Step by Step Fly Tying Tutorial: Home Invader

As we approach the middle of summer here in Pennsylvania, my tying (and I'd assume quite a few fellow Pennsylvanians' tying as well) starts to shift, gradually at first, but more rapidly as Labor Day approaches, from dry flies and bass bugs to egg patterns, nymphs, and streamers in anticipation of steelhead fishing in the fall.  This transition is a chance to look back on the winter, spring, and early summer fishing season and recall any particularly killing patterns to keep in mind when replenishing fly boxes during long winter evenings.  Sometimes it's a classic pattern that I've just started to really use that year, other times its a niche pattern that fills it's specific need perfectly, and other times it's some homemade creation.  Any which way, it's a pattern or two that made a name for themselves over the season, that you want to have backups of when next spring rolls around.

For me, spring 2012 was mostly a missed opportunity of a season.  With a long 8 hour class every Saturday, from January until May, my weekend fishing was effectively non-existent for the entire spring season.  Even when I got out during the week, it was limited to just an hour or two after work, before it got dark.  That said, 2012, more than most seasons, has seen a higher proportion of warmwater fishing than trout, simply because when I finally got to hit the water, not only did I have a new 8wt to try out, but also, warmwater fishing was just getting into prime time.

So my fishing saw much more tossing streamers to bass and pike than drifting dries and emergers to cagey trout.  Because of this, I tied far more #4 and up streamers than any other type of fly this year.  While several produced fish, the clear standout has been Doug McKnight's Home Invader.  Striking a perfect balance between impressionism and realism, the Home Invader is liable to take any species that eats fish.  Of course, like any good fly tyer, I've made a few minor tweaks from the official patter that, in my opinion, make it even more effective in my fishing.  So, without further ado: the Home Invader...

1. Start off with a long shank streamer hook in your chosen size.  While I suppose you could tie it in any size, this is one of those flies where the nature of the materials will dictate proper proportions for the overall finished product.  That being said, for the materials I've chosen, I'd recommend a large hook, somewhere from #4 up to #2/0.  Also bear in mind that this is a patter that will ride point-up.  With these two key characteristics in the pattern, I've chosen a #2 60-degree streamer hook, designed to ride point-up anyway, with the addition of weight, this hook will ensure that the fly rides properly every time.

2. Tie in a zonker strip tail, upside-down compared to the usual.  This is the biggest change I've made from the original pattern.  The original calls for marabou, but to me, marabou is meant for drifted patterns, or swung streamers in slow currents, where the feather fibers can breathe, while the rest of the pattern is more suited to faster flows.  Substituting rabbit fur in the form of a zonker strip adds some body without compromising on motion in the water.  When dealing with warmwater fish, the hide strip may even add a bit of durability.  In this fly, I used a 'magnum' zonker strip, for even more body.

3. Next add some flash.  The specific type and amount isn't strictly limited, just keep in mind your general idea for the rest of the fly and adjust accordingly (If you're tying something big and bright for maximum visibility, load up on flash!  If you're going for natural looking realism, laybe limit to just a few strands, if any.)  In this tie, I used some UV polar chenille in silver flash color.  I find the amount I used to be enough flash to set off a pattern without being so gaudy that it turns off fish in clear, calm conditions.

4. If you do decide to use the polar chenille, definitely layer it.  The fibers are long enough to handle it, and without it, the flash will be subtle/skimpy indeed. Cover the back half of the shank in 2 layers of flash.  If it looks like too much now, understand that this fly is all about layers, and there will be plenty of material to shroud this, making a layered, translucent effect.

5.  Once you're finished wrapping that flash, clip a small bunch of your fur of choice (silver fox shown, though any light, compressible, flowing fur will work...keep fiber length in mind based on hook size), strip out guard hairs, and clip the butt ends evenly to size.  Then tie the clump in, on top of the hook, facing forward, extending over the hook eye.  Once you have it tied in, sweep the hair back over the flash, spreading it around evenly over the top half of the pattern.  After this, continue to tie in clumps of hair, but instead of keeping them on the top, distribute the hair around the shank, tie it in, then sweep it back uniformly around the entire body.

6. Once you tie in 3-5 clumps, you should have a body that looks kind of like this, with the front of the series of bunches up near the eye.  You can put a few thread wraps over the front of the tie in point to sweep the hair back a bit too.

