Beautiful fly. I'm going to get some dyed pheasant tail and try it.

Not to drag this topic on and on but I did notice in the list of patterns from Pitt, same list I got the Little Black pattern from, he uses the term dubbed with fur also. So it may be the term dubbed means wrapped onto the hook or dressed. Also noticed in the old pattern lists the term hurled as in ...

Looked again at a pattern list from Pritt. Here's the dressing of one fly with the use of dubbed hurl.

2. Little Black:
Hook: 0, short. (#15)
Wings: hackled with a feather from a Black Cock's hackle, or Starling's neck
Body: purple silk, dubbed sparingly with Magpie hurl
Head: purple.

Thanks much for the welcome. I've been interested in soft hackles, flymphs, spiders, what ever you want to call them for a long time. I've taken some good fish from heavily fished water with this type of fly when they would take nothing else. Someone mentioned Pritt and I think this is where I saw a...

"When I first saw this tying instruction in an old recipe several years ago, I actually thought it might mean applying the beautiful green leavings from stripping a peacock herl to a thread using tacky wax. Take my word for it -- this doesn't work very well." This is exactly why I asked th...

Noticed a couple flies in one of the old North country pattern lists that call for a dubbed hurl (sp. herl?) body. Does this mean the standard method of twisting together feather fibers and winding up the hook or something else? Thanks.

Love this forum!