A wet fly for the early weeks of the trout season, this is a good fly for the tail leader. A lot of anglers will skip over this fly in favour of much brighter offerings, but don’t be fooled by its drab colouring.
Hook: sizes 8 down to 14 heavy wet fly hooks
Tying silk: usually black or brown. 8/0
Tail: a few fibres of golden pheasant tippets dyed brown olive
Rib: fine oval gold tinsel
Body: seal’s fur dyed brown olive
Hackle: a hen hackle dyed brown olive
Wings: bronze mallard
All very straight forward and easy to tie, so you have no excuses for not tying a few for your own fly box. As for variations, I sometimes vary the tail by using undyed tippets. The hackle can be made from a brown partridge feather also dyed brown olive. You can add a small tag of gold tinsel under the tail to give a subtle bit of flash too. It is easy to make a dabbler version by swapping the tippets out for a few strands of cock pheasant herl, and dispensing with the conventional wings and replacing them with a cloak of bronze mallard.
I dye my own seal’s fur using a Veniard brown olive dye but this may not be an option for many of you. Frankie McPhillips does a good substitute in his Irish Dubbings range
In use, this is a fly which I use to imitate hog louse and shrimps on the bottom of the lough, so slow and deep is going to be the aim. An intermediate, sink tip or fully sinking line is best for this type of fishing.
