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Tutorial - Tying a Grouse and Orange Soft Hackle

Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:34 pm
by letumgo
This one's for you Hank. ;) :D

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Preparation of materials:
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MATERIALS:
Hook - Mustad R50U-94842 Size 12 (TUE dry fly hook)
Thread - Pearsall's Gossamer Silk (Hot Orange/No. 19)
Hackle - North American Grouse
Body - Pearsall's Marabou Silk (Hot Orange/No. 19) - split down to three individual strands and wound over the top of the tying thread

Note that the Gossamer silk is much finer diameter than the Marabou silk. The Gossamer is normally used as a tying tread, while the Marabou is split apart and wrapped by hand. The Gossamer silk is the one in the bobbin, while the Marabou silk is the thicker material on the spool.

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Mount the hook in the vice and wax a few inches of the Gossamer tying silk to make it tacky. Make five (5) secure wraps and stop.
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Trim off the tag end (the piece hanging down to the left).

Cut off a piece of the Marabou silk roughly 4-1/2" long.
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Untwist the strand and then fold in half. The strand should split in two once it is untwisted. Now take half of the strand and repeat the process. Each half will now split into multiple finer strands. Your goal is to separate the silk into finer strands, which will wrap more smoothly than the single (course) strand as it comes off the spool.
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Take three of the fine strands and secure them to the hook.
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Wrap the tying thread (Gossamer silk) in closely touching turns to the back of the hook.
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Wind the tying thread forward to the eye of the hook, leaving about four or five wrap gap before the eye (roughly 1/16").
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Wrap the Marabou silk strands forward over the body in touching turns. The separated strands should form a smooth body as they are wrapped forward.
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Tye off with one or two wraps of the Gossamer silk tying thread.

Prepare a grouse hackle by stripping off the fluff along the sides of the feather and stroking the hackle fibers outwards to the side.

FEATHER BEFORE PREPARING:
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Once the feather is prepared, clip off the tip of the feather leaving a small section to tye in byt the tip.

FEATHER AFTER PREPARATION:
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Tye the feather with the good side facing towards you. You should only need three or four secure wraps to hold the feather in place. Ideally, the tying silk will now be right behind the eye of the hook.
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While grasping the stem of the feather, gently pinch the fibers and stroke them back towards the back to the hook (folding the hackle). Wrap the hackle forward towards the eye of the hook. Carefully stroke the fibers backwards with each wrap. One and a half to two turns of hackle should be plenty.

Secure with the tying thread and clip off the excess steam. Whip finish with four or five turns and clip off the tying thread. Add a drop of head cement and your done.
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Re: Tutorial - Tying a Grouse and Orange Soft Hackle

Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 11:12 pm
by DOUGSDEN
Ray,
This demonstration is fantastic! When is your book coming out?
Can we see more of this in the near future? We are eatin' this up!
Dougsden

Re: Tutorial - Tying a Grouse and Orange Soft Hackle

Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 11:51 pm
by hankaye
Ray, Howdy;

THANK YOU.

Need a smiley wiff the lil' feller on his knees bowing and saying thank you...................... :lol:

Next question..... about the hackle....... concave up or down, left or right :?: :?: :?: The picture didn't quite define that,
maybe to those of you that are used to doin it it does, but not to my un-educated eye.
otherwise that is one beautiful job of show-n-tell.

Re: Tutorial - Tying a Grouse and Orange Soft Hackle

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 7:52 am
by chase creek
Very nice. Couldn't be any clearer Ray.
Great photos as usual.
Thanks

Re: Tutorial - Tying a Grouse and Orange Soft Hackle

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 9:28 am
by Roadkill
Excellent series of photos and tying instructions!

Re: Tutorial - Tying a Grouse and Orange Soft Hackle

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 9:33 am
by CreationBear
One of the best tutorials I've seen. :) Wrapping the body with floss rather than Pearsall's thread also answers a quandary I had this weekend: what's the upper limit in terms of fly size when you're using a bare silk body? It seems the floss body is robust enough to work on even the biggest "trout-sized" fly.

Re: Tutorial - Tying a Grouse and Orange Soft Hackle

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 9:34 am
by michaelgmcgraw
Yup! That was a good tutorial

Re: Tutorial - Tying a Grouse and Orange Soft Hackle

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:39 am
by hankaye
Ray, Howdy;

OK, been to bed and got myself rested..... makes a diffrence...
Just re-read and really looked hard at the pic with the hackle laying on the hook.
So, when you said;

"Tye the feather with the good side facing towards you."

what that means is (I think), outside of the feather up and judging by the position of the hackle on the hook
it should (approximately), lay at the 2:00 position, If I were to look at it from vise to eye....
where is the fingers crossed smiley?
hank

Re: Tutorial - Tying a Grouse and Orange Soft Hackle

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 11:06 am
by tie2fish
Really excellent, Ray.

Re: Tutorial - Tying a Grouse and Orange Soft Hackle

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 11:21 am
by Old Hat
Great tutorial Ray, very nice pictures. But....

You're still tying your hackle in wrong!....... ;) :mrgreen:

Don't listen to me Hankaye. Just trying to be a trouble-maker.