Plume

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In 2012 I was introduced to this fly by Jeremy Lucas in a training session leading up to the 2012 World Fly Fishing Championships in Slovenia.

The waters of the Korka had mayfly hatching but I was having trouble in findinga fly that didn’t spook them. Remembering that browns were behaving in a similar way in the traing session I mentioned above I swapped over to the plume and ultimately did pretty well for the session coming in 10th out of 28 competitors. This fly accounted for all of the fish I caught in that session.

This is a particularly good fly for slower moving water with mayfly feeders evident but unresponsive to more robust flies.

Jeremy’s original tie utilises heron herl for the body but I have found that impossible to get in Australia so I have substituted the herl from the feather of various duck. Using a duck herl has its advantages as I have a range of duck feathers to select from and have found that I can pretty well match the body colour to the natural mayfly that I am seeking to imitate.

Materials

Hook Thread Body Wing Thorax
#12 to #16 Dry Uni-thread – Trico 17/0 Duck feather herl CDC feather/s CDC “dubbing”

Process

 

A
  1. Wind on the thread in touching turns from the eye to just short of bend of the hook.

    2. [member Link=”p=10018″ Title=”Understanding hooks”]

  2. Depending on the size of the fly tie in between 1 and 3 herl from a duck body feather.

 

B
  1. Form the herl into a herl rope.
  2. Wind the herl rope in touching turns along the rear 3/4of the hook shank forming a thin body.
  3. Trim the excess herl.

    4. [member Link=”p=700″ Title=”Roping herl”]

 

C
  1. Select 1 or 2 CDC feathers. For this size #12 fly I have selected 2 and have arranged them with the concave sides facing together.
  2. Hold them in position with enouth plume facing out the front of the fly to forman emerging wing about the length of the hook shank.

 

D
  1. Tie the wing into place witha couple of firm wraps of thread.
  2. At this stage check the length of the wing and if necessary you can pull the wing back a little by the but ends to shorten the wing.

 

E
  1. Trim away the butt end of the plumes and take a couple of extra firm wraps of thread to ensure that the wing is locked into position.
  2. trim away a bit of the CDC from the discarded butt ends and dub that onto the thread.

 

F
  1. Using the single strand method of dubbing dub on a CDC thorax.
  2. Take the dubbing rope forward in front of the wing and take just 1 or 2 wraps of the dubbing rope there to ensure that the wing stand up slightly.
  3. Remove the excess CDC dubbing.

 

G
  1. Build up a neat thread head
  2. Whip finish and varnish the head.