7. Invert the hook, either by inverting the vise or removing the hook and putting it back in the vise upside down.  Add in a few hackles along each side of the top of the body, sort of like a tent or roof over the body, but with some space between the top edges.  I've used two hackles on each side to make them more defined, though one feather per side would give a more translucent effect.  Consider both solid hackle colors and patterned feathers like grizzly and badger.  This is also a great time to use some interestingly colored dyed feathers.

8.  Add a pair of hourglass eyes near the hook eye, making sure to super-glue them into place.

9. Using a dubbing loop, dub the head of the fly around the eyes, then whip finish and trim!

Home Invader

Hook: Size 4 or larger streamer hook (#2 Eagle Claw 413-2 pictured)

Thread: Black 6/0

Tail: White Magnum Zonker Strip (original pattern calls for marabou)

Flash: UV Polar Chenille (silver pictured, original pattern does not include flash)

Body: Silver fox fur, tied in reversed

Wings: Neck hackle

Eyes: Weighted hourglass eyes

Head: Dubbing loop (Senyo's laser dub, gray, pictured, not part of original pattern)

Fish this pattern like any other streamer, varying depth, speed, and pace to entice fish.  Also dry dead drifting this pattern with an occasional twitch.

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Sparkle Sculpin Step by Step Fly Tying Tutorial

After I posted a step-by-step for the baby sparkle sculpin, a few of my friends that follow the blog jokingly asked about an adult sparkle sculpin.  At the time, I had to sheepishly admit that I'd never done such a fly, but if I did, it would probably be for bass, not trout.

Well after several months, I've got a basic sparkle sculpin pattern worked out.  While I'm sure it will go through a few changes over the course of it's freshman year in my fly box, I think that it's got the basic elements of a winner.

Sparkle Sculpin

Recipe:

Hook: Mustad 34007 Stainless Steel Saltwater hook (not critical, use your favorite bass fly hook), #2/0

Thread: Uni 6/0 (White)

Tail: Rabbit Zonker (2-tone, hot pink w/ purple tip pictured) with silver flashabou accent

Butt: Temple Dog (white pictured)

Body: UV Polar Chenille (silver pictured)

Collar: Cross-cut Rabbit Zonker (2-tone hot pink w/ purple tip pictured)

Head: Senyo's Laser Dub (pink over purple pictured)

Instructions:

Put the hook in the vise and start the thread at the bend.  I tend to run big hooks for bass, who generally aren't shy or soft on the take.  The wide gap of these stainless salt hooks gets that point out and away from any bulk on the shank of a fly.  That said, your favorite bass fly hook will work just fine, as long as you've got enough shank to work with.

Tie in your zonker strip tail, approximately equal to the overall hook length.  I went color coordinated for these instructions, but you can use any colors you like.  I also tie this fly in olive, orange, blue, and natural...and plan to do them in white, black, and purple as well.

Add a few turns of lead wire just in front of the tail.  This is optional, but I find that even with the heavy hook, this fly has sufficient bulk that it traps enough air so that it affects its sinking and action.  A bit of lead cures this (for me), and in this location, it doesn't affect the tying process or action of the fly when fished.

I've also tied in a few strands of silver flashabou on each side of the tail as well.  This is purely optional as well, but I really like the looks of the fly with it as opposed to without.

Tie in your butt as a sort of veiling for the tail.  This is to make a smooth transition from the tail to the broader body, as well as to provide a background for the flashy body.  Usually, I use three pieces, one on top and one to either side of the tail, but in this fly, I just used the one, mostly because the pink will provide better contrast than the white anyway.

I used temple dog here, but a variety of materials could work here, including marabou, bucktail, or even a few turns of schlappen.

Tie in your UV polar chenille at the bend and wrap forward to completely cover your lead underbody (or to roughly the midpoint of the shank of you didn't use lead).  Tie it off and trim.  You can use other things here, but for my tying, this polar chenille is tough to beat.  It adds profile without bulk, movement without the soggy absorption of marabou or furs, and a lot of flash easily...all while still being mostly transparent.  

I used silver here, but white, pink, purple, or even black would have worked.  If you don't have polar chenille, get some. you can substitute by making a woolly bugger-style body of a long-barbed rooster saddle over estaz, hackle over pearl mylar braid, or whatever else you like, but it will most likely have a different overall effect.

After this, tie in a cross-cut rabbit zonker, and make one or two wraps in front of the chenille, then tie off and trim.  I forgot to stop and take a photo of this step, but it isn't rocket science.  Cross-cut.  1-2 wraps.  Trim.

