Deer hair extended body – Fred Hannie

Fred is a very skilled realistic fly tyer who ties some really cool looking bugs! Fred helped me in the beginning of FrankenFly with his Paper Wasp. He now shows us a nice technique for extended body flies, using deer hair. You can see more of Fred’s realistic flies over at his website.

Deer hair is a great material for dry fly construction. The hollow hairs will aid the fly’s buoyancy .The technique I will show you here is one that was taught to me by my friend and fellow tier David Martin. This technique also works well for mayfly abdomens.

 

 

Place a section of 6lb mono in the vise. The mono should be longer than you want the finished abdomen to be. From the vise jaws measure and cut the mono to the size needed for the extended body abdomen. Tie on about ten deer hairs wrapping them to the mono with loose thread wraps.

Wrap to the end of the monofilament and back to the vise.

Fold the remaining deer hair back over the abdomen and cover all the deer hair with smooth thread wraps. By allowing the thread wraps to build up in precise areas you can accentuate segmentation.

Use the excess to help form the thorax of the damselfly. With markers you can now color the white thread to match any hatch.