The journal · At the vice
Six Turns and a Whip Finish: Tying Your First Pheasant Tail
Two materials, one hook, and the three mistakes everybody makes. A patient first lesson at the vice.
· 4 minute read · 884 words
Frank Sawyer, river keeper on the upper Avon in Wiltshire, tied his Pheasant Tail Nymph with two materials: fibres from a cock pheasant’s centre tail and fine reddish copper wire, which served as thread, rib and weight at once. He described it in Nymphs and the Trout in 1958, and it is still among the most effective imitations of a slim, swimming olive nymph ever devised. It is also the right first fly to learn, because it teaches proportion, tension and restraint, and forgives almost nothing else.
What you need
| Part | Material | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Hook | Standard-shank nymph hook, size 14 | Smaller is harder to handle; larger looks clumsy |
| Thread | Fine brown, 8/0 or 70 denier | Sawyer used wire alone, but thread is more forgiving while you learn |
| Rib and weight | Fine copper wire | Sinks the fly and armours the body |
| Tail, body, wing case | Four fibres from a cock pheasant centre tail | Choose long fibres with a rich chestnut colour and a dark bar |
| Thorax | A pinch of hare’s mask fur | Optional; adds a little bulk and life |
Proportions before anything else
A nymph that is in proportion will catch fish even if it is untidy; a neat one that is out of proportion looks like nothing a trout has seen. Fix these four measures in your mind before you start the thread.
- Tail. Half the length of the hook shank, no longer.
- Abdomen. The rear two-thirds of the shank, slim and slightly tapered.
- Thorax. The front third, about twice the thickness of the abdomen.
- Head. One hook-eye’s width of bare shank left behind the eye until the very end.
The steps
- Fix the hook in the vice with the shank level and the point just showing. Flatten the barb now, with the pliers, rather than at the river.
- Start the thread one eye’s width behind the eye and wind in touching turns to a point above the barb.
- Tie in a 10 cm length of copper wire along the top of the shank. Then tie in four pheasant fibres by their tips, with two firm turns, so that the tips project half a shank’s length as a tail.
- Take the thread forward to two-thirds of the way up the shank. Wind the pheasant fibres forward together in close, flat turns to make a slim abdomen, and tie them down. Do not trim the butts; fold them back out of the way.
- Wind the wire forward in the opposite direction to the fibres, in five or six evenly spaced turns. Counter-ribbing crosses each fibre and locks it down, so the first fish’s teeth do not unravel the fly. Tie off and break the wire by wiggling it; never cut wire with your good scissors.
- Dub a small thorax: twist a wisp of hare’s fur onto the thread, less than you think, and wind it over the front third.
- Bring the butts forward over the thorax as a wing case, tie down behind the eye with three tight turns, and trim close. Whip finish with four turns and add a tiny drop of varnish with a needle point.
Three mistakes worth making once
Too much material is the first. Natural nymphs are slender, and a fly tied with eight fibres and a fat thorax sinks slowly and looks like nothing in particular. The second is loose thread: every wrap should be firm enough that the material cannot twist around the hook when you pull it. If the thread never breaks, you are not pulling hard enough; break it a few times on purpose to learn the limit. The third is hurrying.
Tie six in one sitting, lay them in a row, and compare the last with the first. That is your apprenticeship in miniature.
Keep to the same pattern and the same hook for that first half-dozen. Changing size or recipe after every fly feels like progress and teaches very little. Once six in a row look like brothers, tie six more on a size 16.
Sawyer’s own way
When the thread version comes easily, try the original. Wind the copper wire from eye to bend and back to build a small hump at the thorax. Tie in the fibres with the wire, twist fibres and wire together into a single rope, and wind that forward as the body. Lap the fibre butts backwards and forwards over the hump to make the wing case, and finish with a few turns of wire behind the eye. No thread, no dubbing, no legs. The result is harder than it sounds and sinks like a small nail.
Fishing it
Use a leader of about 9–10 ft with a 5X (0.15 mm) tippet. Cast upstream of a fish you can see, or of a likely lie, far enough that the nymph has time to sink to its level, and let it drift back dead. As it nears the fish, raise the rod tip smoothly so that the fly swims up toward the surface. This “induced take” was Sawyer’s own method, copying a nymph rising to hatch, and trout and grayling find it very hard to refuse. Watch the fish, not the fly: when its mouth shows white or it turns aside, tighten.