After your cross-cut is applied and trimmed, the rest of the space (roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of the shank) will be used to make your laser dub head.  Now I am a fan of substitutions for materials that you may not have a specific match for, but this, like the polar chenille, is one that will significantly alter the overall pattern if you change it.  Long story short, I won't suggest any subs for this as I haven't tried any.  Some might work, some might not, I don't know.

In any event, the picture above shows one clump of purple laser dub tied in over the cross-cut rabbit.  Before you get to that point, though, you have to prepare the material for this use.  

Senyo's laser dub, like most dubbings, comes in a small package, all mixed up.  For this use, you want the fibers mostly aligned in the same direction as well as having the ends approximately lined up.  To do this, the easiest way is to get a small clump of dubbing (you'll figure out what size as you tie), and pull it apart between your fingers, then put both pieces on top of each other, and pull the reformed clump apart again.  Repeat this about ten times, pulling off the loose fibers on the ends, and you'll have a small pile of laser dub, aligned and ready for tying.

When you're ready, spread the clump out, being careful not to rip it apart, as well as keeping the fibers in alignment, and pull it back over the eye of the hook, allowing the eye to poke through the center of the patch.  

Hold the dubbing at an angle and make 1-2 loops around it (with the portion above the shank leaning back over the fly and the portion below the shank extending out under the eye), then pull the bottom back tightly and make a few wraps in front of them, so that all the fibers are swept back.  Repeat this a few times, occasionally orienting your fibers horizontally, to provide a full head.  Once you've tied in 3-4 clumps, you're ready to switch colors.

Here, I've tied in my first clump of pink laser dub.  You can see how I'm trying to spread it evenly all around the head of the fly, as well as how small a single clump actually is.  You need to make sure to save space by tying your clumps very close to one another.  Again with the pink, I'll tie in two clumps vertically, then one horizontally, then back to vertical to finish up the tie.

And here's the completed fly.  I've tied in my last clump of pink laser dub, and whip finished.  The fibers haven't been primped and primed, but the fly as-is would fish.  Still there's a surprising amount of loose fibers in there, and a bit of hairstyling will really improve the look of the fly.

After some quality time with an old toothbrush, the sparkle sculpin is looking good.  This head is round in cross section, or very slightly oval, due to the vertical clumps outnumbering the horizontal clumps.  The colors blend nicely and the UV fibers in the laser dub give the head a noticeable, but subtle flash.

As an alternate, you can get away from the sculpin profile and get more of a baitfish/shad look, but training the  fibers in the head of the fly up and down, and adding some large, stick-on eyes.  The eyes will keep the fibers vertical, widening and thinning your head, as seen below:

This variant makes the purple laser dub very prominent, as you can see, as well as revealing even more of the flashy body.

Though I've only fished the first variant, I have no doubt that the shad profile will also work  For the shad profile, you could actually substitute a number of things for the laser dub, including another zonker, a pair of zonkers (as a double bunny), EP fibers, or other similar synthetics.

Other variants I'm considering, though I haven't tried yet, include an inverted, Clouser version, a 'low water' version, tied more sparsely, perhaps trading the zonkers out completely, a trout version, with a longer, smaller, light wire hook, and a 'creature' version that, rather than a baitfish, would use rubber legs and other additions to imitate a crawfish or salamander more than a fish.  This fall, I may try a steelhead version, with a trailer hook.

That's where I am with this work-in-progress so far...please leave comments and suggestions to let me know what you think of what I have so far, or to make recommendations for future ties.

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Fly Tying Tutorial Link: CDC & CDL Caddis

Great looking, simple fly that promises to be light, easily floatable, and easy to tie.  I will be tying up some of these to try them out this spring and I'm sure they'll work out.  Check out the full step by step tutorial for tying two variations of this interesting fly on Passion for Fly Fishing.

Please note that the site is written in Spanish.  My browser (Google Chrome), offers to translate the entire page and does a pretty good job, though if your browser doesn't offer this option, the efficient photography should really be all you need.

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Lime Trude Step By Step Fly Tying Tutorial

Lime Trude

The lime trude is a classic attractor pattern that doesn't really imitate and particular stage or insect, but rather just looking like something that fish can't help but to sample.  It incorporates peacock herl, a proven fish catching material, a bright 'hot spot', and a highly visible wing.  It's an excellent choice for pocket water fishing and wild trout.  It's also a pattern that is fairly beginner friendly, allowing for some imperfections in proportion and alignment.  Dry flies tend to be among the trickier flies to proportion exactly right, and even this one won't allow for serious errors, but the fly doesn't use any especially difficult techniques such as upright divided wings or parachute hackle.

