{{+1}}Pheasant tail and partridge TBH spider{{-1}}

If you were to suggest to a North Country (UK) fly fisher that there is such a thing as a tungsten bead head spider they would think your a rod section short of a fly rod.

For their sake you could call this fly and my other "bead head spiders" "bead head soft hackles" but I find that more people get the ideas of what sort of fly your talking about when you call them bead head spiders.

Bead head spiders fish very well in two ways:

In a team of two flies with a traditional spider fly on the point or the dropper. In either case that gives you the opportunity of adding a bit of flash to your team and more importantly get your team down a little. The benefit of that of course is that the added depth gives a little more vertical travel to your team of flies on the swing and anchors your team of flies throughout the drift and the swing, I believe, reducing short takes which are endemic when fishing traditional spiders.
TBH spiders are a very buggy looking fly in their own right and I have no hesitation including this fly or particularly my orange and partridge TBH spider in a team of flies when I am nymphing a stretch of water.

Materials

Hook	Weight	Thread	Body	Rib	Hackle
Hanak H260BL #10 to #16 although #14 is as small as I can tie these days	Tungsten bead of your choice	6/0 or finer thread or floss	Natural ring neck pheasant tail fibres	Copper or gold ultra wire SM	Natural partridge tail hackle barbules

Process

A	Most beads have a large opening at one end and a smaller opening at the other. Slide a tungsten bead over the point of the hook small opening first and position it behind the eye of the hook. The size and colour choice for the tungsten bead is fairly open but my preference is to use beads that are between 2 mm and 3 mm for a size #12 hook. I have matched this size #12 fly with a copper coloured 2.5mm tungsten bead.

B	Catch the thread in just behind the bead.

C	Poke the point of the wire up into the back of the bead on the front side of the hook shank and lock it to that position with wraps of thread over the original tie in of the thread. Understanding hooks

D	From a pheasant tail feather separate a small feather slip of 4 to 6 barbules.

E	Tie the pheasant tail feather slip in tip first on the back side of the hook shank. Wind the thread in touching turns locking the wire in along the front side of the hook shank and the pheasant feather slip along the back side of the hook shank.

F	Wind the thread forward in tight touching turns all the way to behind the bead. This should leave you with a neat slightly cone shaped thread body

G	Wind the feather slip forward in tight touching turns all the way to behind the bead. I find this step easier to achieve by rotating the vice whilst feeding the feather slip onto the hook shank rather than wrapping the feather slip around a static hook shank. Tie the feather slip off behind the bead with a couple of firm wraps of thread.

H	Trim away the excess feather slip with a sharp blade. Wind the copper wire forward in tight touching turns all the way to behind the bead forming 5 or 6 body segments on the fly, but in the opposite direction to the feather slip. By winding the copper wire in the opposite direction to the feather slip you reinforce the relatively vulnerable feather slip body.

I	Worry off the excess copper wire.

J	Select a partridge feather that has barbules that around twice as long as the gape of the hook. Lock the hackle in place by the tip directly behind the bead with a couple of firm wraps of thread. Wet fly hackle

K	Take two tuns of the hackle and lock it in place with a couple of firm wraps of thread.

L	Using a sharp blade remove the excess hackle butt. Build up a thin collar of just a couple of firm wraps of thread between the hackle and the bead taking care not to force the hackle backwards. Whip finish over the collar. Varnish the collar and the bead taking care not to get any varnish in the eye of the hook or on the hackle. If it's an unpainted bead and you don't varnish it at this stage you will find it will tarnish very quickly.