Welcome to the fly time podcast once more. I'm going to show you how to tie a very successful
fly, taking a load of fish on the test at the moment. It's my Mayfly Merger. I'm using
a cling cam hook, it's just a flash point cartridge hook. There you go. It's a size
10, like the original cling cam is a large hook. You're imitating a large fly, but we're
looking at the emergent stage. We're also looking at the stage where the trout have just started
a home in on to this fly. They're not used to taking Mayflies. They see them bouncing across
the surface. They want to jump up and get them. But a lot of the time they're missing. They haven't
got the idea of the timing. They definitely haven't got the idea of how to suck that fly down
from the surface. I'm pulling in the wing, first of all, with polypropylene. I'm just going to
loop that around a couple of times, just to form a little bit of base. I'm going to use a red game
hackle. I'm using a very large one. It's one which is more henny than cock, to say the least.
But that actually works to a advantage. Because one of the techniques you can apply with this fly
is actually, I'm just going to wind that down, a hook, a shank, is actually to pull it,
twitch across the surface, and also give it a really good tug, and send it under polypropylene
wing, will help it reform bounce up to the top. And the trout can find that extremely attractive,
particularly if they're missing the fly. That can be a technique to try. I'm taking
a tiny bit of silver wire here. The body extends all the way down. We just carefully wrap it around
the hook shank, down to the bottom here. There we get that idea of emergence. I'm going to put in
just these are just bits of cock hackle. I'm sorry, pheasant tail cock, centre tail feather.
Those will just give an idea of a bit of a shuck, a bit more of a nymphy profile.
It also helped the fly tip down. I'm going to use the blended dubbing, which is a light
tan. It's a waspy dubbing, Dave Rice dubbing. Just an off cream. You can either apply a bit of wax
or just wet your fingers and dub it off. Start with the largest ball and tease it out as you're dubbing on there.
There we go. Just gently squeeze.
I do want a fairly chunky body on this. Move that up with the old finger,
and then really tightly wrap. You want to get the taper going on the body. Bring it up.
Add a bit more dubbing there. Keep on going. Just a wee bit more.
That's dubbing, so I'm going to spark all to it. The colour is good as well, particularly for Mayflies.
I'm just stopping just behind the wing. I'm going to counter-rip the silver wire.
Again, this is about giving the fly a bit of strength, but it's also about helping
that end of the fly sink below the water surface.
It's part of the secret about these emerging flies. I'm just going to wind that forward,
and then I'm going to hold it and just stress it off.
There we go. It gives you a cleaner break.
I'll do a little bit of black dubbing underneath that again.
This waspie dubbing is superb stuff. I really do like using it. It just goes underneath there,
like so. Move it up, and we're just creating that little bit of a forex underneath there.
Okay, now we're going to add to that later on. I'm actually using the gallo tool above me,
because I wound the base of the wing right, immediately started, right at the beginning.
It gives me a very firm wing base, especially with that dubbing underneath. I'm going to find
that will hold. I tend not to use hackle pliers. I've broken so many hackles with hackle pliers,
I'd rather do things this way. Now, to finish this off, I bring the
the point of the hackle forward. I whip it down. I'll put a half hitch in there,
to size that up, just to stop it pulling around.
I've shortened my thread again, and I'm just going to go underneath the base there.
I'm wiggling it as I'm going. Just go underneath, round, round, and I'll come back,
come back down, bring that backwards, tie back, expose the eye,
and I'll put a series of half hitches in there, just like so.
Sometimes use a half hitching tool, which I think are particularly good.
I'll just find it. Here again, I'll place my stuff out and like that.
I'll try this on like that. Keeps clear of the eye, but I'll just give you a half hitch.
All right, that's nice and secure. It shouldn't come undone, just clip that off.
If I want my little V in my scissors, push the point of the hackle flat, hackle back up.
I'll just see what that looks like. There we have it, a little emerging Mayfly pattern there.
Just turn that around. That has been doing killer stuff. I've had four trials and four
casts on the test two days ago. You can see the fish on Pinterest, look at my Facebook page,
et cetera. Go to flytying section on my podcast, www.flytyingpodcast.com
and see some of the patterns at the house that I follow me on YouTube.
Okay, over and out, tight lines now.