Hook: Standard Dry Fly hook, TMC 100 in size 12 shown

Thread: Any lightweight thread.  Benecchi 12/0 in black shown

Tail: Golden Pheasant Tippet

Body: Peacock Herl with a band of green uni-stretch

Wing: Calf Body Hair

Hackle: Brown, standard sizing

Put the hook in the vise and start the thread about 1/3 of the shank back from the eye.  You can place the hook pretty deep in the vise with this pattern, so don't worry about getting it way out there at the tip of the jaws.  You can see in this shot that I have it down in the hook pocket of my Regal.  I like to start the thread at a significan transition point of the fly.  In this case, the point where I started the thread marks the point where I want my body to end, where I want to tie in the wing, and where I want to start wrapping my hackle.  A pretty major transition point of the pattern.

Choose a golden pheasant tippet feather.  Since you're only using a few individual fibers at a time, it's not important to choose a top quality feather.  If you have any with chunks missing, shafts bent, or otherwise slightly mangled, now's a good time to get them out and use them.  Just find a spot on them where the individual fibers are more or less unharmed.

Peel off 5-10 fibers from the feather, making sure to keep them all pinched together so that the black bands stay aligned, and tie them in as a tail, making the tail about as long as the hook shank, or slightly shorter.  Wrap your thread up to bind the fibers to the hook shank, then trim them, at an angle, just behind your transition point and tie down the butts.

Tie in a single long (6-8") peacock herl at the base of the tail.  When I'm tying in herl, or any other feather for that matter, I like to strip the fibers from a small area of the feather where I plan to tie it in.  This reduces bulk at the tie in point, and makes for a stronger tie-in, and by extension, a more durable fly.

Mentally divide the body area of the shank (the part covered by thread) into thirds.  The front and rear thirds will be peacock herl and the middle will be your lime band.  Wrap your herl up to the 1/3 point, them make an additional wrap or two.  When you add the lime band, this will give you a little 'wiggle room' when you wrap the uni-stretch.  After you finish wrapping, tie down the herl, then tie it down to the 2/3 point of the body, as shown.

Tie in your green uni-stretch at the 2/3 point, then tie it back to the 1/3 point, as shown.  Then clip the tag end.

Using tight, overlapping wraps, cover the middle third of the body with lime uni-stretch.  Tie it off at the same point where you tied it in, then trim it.

Continue wrapping the herl, making sure to cover the tie in point of the uni-stretch as well as the tag ends.  Wind it up to your transition point (where you started the thread, 1/3 back from the eye).  Tie off the herl and trim.

Trim off a small bunch of calf body hair to use as a wing.  Pull out the smaller under fibers (calf doesn't really have fuzzy under fur), stack it, and tie it in like a caddis wing.  I like to take one wrap around just the hair, then use my second wrap to bind it to the hook.  If it is lying too flat against the body, take another wrap around just the hair, at the base of the wing to lift it up.

The traditional recipe calls of calf tail here.  While you can certainly use it, I generally prefer the body hair because it is straighter, and stacks easier.  It also allows you to use more hair, to make a denser, more visible wing, and is highly visible, even in low light conditions.  The downside of calf body hair is that it is more of a pain to work with, as it is much shorter, and I've often lost it in the bottom of my hair stacker, only to have it dump out in a useless pile.  It takes some getting used to, and it is kind of a pain to work with, but for me, the increased visibility and better stacking properties are work the extra fuss at the vise.

Trim the butt ends of the calf hair off just behind the eye, at an angle to avoid any abrupt step-down effect.  Build a tapered, smooth thread body as a platform for you hackle.

Tie in a single brown saddle hackle, sized appropriately for your hook at the base of the wing, wrap forward in close turns, taking care not to trap the hackle fibers under the stem, then tie off and trim, leaving a little room (about the length of the eye) for a nice small head.  Whip finish and trim the thread and you're done!

Fishing the fly: Fish the lime trude just like you would any other typical dry fly: upstream and drift.  This is an attractor, not meant to imitate any insect, so it's a good choice when there's no obvious hatch for the fish to key on.  I suppose it could function as a darker colored mayfly dun (in small sizes a BWO, in larger sizes, maybe an iso) or a caddis emerger.  It's also a good fly to use on very shady streams, slightly stained water, or in choppier riffles and pocket water, where it's colorful iridescent body and bright white wing make it highly visible to both fish and angler.  When I see this fly, I immediately imagine a small high-gradient stream full of hungry brookies, lined with big hemlocks that keep the stream cool and dark even at noon on a sunny day in July.

