chenille till you get almost to the eye. Leave enough room to be able to tie the cylinder foam for the “booby” eyes.

Step 9.

Trim off the excess chenille strand.

Step 10.

Measure the length on where you want to tie down the foam. Make the cut before you tie it down or you’ll have too much foam hanging off the front that you’ll have to tie down. That will surely crowd the eye and you won’t have any room to tie down the cylinder foam. Also, don’t tie on top of the foam you tied down for the back. You need to have a bare shank to grab hold of or you can’t really lock in the cylinder post to prevent from shifting around the hook shank.

Step 11.

Prep the eyes the length you want before tying them in. Tie directly in the center making a figure eight to lock them in around the hook shank. If your not using big thread you can make more turns to really secure them. That’s why I like using GSP in 50 denier, small thread that will allow you to have more tension as you wind them in.
 

Step 12.

Take the hologram dome eyes and stick them on each side. I don’t even glue mine because they stick great to foam.  Whip finish the fly and glue the thread at the eye and underneath the thread wraps where you tied the figure eight.