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This variation of Frank Sawyers Pheasant Tail Nymph takes into account the shorter herl on pheasant tails that dominate the market these days and to include the substitution of peacock or coloured dubbing in the thorax and the addition of legs. Pheasant tails vary in colour in their natural form from olives through to browns and there are also died versions available. I tie olive, brown and claret versions of this fly in a couple of sizes. These pheasant tail variants make up around 20% of the content of my nymph fly box and account for probably 50% of the trout I catch on nymphs.

This is an exceptional river fly and also a very useful fly for lake fishing to sighted fish or nymphing fish.

Materials

Process

A	Wind the thread from the 95% position to the bend of the hook. Understanding hooks Tie in a tail of 3 to 5 Pheasant tail fibres tips. The tips should form a tail no longer than the length of the hook shank. Resist the temptation to make the tail too bulky and too long. Tie in a length of copper wire along the top of the hook shank.

B	Tie in a small bunch of longer Pleasant tail fibres by their tips at the bend of the hook. The number you tie in will depend on the quality of your Pheasant tail feather but generally it's around 6 or 7 fibres.

C	I like to build up an under-body of dubbing to make it easy to create a nice 'nymph' shaped body on my finished fly. This example is reasonably plump so that you can see this step ... vary the under-body to suite how plump you want the finished fly to be.

D	Pick up the body hackles that you tied in in step B and wind them forward in touching turns. I generally take them well forward past the back of where the wing casing will be tied in and tie them off somewhere in the area that will be in the middle of the thorax. Trim off the butt ends.

E	Pick up the copper wire and wind it forward creating 4 or 5 body segments on the rear half of the fly. Wind the wire forward to about the 90% position and worry off the excess. Select 8 to 10 pheasant tail barbules for the wing casing and tie them in by the butt ends on top of the hook shank at about the 60% position.

F	Dub in a thorax of either Siam peacock dubbing or Hends spectra dubbing to form a thorax that extends from where the wing casing material is tied in at the 60% position and the 95% position of the hook. Take care not to go any further forward than that because you will need the last 5% of the hook shank to tie down the wing casing and to build up a a neat thread head.

G	Invert the fly in the vice. Take 5 or 6 Pheasant tail barbules tips tie them in at the 95% position with the tips encroaching over the bend and point of the hook. You can see from the photo that I harvested them from the material I had tied in for the wing casing. Alternative legs on flies

H	Turn the fly back over in the vice. Pull the wing casing material forward over the top of the fly, massage it into a neat wing casing shape with your fingers and tie it off just a little back from the eye of the hook.

I	Trim away the remaining butt ends of the wing casing material. Build up a neat thread head. Whip finishing with a biro or bodkin Apply a coat of head cement along the top of the wing casing of the fly and the thread head.

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