As you can see, like i said at the beginning, this pattern uses fairly straightforward technique to create a nice, all purpose dry fly.  No tricky wings to divide, no winding hackle at odd angles or around a wing, and no fussy body materials.  For an extra touch of durability, you could even coat the thread base of the body and hackle with a very light coating of head cement or CA glue, then wrap the herl, uni-stretch, and hackle on top of it.  I generally avoid glues unless absolutely necessary, though, seeing a torn and tattered fly as a sign of good fishing, rather than poor tying.  As long as it doesn't unravel without help from fish teeth, it's done its job.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!  If you have any suggestions for future tutorials, feel free to voice them in the comments!

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Fly Tying Tutorial: Stimulator

While it's still possible to take a trout on a dry fly here in Pennsylvania, most would agree that dry fly season is over for this part of the world, or at very least, winding down rapidly to its end.  I caught many fish on a wide variety of flies this year, but one specific pattern stood out from the crowd this year, establishing itself firmly as the pattern of the year: the venerable stimulator.  While top honors last year were shared by the parachute adams (which positively knocked trout sideways all spring), and a green emergent sparkle caddis (quietly representing with impressive numbers of fish in any water condition short of blown out...from late August till the first frost), this year saw the stimulator out-perform both of these.

I will qualify the above by fully admitting that a big part of this probably had to do with my increased focus this year on tiny streams, ultralight gear, and wild trout.  In this game, a fly that floats high, looks generally buggy (rather than specifically buggy), and is highly visible becomes an automatic winner, often regardless of color, and usually without much of a strict limit for size, so long as it fits into the mouths of the trout you're targetting.

That said, a stimulator, tied on a #14 long curved dry hook, took a ridiculously large number of fish for me this year.  50 fish days, while not exactly common, did indeed happen, and more than once.  Several sub-50 days could have been, if I'd have been ambitious enough to get on the water earlier, or fish through dusk.  On several days out, I used nothing but a single #14 stimmy, re-dressed with floatant as needed, and caught fish, regularly, for as long as I cared to move upstream.

Without further talk, let's get to the tutorial.  Please remember that, as always, you can click on any picture to be taken to a larger version.  (For tutorials like this it might be a good idea to simply open the image up in a new tab, so you don't lose your place in the tutorial.)

Stimulator

Hook: Dai-riki #280, size 14

Thread: Sheer 14/0, Tan

Tail: Elk, bleached

Body: Sparkle Yarn, Orange Rear, Lt. Green Front

Hackle: Grizzly Rear, Ginger Front

Wing: Mongoose

Disclaimer: I'm not one to be too pedantic about strict adherence to the pattern, but neither am I one of the camp that argues that all tying materials are more or less interchangeable.  As we go through the tutorial, I'll explain where I deviated from the norm, as well as ways you may consider customizing the tie, cutting corners, or sticking to the classic recipe.

Put your hook in the vise and start the thread, just a bit forward of halfway up the shank.  As far as hook choice, I've been using these Dai-riki #280's, but any long, light wire dry fly hook will work.  I do think a slightly curved shank improves appearances, but again, the extra length is the only important difference from a standard hook.

Tie in a small clump of elk hair as your tail.  Tie it in at the top of the bend, extending just over the back of the bend.  This is a bit of a tricky placement on a curved hook, but just eye it up.  If anything, err on the side of getting it too far back.  You'll want the hair to flare, so pull down your wraps tightly without pulling the hair around the hook.  As you can see in my picture, two of the hairs are either in there backward or got clipped somehow.  Ideally, remove these, but it's just for looks, not fishability.

With a good bit of tension in the thread, wrap forward up over the hair, causing it to flare out to the sides.  As you wrap, work your thread up through the ends of the hair, ideally, ending up with all of the ends wrapped over by the time you reach the point where you started your thread.  You can even sweep the hairs back slightly if you need to, the main idea here is to spread out the hairs across the back half of the body to create a smooth transition rather than a bump where the butts of the hairs end.

After this, trim the butts of the hairs as close as you can get them with your scissors.

Return your thread to the tie in point of the tail, and tie in a dry fly saddle hackle, the smallest you've got (that's smallest in terms of barb length), by the butt, concave side of the curvature facing forward.  The curve direction isn't super critical on a fly this heavily hackled, so don't get discouraged if your hackle is being unruly.  The hackle I used here is from a Whiting Midge saddle, and although I didn't size it, it'd typically be appropriate for a #18-22 dry fly.

