FLYMPH FORUM

Ahhhhhhh......lol, I have indeed been Shucked. I suspect there are quite a few on here that have been Shucked. Bill is a kind gentleman.

hankaye wrote: ↑Wed Jul 03, 2019 5:26 pm raven4ns, Howdy;

When you wrote " I'm not familiar with that term "shucked". " you neglected to
spell Shucked with a capitol S as would be proper for someone's last name such
as, ... perhaps, Bill Shuck ??? A play on words as it were...

hank

My experiences have been that purple and brown Pearsall Gossamer silks get darker when wet (think of WC Stewart's "Black Spider") and thus, when wet, look almost a black color.

One of my favorite spiders / soft hackles is an old UK dressing for a "Black Magic Spider" with a black thread body; peacock herl thorax (with a few wire wraps below the peacock herl); and a black hen or starling hackle. Would think using a purple silk instead of black thread might also make a good fly (hmmm, maybe Purple UV Ice dubbing for the thorax might be good!).

What a lovely fly I haven't seen that before.

Trevis

Maybe 15+ years ago, a fellow in the UK sent me the info for this dressing, which I tie, as follows:

Hook: Daiichi 1550 size 16
Body & Head Thread: Black Danville 6/0
Underthorax: Usually very thin red copper wire
Thorax: green peacock herl
Hackle: I prefer starling with the fuzzy stuff still on the hackle (black hen can be subbed)

The red wire unde the thorax adds a little weight to get the fly down a little lower in the water without sinking it down like a nymph. I do maybe 6 - 8 turns of the red wire and tie it in as soon as I tie in the black Danville thread, so that the thread secures the wire to the hook. I then wrap the thread down the hook shank and back up to the wire; tie in the green peacock herl and then do a few wraps of the herl.

I tie in the staling hackle by the tip and then wrap all of the hackle until the "fuzzy stuff" is at the front of the hackle; then whip finish and add a drop of cement.

This has been a very productive fly for me and for several of my fishing buddies. If you use a black dry fly hackle and a small black tail, makes another nice dry fly when all the little black stuff is on the water.

Bob

Thank you Bob. I don't like adding new patterns to my boxes because I get easily confused, but I've copied your instructions and will tie some of those.