Deer hair – uses in fly tying
A wonderfully versatile fly tying material. Great for a whole range of body parts.
Nobby hopper
Whilst I don’t think either the Original or any of the variants represents any of the naturals that I’ve seen it is a good buggy general purpose hopper pattern. If you experiment with bodies of different colored chenille, yarns and tinsel matched with different colored deer hair you can come up with combinations to suit most small hoppers.
Chatto’s nymph
If your only going to carry one nymph pattern this is the one. Whilst this nymph is not tied to represent the nymphal (sub imago or pupa) stage of any specific insect it is a good ‘buggy’ looking fly and readily accepted by trout. Tie it in black, brown, dark olive as well as “Red Tag” and “Adams” or “Hare & Copper” colours and carry a larger (size #10) and smaller (size #14) version of each.
A.K.A. Polaroiding nymph
Legs – flat over thorax legs
Although this is a nifty way of representing legs on a fly, particularly a nymph, it is not used very often.
Stonefly 2
Although this is a nifty way of representing legs on a fly, particularly a nymph, it is not used very often.
Church nymph
I can remember the first time I tied this fly. I had lost a few nymphs during the day and had limited resources on hand to make up some replacements. A little dubbing and a few church window feather (rein neck pheasant) later and the church nymph was born. It’s not dissimilar to many other nymphs I have seen.
Fuzzy nymph
This is just a great all round nymph and it’s definitely worth dedicating on row in your nymph fly box to a selection of flies in this pattern. I certainly use it to make sure that I have flies in two sizes covering those colours such as claret or olive that I don’t use very much but I want represented in my fly box. Whilst this nymph is not tied to represent the nymphal (sub imago or pupa) stage of any specific insect it is a good buggy looking fly and readily accepted by trout.
Hackle – ‘beard’ type legs
Hackle beards are tied in to represent legs on a fly and in some cases to camouflage the point of the hook. They can be tied with almost any soft hackle or feather. In the example below I have tied the beard with a Ringneck Pheasant feather (also known as church window feathers).
Wings – dry fly down wings
Dry fly down wings can be tied out of deer hair, synthetic material such as crystal flash or out of feather fibres. Whilst the directions below apply specifically to deer hair down wings the same fly tying principals apply to other types of down wings except they don’t have the same degree of difficulty because of the reduced tendency to flare out.
Wings – dry fly upright divided hair and hackle wings
The concept of upright divided hair wings was introduced to fly tying in the 1930’s by Lee Wulff when he evolved the Royal Wulff from the Royal Coachman. The evolution involved replacing the relatively fragile feather slip wing with a more robust and visible white calf tail wing.