Head:
Deer Hair, mixture of green, natural, yellow and brown
1/ First
off wrap a nice even base of thread starting from
near the front of the hook and extending to the
point where you are going to tie in your first piece
of material, the chenille to form the body of the
hopper. This point should be roughly level with
the barb on the hook. Once this is completed go
to the next step.
2/ Tie
in a fair length of chenille. However this time
don't worry about removing the excess, instead give
it a few wraps of the thread and leave. This will
assist in getting the required bulk needed with
such patterns. When you have done this proceed to
the next step.
3/ Take
the thread and hold it away from the hook. Keep
it taught and then take the chenille in your other
hand. Wind the two together so that you have one
combined chenille/thread rope. Then wind it forward
towards the hook eye with each successive turn ahead
of the last. Go all the way to the hook eye. With
this example we didn't take the chenille all the
way instead adding some more later. Tie off and
trim excess.
4/ In
one turn take the thread back approximately 1/5
the hook shank length back towards the rear of the
fly. This is where the rest of the materials will
be tied in and is where the rear of the head will
be. Select two good sections of Pheasant Tippets
and tie in on each side of the hook. This will represent
the orange on the Hoppers Legs and should be equal
to the hook shank in length. See next step for more
detail.
5/ See
that the Pheasant Tippets are roughly equal in length
to the hook shank. Also they are tied in at about
35 Degrees to the hook shank when viewed in the
vertical. This is the perfect example. Try and get
the two bunches roughly level. This is reasonably
easy if you use the black banding to measure them
off against each other.
6/ Next
find a good pheasant breast feather, better known
as a church window feather. Tie it in so that it
is flat over the top of the fly. This is similar
to many other patterns such as the Craig's Night-time.
The overwing should be large enough so that it extends
just over the rear of the fly when tied in. Go to
the next step to see how it should look from above.
7/ We
have not added any more materials in this shot.
Notice how the legs are just obscured by the church
window feather. This is the perfect size although
ideally it would be aligned slightly better although
with such a big fly it really doesn't matter. Trim
the excess feather stub and take a couple more turns
to secure.
8/ Now
get the legs that you sourced by cutting an Occy
(Octopus) strap up. Tie one on each side of the
hook forming an X shape. The tying in of this material
should not be in the same plane. Tie these legs
in by wrapping in an approximately 3 mm wide area.
This will allow you to tie in the head and not get
the legs are messed up. Trim the legs to meet size
requirements. Front smaller and rear. Move to Step
9.
9/
Take several colours of Deer Hair. Make
sure it's the hollow type that flares and therefore
floats well. We like to use natural, brown, Olive/Green
and Yellow. Pinch them off together making sure
you have them long enough to equal the hook shank.
Rough stack it in your fingers as we don't want
it neat. Pinch it so that the tips are fairly even
and the stubs can be clipped as shown. measure against
hook if you have to.
10/
Clip the deer hair close to your fingers
as shown. This will be the very front end of the
head. Don't worry if at this stage you think you
may have too much hair as you can clip it to suit
later. Bring it in place above the hook holding
it there between the thumb and forefingers of your
left hand. See the next step for more info.
11/ This
is the view from the front. Pinching the hair in
place you can see that the hair is kept on top of
the hook. We will not be spinning it as in other
fly patterns. To ensure this you MUST not spin the
hair. To do this don't wrap the first wrap around
the hair. Take the thread from directly below and
split the hair up the middle as shown. Pinch in
place with the left hand's fingers and use the right's
to tie in.
12/
Initially splitting this hair helps to
prevent it from spinning. Now that it has been split
start wrapping with the thread. Make sure you wrap
in the SAME plane and do not let go of the hair
with your left hands fingers. Don't let it spin.
Use between three and six turns, each on top of
the last to lock it in place. You can then take
the thread to the hook eye and add a couple of half
hitches or whip finish to complete.
13/
Now that the head is secured we can start
to trim the fly to look the way we want it to. Start
by making a blunt bulky head. See illustration to
the right and the one below for side and top profiles.
Trim flat on top and sides and take this back well
into the body of the fly. Be careful not to trim
off the legs or any previously tied part of the
fly as having to start again now can be heartbreaking.
14/
This is how the fly should look from above.
Not the way everything is balanced i.e. even length
of legs both rubber and orange pheasant tippets
and the perfect positioning of the overwing church
window feather. Also note how well the different
colour deer hair comes together and the distinct
shape of the head from which the knobby part of
the name is derived.
15/
Another view of the fly this time from
below. See how the chenille extends all the way
to the hook eye. Once again notice how everything
is in balance e.g. the legs. The clear monofilament
thread we use for this fly is not only incredibly
strong (great for deer hair patterns) but also almost
invisible. Also the mottled church window feather
represents the camouflage of a hopper very well.
16/
The very last step is to remove the fly
and get a marker pen. Geoff uses a brown one and
marks bands on the legs every few millimetres by
actually rolling the leg on a flat surface using
the nib of the marker. This way ensures that you
get a good even mark right around the rubber legs.
And there you have it. The latest from Geoff's fly
box.
The
Pattern
Geoff recommends that it
be fished with a PLOP! As close to banks, logs, rocks
or other pieces of structure. If there is no immediate
response, a twitch of the rod tip will cause the legs
to vibrate. In slower water leave 15 - 20 seconds because
sometimes the fish need to develop courage to attack
it! Lift of and plop it off again. For quicker water
fish as per normal hopper methods picking it up and
putting it down frequently.
Hope you enjoy this new
addition to our fly of the week page. This pattern is
really working well so tie some up and give them a go.
Footnote: since putting
up this page we have had a lot more success with this
fly on the Swampy Plains River in NSW and also on the
South Island where it was the only fly that would work
in certain rivers. Tie one up today and give it a try.
