let the wind blow
Another pattern from George Barron’s book, the Joey (this one with two tags), points towards windy days and a nice rolling wave.
Looking at this soft hackle wet fly pattern, you are reminded of other beetle patterns such as the Black and Peacock Spider. It has a bit of bulk towards the front of the fly and this helps create that slightly heavy, clumsy and ungainly beetle silhouette. The red/orange tag, adds a touch of brighter colour which some species of beetle contain, in addition to a green/bronze metallic sheen, which the peacock herl thorax helps to depict. I added a copper wire rib over the silver tinsel tag, hoping to create a further reference point to the metallic sheen found on many of our beetles species.
To tie the Joey, I first tied in the copper wire rib (to be wound last) and added the silver tinsel tag, tied it off and then wound in the orange floss tag. Next the peacock herl thorax was added. For this particular soft hackle wet fly, I opted for bronze-green strands of herl and once tied off, I took the copper rib up the fly and through the thorax. This was just to give some protection to the thorax, while at the same time adding some coppery sheen to it too. Lastly the furnace hen hackle was added.
Given that this pattern has many reference points to a beetle, I am envisaging employing it when the wind gets up and all manner of terrestrial insects end up being blown onto the water. To be honest, I sometimes struggle when bank fishing on particularly windy days so hopefully, this small soft hackle wet fly pattern will go some way towards rectifying that!
Joey – Tag: silver tinsel Tag (first): silver tinsel Tag (second): orange floss Rib: copper wire Thorax: peacock herl Hackle: furnace hen
SoftHackles 