{{+1}}Perdigon (Spanish nymph) – silver/orange & peacock{{-1}}

Since my very early days of fly fishing I have always carried in the corner of my fly box a couple of flies which I called anchors. Those anchors were flies that had been tied with a lead body covered with just a very thin thread or dubbed body and they were there for the occasions when I need a very fact sinking fly as a anchor for a team of two or three normal flies when fishing relatively fast running water.

Those anchor flies were dropped out of my fly box a couple of years ago because for two reasons. The first was that I had, like so many other fly fishers, started using much finer fluorocarbon tippet that was denser than water and there sank and the second, that I came across Perdigon type flies. From that point I have used Perdigon flies as my anchor flies and of course there is added bonus, particularly in small sizes that they catch fish themselves whereas my older style anchor flies were only there to get the other flies in my team down and seldom caught any fish.

A streamlined fast sinking fly that will anchor your team.

Materials

Hook	Head	Extra weight (optional)	Thread	Tail	Body	Thorax	Coating
Hanak 300BL #14 / #16	3.0mm / 2.5mm slotted faceted silver tungsten bead	0.010 lead wire	Danville's 6/0 70 denier thread in orange	Coq de Leon fibres	Peacock micro glint	Black nail polish	UV Resin and then varnish.

Process

A	Most beads have a large opening at one end and a smaller opening at the other. Slide a faceted gold tungsten bead over the point of the hook small opening first and position it behind the eye of the hook. Eyes on flies Adding extra weight to the fly. On this fly my preference is to keep the bead size down a little and to add extra weight to compensate for that. The best way is to take several wraps of 0.10 mm lead wire behind the bead, worry of the excess lead wire and then to push the wraps of wire up into the rear opening of the bead.Take a length of 0.20 lead wire and push the front end into the back of the tungsten bead. Adding weight to a fly Tie your thread in behind the bead.

B	Once you have pushed the wraps of lead firmly into the back of the bead tie you thread in behind the lead and take a couple of firm wraps of thread. A drop or two of superglue on the, opening in the bead, the lead wire and the tie in of the thread is a good idea at this stage.

C	Using the orange thread build up a cone shaped thorax. Tie the orange thread of with a couple of half hitches and trim away the excess orange thread. Tie your peacock micro glint thread in behind the orange thorax and take a couple of firm wraps to lock it in position.

Using the orange thread build up a cone shaped thorax.
Tie the orange thread of with a couple of half hitches and trim away the excess orange thread.
Tie your peacock micro glint thread in behind the orange thorax and take a couple of firm wraps to lock it in position.

perdigon-2-c

D	Select 6-8 Coq de Leon hackle fibres and using the micro glint thread tie them in as a tail equal in length to the shank of the hook. Trim away any but section of the Coq de Leon hackle fibres that intrude into the thorax area.

E	Use the micro glint to build up a cone shaped body for the fly between the bend of the hook and up to a position about equal to the diameter of the bead behind the bead.

F	Take a couple of half hitches in the micro glint thread to lock it in position and trim away the excess.

G	Apply a little black nail polish over the opening in the top of the bead and the top of the thorax to represent the wing casing. At this stage, before the nail polish gets a chance to run, I like to rotate the fly in the vice so that the black nail polish hangs down rather than running down the sides of the thorax.

H	Turn the fly over in the vice and check that your happy with the wing casing and if necessary apply a little extra black head nail polish. When the nail polish thorax is totally dry apply a thin coat of UV epoxy to the fly taking care not to get any epoxy on the tail or in the eye of the hook. Cure the UV epoxy with a UV torch. If your UV epoxy is still a little stick, which is often the case, coat the fly with a thin layer of clear nail polish taking care not to get any nail polish on the tail or in the eye of the hook.