Wings – dry fly upright divided hair and hackle wings

 

AKA: Dry fly upright divided hair and hackle wings & Upright divided hair and hackle wings - dry fly.

The concept of upright divided hair wings was introduced to fly tying in the 1930's by Lee Wulff when he evolved the Royal Wulff from the Royal Coachman. The evolution involved replacing the relatively fragile feather slip wing with a more robust and visible white calf tail wing. The evolutionary process continues and upright divided hair wings are now tied using not only calf tail but also other materials including, kip tail, possum tail, squirrel tail, deer hair, hackle fibres and synthetics. The biggest difficulty when tying hair wings is getting the right amount of material. Its a fine balance between tying too much hair on the hook shank and making a wing dense enough to be clearly visible. Length and degrees of separation are the same as for feather slip wings.

Process

A
  1. Set out below are the steps for a right handed fly tier to tie a upright divided hair wing.
  2. If your left handed please remember to swap it around.

B
  1. Select a bunch of calf tail or of other hair material. Select a bunch as thick as a match initially and  determine the appropriate amount from trial and error.
  2. You want enough to make visible wings but not so much that it can't be tied into the hook shank comfortably.
  3. I like to put my calf tail hair and other hairs into a deer hair stacker to get all the tips lined up.

C
  1. Take your thread to exactly where you intend to tie the wing in. This is about the 2/3 position.

D
  1. Take the hair, or hackle fibres, in your right hand, bunching it up into a tight mass as you do, and carefully hold the tight mass of hair along the top of the hook shank at the tie in position.

E
  1. Without moving the tight mass of hair or hackle fibres swap your grip from the right hand to the left hand. Get used to sliding the thumb and fore finger of the left hand onto the material to be tied in and the shank of the hook ready to undertake a fly tiers pinch.
  2. If your happy with the length of the hair, that the hair is even and that the hair is in the correct position proceed to the next step.
  3. If you not happy with the length of the hair, can see that the tips of the hair are uneven or that the hair is in the wrong position go back to the previous step.

F
  1. Do a loose fly tiers pinches and then slowly pull it tightly closed locking the hairs into position.
  2. Do a couple of tight wraps of thread to ensure that the hairs are secured into position on top of the hook shank. If you have done this step correctly you should be able to apply some downward pressure on the bobbin without the hair rotating round the hook shank.

G
  1. Trim the butt ends of the hair off horizontally.

H
  1. Tie the remaining butt ends of the hair down on the hook shank.
  2. If you have done this step correctly there should be a gentle slope rather than a definite ridge.

I
  1. Use the fingers of your left hand to stand the wing hair upright and take a few wraps of thread directly in front of the wings to maintain that stance.

J
  1. Use your bodkin to separate the hair or hackle tips into two wings with equal amounts of hair or hackle fibres on each side.
  2. Just a little manipulation of the hair or hackle fibres with your fingers will be enough to complete the separation of the hair or hackle fibres into the two separate wings.
  3. From this point on try to spread the wings into their finished position which is upright with an angle approaching 90 degrees separating them.

K
  1. Hold the closest wing and take your thread over the wing from the front and down the opposite side of the fly behind the other wing.im the butt ends of the hair off horizontally.

L
  1. Hold the wing furthermore away from you and take your thread behind the wing closest to you and down the opposite side of the fly in front of the other wing.
  2. Steps K & L together represent what is known as "figure of eight" wraps and should be repeated a few times until the two wings are permanently separated.

M
  1. It is difficult to show you this step in the photo but you should also take a number of wraps around the base of each wing to define them further.
  2. You can see the wraps of thread at the base of the back wing in this photo.
  3. If your tying in deer hair those wraps will need to be softer than with calf tail hair or hackle fibres so as to avoid the deer hair flaring out.