After that, tie in a length of sparkle yarn about 3-4" long, in the color you want for the rear half of your fly.  If you don't have sparkle yarn, you could get some (its cheap) or use dry fly dubbing, peacock herl, mylar tinsel, or any other typical material for a dry fly body.  With yarn, popular colors are yellow, orange, red, green, and brown, though I could certainly see black, white, blue, or any other color working as well.

Wrap the sparkle yarn forward to your original tie in point, tie off, and trim.  You can either twist up the yarn for a segmented appearance as I have here, or leave it as it is, for a smoother, flatter appearance.  Frankly, I don't think it matters in the slightest.  If your sparkle yarn is especially 'fuzzy', go ahead and trim up some of the unruly fibers.

Palmer your hackle forward to the same point and tie it off and trim it as well.  Palmering means simply to wind the hackle along the length of the body, nothing fancy.  A few tips here would be to use a good bit of tension.  Don't break the feather, but wrapping over the yarn body won't splay the hackle barbs as much as winding them about a bare hook shank, so some added tension will help them spread apart for a bushier, more evenly hackled fly that will float higher.  Also, try not to trap barbs under your hackle stem.  If they're getting trapped, back up, sweep them back with your fingers, and continue.

Select and prepare (by pulling out underfur, and evening in a hair stacker) a clump of hair to use for your wing.  Traditionally, elk or deer hair is used...usually matching whatever you used in the tail.  I've also seen stimmies tied with squirrel, woodchuck, and other hairs.  In this tutorial, I found a small clump of mongoose hair on my tying bench and decided to try it instead, having never seen a mongoose stimmy before.  Mongoose, as I discovered, behaves more like squirrel than elk.  It's hard, solid, not inclined to flare, and slippery as hell.  It isn't necessarily wrong for this fly, but it's suited far better for use as streamer winging.

Tie in your wing at the point where you started your thread (and tied off the yarn and hackle of your body), and use the same method of flare & trim as you did with the tail.  (For me, using the mongoose, my hair simply would not flare, so instead I lifted the butts of the hairs and trimmed them at an angle, smoothing the transition in that way.)  You'll want the trimmed butts to end about 1 eye-length behind the eye itself to give yourself room to finish the fly without crowding.  All these steps are why a 2X long hook is nice; it gives you the room to do all of this.

Just like the back half of the body, tie in your hackle and yarn.  Unlike the rear half, you'll want this hackl slightly longer (again in barb length), about the same size as the hook...even a size or two bigger.  You can use any color hackle for any part of the fly.  Really.  Though I tend to use grizzly in the rear (mainly because that's the only color midge saddle I have) and some other color in the front.

Wrap your yarn forward, tie it off, and trim it.  Then, do the same with your hackle, again, try to leave some space for a head.  I struggle with this on dry flies more than streamers, but if you can do it, it really does make for a better looking, stronger fly.  You can see the lack of flare in my mongoose wing pretty clearly now.  If it was elk, it would be flaring to about 3-5x the width of this wing.  The way this one looks doesn't necessarily make it wrong, or any worse of a fly, but may reduce visibility by a little bit.  The biggest problem I have with it is just that I like the look of the big, flared wing, so it's subjective.

Whip finish and trim the thread.  For a fly like this, I find it beneficial to use a Thompson-style whip finish tool like the one shown above.  You can use any method you like, but I find this tool better for crowded conditions.  While it doesn't seem like there's a lack of space at the eye of this fly, I just feel more comfortable using it with this tie, so I do.  Normally, I go with my Matarelli style tool for 90% of my whip finishing needs.

The completed fly.

Front view.

The stimulator is an extremely popular attractor pattern, not meant to match any specific hatch, but rather imitate nearly any hatch generally.  It also makes an excellent hopper as well as a stonefly adult if the trout happen to be taking a few downed adults off the surface.  Being this heavily hackled, the stimulator rides extremely high in the water, not making any kind of a clear body impression in the surface film (as befits an attractor pattern).  This, combined with the large wing, means that it floats on any water, even the turbulent riffles and rapids common to small streams and pocket water.  Also, this big, buggy tie is easy to spot in nearly any conditions.  If you find you still have trouble spotting the fly in choppy water, it's a simple thing to add some hi-viz antron in hot pink, orange, or green to the wing, for an even more visible fly.

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