Fly tying, for the beginner, for all of us, can become ever more complicated in search of the perfect morsel. This pattern by Gary Borger is quite simple and I bet productive. It is open to color/size variations. A nice pattern to tie and fish for the beginner…for anyone actually.
Wet Fly~Emerger Pattern by Gary Borger
Hare's Ear dubbing with a little Peacock Ice Dub blended in and used to dub an abdomen/thorax. I continue to enjoy the deer hair placed into a dubbing loop and wound once for a collar. The shank is wrapped with tungsten wire.
I like this pattern. I struggle with the parachute wing. I work at reducing bulk in the thorax area and paying more attention to the hackle wraps. The quill abdomen is wrapped and overlaid with a thread ribbing, then a thin coating of head cement is applied. Last year, my quill bodies easily fractured so I am reinforcing them this time around. I am not certain a thread body with contrasting thread ribbing isn't easier, more durable and provides the contrast for segmentation.
Haven’t been able to tie in last week or two. I find I don’t have the attention span to tie complicated flies of late. Throwing together fuzzy, dubbed pupa patterns is preferable to the more tedious parachutes, but those flashy reared parachutes are a magnet.
This is a nice Mayfly Emerger pattern. Notice a couple things that are not offered up during the video, that lend to the success of the fly: The Krystal flash tail (notice the one thread wrap behind the tail segments that helps lift the tail upward and away from the bend; the biot abdomen, which provides a nice segmented abdomen (how the biot is tied in determines how the body will wrap…segmented or smooth); the CDC wing/legs were at first maintained in a paper clamp before being inserted into the dubbing loop and spun (that is not evident in the video to the untrained eye). I think those few clarifications will make the clip more understandable for the beginning fly tier.
Image from Moscofilia
A few unique concepts for the beginning tier: A wing canted forward out over the front of the eye of the fly; a wound hackle inverted so the tips also face forward; a sparkle/shimmering material for tail to suggest nymphal case. The forward tilting wing is something the late Gary LaFontaine offered up. The inverted wound hackle is used in Tenkara fly patterns; the tail material is more frequently used for mayfly emergers and stillborns.
Another tweaked, variation of what I have been tying this weekend. In this instance, I used a single herl of dyed peacock for the abdomen. The thorax was dubbed and teased out a bit to trail back over the abdomen. The CDC wing and Starling hackle were tied in with less material on the size 16 hook. The thread was 14/0 Sheer. I really like the Nature’s Spirit bleached/dyed peacock sticks; very nice for gills in the abdomen area of a mayfly nymph. Or, for the thorax area where natural peacock herl is often used.
A little randomness in tying. A size 16, Emerger pattern tied to sit low in the film, and sink a bit at the end of the presentation. The Z-lon tail/shuck could be left off and the pattern could be used as a low riding Caddis pattern. Each one looks different, (not unusual for me) as I experimented with hackle color, thread color, body material (thread or dubbing) and thorax color/material. Same techniques to tie but different outcomes.
