Steve's Grey Olive
Step 1
Clamp an up-eyed dry fly hook into the jaws of the vice.
Catch on the thread (in this case, white 14/0 ) and tie it down with a couple
of trapping wraps.
Trim the tag-end and run the thread down the shank.
Spin a small amount of Wapsi 'Adams Grey' superfine dubbing (blue rabbit
underfur is a good alternative) onto the thread and form a small ball. This
ball of dubbing is to spread the tail of the fly.
Step 2
From a grizzle cock hackle, tie in approx. six fibres on each side of the
dubbing ball. The tail should be roughly one to one and a quarter
times the hook shank's length.
Catch in a length of black thread for the rib, then take the tying thread
back to the edge of the dubbing ball. This causes the the tail to splay
to an angle of approx. 60 degrees.
Spin some more of the dubbing onto the thread, wind it to roughly the mid-point
of the hook shank and wind on and tie off the rib.
Step 3
Wind the tying thread forward to the eye of the hook, leaving just enough
room for a nice neat head.
Strip the fluff from the base of a grizzle cock hackle and tie it in at
this point.
Very lightly dub the thread with more of the body material and wind it back
to where the ribbed sction ends.
Step 4
Next, with your hackle pliers, wind the hackle toward the rear in open turns
- five ought to be ample.
Stop where the previously tied body ends, tie of the excess and trim the
remaining feather.
Now the fun begins... from above, grasp the underside of the wound hackle
and gently pull it upwards. You're aiming to get the fibres above the center-line
of the hook shank, with an even distribution. Wetting your fingers will
help. Some of the hackle fibres will not comply... snip them off, as close
to the root as posssible.
Step 5
Dub some more of the body material onto the thread, and using a figure-of-eight
motion wind it first behind, and then in front of the hackle.
During each forward and backward pass, keep the dubbed thread to the underside
of the hook, as in-line with the shank as possible. The aim is to push the
hackle fibres up whilst building a small thorax.
Better realism can be achieved by using a slightly darker shade of dubbing
for the thorax.
When you reach the point immediately in front of the hackle, pinch off any
excess fur. Form a neat head and tie off.
Full Frontal Shot
