Friday, September 23, 2011

The mayfly cripple tutorial

This is a DEADLY pattern if you tie it correctly.  I will tie a bwo in this one. You can change the dubbing, thread, and hackle color to match the naturals. With hackle, I have found that you can go wrong with dun. No matter what natural your imitating. This is the standard mayfly cripple. I learned of this pattern through Mike Lawson.


Materials-
Hook- any dry fly hook, one size larger than the natural.
Thread- color to match the naturals.
rear body- brown/rust marabou, and pheasant tail.
Rib- copper wire. Medium for 12-14, small for 16-20 and ex small for 20-and up.
thorax- super fine dubbing, color to match the naturals
Hackle- Neck hackle dun or a color to match the naturals. You can use saddle but I prefer neck for this because its not as stiff as saddle, allowing the fly to really nestle down in the film.
Wing- Deer hair, natural or dyed dun.

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Hook in vise, start your thread and take it back to the barb.

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Tie in your marabou by the tip, and pheasant tail, sparse is good! Make a very short tail. Tie in the marabou first and then the pheasant. You can break the marabou to adjust its length. Bring thread forwards, stop a little past half. (WET YOUR BOU, IT WILL SAVE YOU MUCH AGGRAVATION  )

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Tie in wire, bind it down on top and back just past your bou and pheasant.

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Make a loop with the wire. Bind down the wire a quarter the way up. THIS STEP IS A MUST FOR THIS PATTERN TO SIT PROPERLY IN THE WATER. IF YOU DO THIS STEP YOUR FLY WILL LAND THE ON THE WATER RIGHT EVERY TIME. ;)

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Put your bou and pheasant in the middle of the loop on top. Take you twister and from right to left go, under the wire over the bou and pheasant and hook the wire on the other side(Left). This will ensure you catch and bind the material in between the wire.

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Twist it. Be sure you twist until the wire is spun right to the tie in points. Be careful not to go to much and break the wire.  You get a very nice "buggy" dubbing brush.

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wrap it up, until the point where you tied in the wire. Tie it off on top.

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Cut off your excess. I use wire nippers, I don't recommend using your scissors on the wire. You can also bend and break the wire and then simple cut the bou and pheasant, if they didn't break away with the wire. Then tidy up. advance down to the eye and back to the tie off point.

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Dub your thread nice and tight. Wrap over the tie in and forward a mil or two.

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Tie in your deer hair, This step is very similar to tying in a caddis wing. Tips forward of the eye. Keep the tips short going in front of the eye. Hold the deer hair on top and bind down towards the eye. Don't allow it to spin. Leave yourself a hook eye worth of shank behind the eye. Take two three wraps in this area for your anchor wraps, so your deer hair wont spin. Bring the thread back to the tie in point.

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Trim your deer hair butts. Leave about two to three mil of butts, this will help balance the fly and will simulate a wing case busting open.

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Tie in your hackle. I like to have the feather good side up. advance thread forward and stop at the the butts of the tips of the deer hair. Wrap your hackle. You only need TWO wraps, NO MORE. Tie off behind the deer hair tips, then lift the tips and bring your thread onto the hook shank and tie off. Whip it Good.

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The result. a deadly mayfly cripple.

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This is how the fly will land and ride. The hackle will hold it in the film, while the lower half (the nymph) rides just under the film. You will see the deer hair wing sticking out of the water.

Tie these guys up, Fish'em, you wont be sorry.

Tight Ties everybody.
Johnny U.

4 comments:

  1. great tutorial

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  2. Great work Johny, do you think this fishes better than a true original Klinkhammer?

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  3. Thank you G Lech

    Jules- Thank you. I have had great success with both patterns but I would say better success with this pattern. Ill be sending you some, so you can find this out for yourself.

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  4. Thanks, I'm looking forward to trying them out.

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