You’ll often find BWOs on the greyest of days, so ’tis fitting that this ancient-and-tradtional Olive pattern sports the same somber hues. It also makes a fine Early Grey Stone.
Waterhen Bloa
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Hook: Dry or wet fly, 14-18
Silk: Yellow
Body: Silk dubbed with water rat (muskrat) or mole fur
Hackle: Waterhen under covert feather
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Tying Notes: Waterhen is difficult to track down. Starling or blue-grey dun hen are suitable replacements. You should be able to see the thread clearly through the dubbing — I call it “dusting the thread.” This fellow is slightly on the heavy side of dubbing. Keep enough thread waxed (I used cobbler’s wax) to avoid having a bright yellow head. You can find a general North Country spider video tutorial here.
Touch dubbing before there was touch dubbing.
It’s a really nice effect in the tradition of less is more.
Do you know Less Moore? His saying, less is more.
Your head looks green not yellow. Is that the effect of cobbler’s wax?
Hi Steve. See the “Tying Notes.” 🙂
Also, different waxes and different color silks react…differently. I wasn’t thrilled by this one. If you didn’t use wax, you’d have a bright yellow head that (to me) looks out of place.
Steve, absolutely loving all the spiders…even though I’m an arachnaphobe! They’re on the “must have… probably catch anything (even in the salt)…” list! Great “fly porn” 😁!
Keep it comin’…
Tight lines…
Frank
Rock on, Frank. I think I’m done for now. In the middle of a very large flatwing. Perhaps I’ll do some of Leisenring’s favorite dozen…
Sounds good! Tie on ,ma brutha!