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This appears to be an American fly designed by Harry and Elsie Darby (or Darbee), the famous fly tiers of Roscoe, New York. The story goes that a friend of theirs, and several names have been put forward including Percy Jennings, an amateur fly tier from Cold Spring Harbour and Carl Otto von Kienbush a well known New York angle asked them to design a highly visible and buoyant dry fly.

The design was apparently inspired by the salmon dry fly known as a McDougal. There is some uncertainty regarding the original tie of this fly.

It is known that the original fly included Grizzly hackle wing tips but as they added little to the viability of the fly over time they have either been left out completely or have been replaced by divided calf tail wings similar to those on a royal coachman. Finally there has been conflict regarding the tail. The original recipe was silent on the matter of inclusion of a tail so there are versions out there that are tailless and others that include a tail.

I have tied 2 versions which together give the various permutations of the Rat Faced McDougal. The only little change I have mad is to tie the deer hair body in with fire orange thread. the original recipe apparently called for brown or black thread. Given that so many versions that I have seen of this fly show brown or black thread at the base of the deer hair body I choose to use bright thread which allows more wraps of the thread prior to tying in the first bunch of deer hair and by default a pretty effective hot spot on the fly.

In any case, regardless of the version you tie, this is a very visible and buoyant fly.

Materials

Process

A	Because the body of this fly is spun deer hair you have to leave as much as possible of the hook shank free of thread. Start the fly by taking six or seven turns of thread just past the bend of the hook. Deer hair - uses in fly tying If your going to add a tail this is the time to do it. I haven't tied a tail in here because I wanted to show the hoot butt but if you want to see how its done have a look at the Adams Irresistible. Tails on flies

B	Take a bunch of deer hair and hold it flush with the hook shank where you want to tie it in. Take 2 loose turns of thread on top of each other.

C	As you pull the thread tight the deer hair will spin round the hook shank and flare out.

D	Repeat the process adding additional bunches in front of the previous bunch or bunches until you reach that position on the hook shank where you want the deer hair body to finish.

E	Between each bunch of deer hair use your finger, a bodkin or a biro without the refill, to push each flared out bunches of deer hair hard up against the previous bunch of deer hair.

F	When you have reached the position where you want the body of the fly to end tie your thread of in front of the body. Cut the thread and take the partially complete fly out of the vice and with sharp scissors or a blade trim the body to shape.

G	Put the fly back into the vice and tie in your head thread.

H	If your tying in calf tail divided wings or a post do that now. It's a bit different to tying in divided wings for a hair winged royal coachman in that you need to select your bunch of calf tail hair and when you have determine the length of  of calf tail hair you need to make the desired hight wings or post you need to trim the excess butt end away square. When you have done that hold the square end of the calf tail hair tight against the trimmed deer hair body.

I	Take several tight wraps of thread in front of the body to lock the calf hair in place on top of the hook shank. Stand the calf hair upright and take a few wraps of thread around the hook shank directly in front of the post to hold it upright. You can leave the deer hair as a post or you can divide it as I have done. Upright divided hair wings

J	Tie in the hackle directly in front of the body. Dry fly hackle

K	Wind the hackle equally behind and in front of the pot or wings. Take a couple of firm turns of thread to lock the hackle in position behind the eye of the hook. Build up a neat head. Neat heads Whip finish and varnish the head.

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