Brora Hairwing

[flytie09]

Brora Hairwing

Another beautiful hairwing salmon fly that should swing up a steelhead or two. Without BEP....I had to improvise. Two Whiting spey hackles and a schlappen collar...and it's a wee bit over dressed. Oh well.....fun to tie.

View attachment 19922

Hook - Blue Heron #2
Tip - Small silver oval tinsel
Tag - Pink floss
Tail - Two gp crests
Body - Medium silver oval tinsel rear and black floss at front
Body Veil - 2x gp crests on top and 2x on bottom
Rib - Medium silver flat tinsel followed by medium silver oval tinsel at front half of body
Wing - Equal amounts of brown, blue and white deer tail mounted individually
Hackle - 2x black Whiting Spey hackles
Collar - Black schlappen
Eyes - JC
Head - Black thread with Loon UV cure

Inspiration from no other than the great Davie McPhail. He says its a "simple" pattern. I laughed when he said this.

YouTube

 

[Ard]

I'd drive a jet boat 15 miles up a boulder strewn river dodging moose and bears all the way just to risk hooking a fish on that Mike

 

[flytie09]

I’m not sure I would. :eyebrows:

 

[Ard]

I'll drive, don't worry I only hit something every 5 years or so...……… But then I do remember where every one of them are at so I get better every year.

 

[duker]

Wonderful work. You say "overdressed", I say "big and meaty".

I love the way you finish your heads--so small and neat for complex flies.

I suppose for Davey that is a simple pattern.

Scott

 

[flytie09]

Thanks Scott. There is a lot going on at the head of this fly. Since this is my first time tying the Brora hairwing....I ran into some snags with substitutions. I'll admit I'm still learning this all myself......but I can offer some tips to maintaining a clean head to this and other hairwings.

Before you lay a material on the hook....visualize where you want to stop tying the various body, wing, and hackle materials in, where you want to start forming your head and where you want it all to stop on the hook. If you mess up the first fly...think about it to improve on the next one...well where did I stop the body material last time? Did I use too much thread, too much hair?

For this fly.....the wing is 3x equal sections of deer tail. The amount of deer hair you use and where you select it from the tail makes a big difference. Those fibers towards the tip are longer, thinner and easier to compress. Deer hair also has a tendency to roll. Wax helps with this. I'm using the orange stuff in a lipstick tube...which isn't the greatest. Cobblers wax is supposed to be far superior.

Try to cut the hair at a slight angle and at the exact length to minimize the amount in front of the tie in point. Use a loose initial pinch wrap, pull material back a bit to clean up tie in point area and apply gradually more and more pressure. Be careful as too much pressure on the first wrap will cause the hair to flare. Apply as much pressure as you can with your thread and use minimal wraps. When tying each successive clump in....back off a couple of wraps first and then tie in your next hair clump. I'm not supergluing at each stage as some suggest as I like to be able to back off wraps or redo steps if I have to. Again...be generous with your wax during the process. Hairwings can get away quick at the head...

The Whiting spey hackles are the best length of any other hackle material that I have available. This includes pheasant rump, burnt goose shoulder or select schlappen which are all too short and legal heron which I find to be simply too long. Anyone that has used any of the Whiting spey hackles....they are very delicate and really require 2x as the fibers are quite sparse and extremely thin and limp. When 2x were wrapped.....the head of the fly was still lacking to my eye.

I added the select schlappen collar at the front of these 2x spey hackles to help fill in and add the black contrast....even though Davie's version didn't call for a collar as he used BEP. I kinda overdid it. I should and will in the future.....strip one side of the schlappen. This will give it a fly with much better proportions. Blue Eared Pheasant is perfect for this fly and is one that he uses on a lot of his larger spey and salmon flies.

So when you add up the bulk from the deer hear, thread wraps and 3x hackles...it is imperative to make sure you leave enough room for the final thread head. Davie explains criss crossing the thread layers to aid with them slipping when forming the head....again wax helps with this too. Whip finish with 3-4 turns.....not too many.

Super glue over all of this and a light layer of Loon UV applied with the bodkin tip holds everything together and provides the shine.

Am I the greatest tyer ever? No. Do the fish really care? No. But too much material adds bulk, buoyancy and the parachute effect which messes with the sink rate. In the end....it's all what's pleasing to the eye and keeps your fly down, swinging true and from falling apart after all of your hard work.

 

[Unknownflyman]

I dig it, it looks like you dressed it for steelhead instead of Atlantic salmon, nice perspective, It's going to push some water and look sculpin` y with a little more action from the materials, if it pulsates and swims a little wounded even better.

 

[flytie09]

A lighter dressed version using arctic fox vs dyed deer tail.