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AKA: Down wings - dry fly

Dry fly down wings can be tied out of deer hair, synthetic material such as crystal flash or out of  feather fibres. Whilst the directions below apply specifically to deer hair down wings the same fly tying principals apply to other types of down wings except they don't have the same degree of difficulty because of the reduced tendency to flare out.

Set out below are the steps for a right handed fly tier to tie a dry fly down wing. If your left handed please remember to swap them around.

Process

A	Select a bunch of deer hair. I generally take a bunch that will compress to the thickness of a match stick, but practice will help you determine the appropriate amount. You want enough to make the wing visible but not so much that it can't be tied into the hook shank comfortably or so that it over powers the fly. I  always put deer hair into a deer hair stacker to get all the tips (or all the butts if the wing is being tied in back to front) lined up. Take your thread to exactly where you intend to tie the wing in. Leave yourself enough room behind the tie in position to flatten the wing out. Read forward to step C to understand what I mean by "flattening the deer hair wing into the down position". This also applies to feather fibre down wings but to a lesser extent.

B	Take the deer hair out of the stacker in your left hand, but transfer it to your right hand as you bunch it up into a compact mass. Hold the tight mass of hair along the top of the hook shank exactly where you want to tie it in.

C	When your happy with the position slide your finger of the left hand onto the bunch of deer hair tight along the top of the hook shank and ready to undertake a fly tiers pinch. Take a couple of tight fly tiers pinched to secure the deer hair to the top of the hook shank.

D	If you have done this correctly you should be a able to apply downward pressure on the thread without the deer hair rotating around the hook shank.

E	Stroke the wing into place with your left hank and whilst holding it along the top of the hook shank wrap the thread back toward the bend of the hook with several touching turns that are not as tight as the turns of thread that were made when the deer hair was tied in. These softer wraps of thread flatten the deer hair wing into the down position without the wing flaring out. If you make these wraps of thread too tight the deer hair will flare out again. The last couple of wraps of thread need to be softer than the previous wraps of thread to avoid this. When your happy with the shape of the wing wrap the thread forward starting off with soft wraps and returning to tight wraps as you move forward and to the position where the next step in the fly recipe is to be carried out. Trim the but of the deer hair off at an angle.

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