Navy Blue Heron by Bruce E Harang

Mount an up eye return loop salmon hook in your vice

Attach the thread at the point the wings will be tied in and wrap a smooth flat thread base to a point just above the point of the hook. If you are using an in-line rotary vice an easy method is to use one finger of your working hand as a moving thread bobbin holder and use the offhand to turn the vice while moving the thread rearward. If you start with an untwisted thread and let the bobbin hang free you will create a very thin flat thread base. I prefer to use a very light working thread such that if the materials over it become translucent in the water their colours are not muddied by a dark background

Tie in the spey hackle by the tip, then the ribs, tying in the flat tinsel closer to you than the oval tinsel. I tie the spey hackle and rib on the bottom of the hook. This allows puts the exposed hackle stem section in front of the hook bend to protect it. Leave tag ends on these materials that reach at least to a point 1/3 of the hook shank length behind the eye to provide a smooth even under body for the floss

Bring the thread back to the 1/3 point of the hook shank binding down the ribs and spey hackle. Again an easy way of creating this smooth thin flat under body of thread with an in-line rotary vice is to use your working hand as a moving thread bobbin but this time moving forward. Tie in a length of French navy blue silk floss (here Pipers 90 denier silk floss), or substitute synthetic floss, by wrapping forward from the tie in point using 5 very tight turns of thread. Leave a silk tag that reaches to the starting point of the fly or longer

Wrap the floss back to the rear of the body and then forward to its tie in point. Of course you want to avoid tying down any of the spey hackle fibres. Unwrap 4 of the tight binding wraps used to mount the silk and then tie down both ends of the silk with a few tight wraps of thread. To create the smoothest floss body burnish the floss to smooth out and pack the silk fibres. Create a dubbing loop against the front end of the floss body portion and then bring the thread forward to the starting point. The smoothness of the under body is not as critical here as the front body portion is dubbed

Insert a small amount of seal dubbing or substitute (here the dubbing is SLF silver doctor blue), spin the dubbing loop to lock the dubbing in place, pluck out any loose dubbing fibres, wrap the dubbing in touching turns to the front of the body, and tie off. Cut off any excess dubbing and loop

Wrap the flat rib forward in 5 turns and tie off. Next wrap the oval rib over the centre of the flat tinsel so it is overlaid onto the flat rib

Bring the spey hackle forward wrapping it immediately behind the rib and tie off in the front. Cut the excess. Tie off the working thread and cut it off. Mount the red thread used to make the head. Tie in a collar of one or two wraps of teal flank feather. Cut off any excess feather

The wing comprises two pair of black hackle tips. The pairs are mounted curved toward one another to form a knife blade wing having a length longer than the body but short of the bend of the hook so that the wing cannot fowl around the hook shank. The wings should be mounted low over the body. To mount the wing take all four feathers and size them leaving the bare stems connected. Insert the four bare stems through the hook eye and position the wing base just in front of the teal collar. Tie down with several very tight thread wraps and check the wing to insure desired position (tented over the hook shank and covering the top half of the fly at the tie-in point). When you are satisfied with the wing position, pull the stems out of the hook eye and cut off flush with the binding wraps

Complete a small proportional head and apply head cement and gloss finish. I use Griffs Thin penetrating head cement to lock everything together and then Sally Hansen Hard as Nails with Nylon finger nail polish for the gloss finish. This product does not absorb water and therefore does not turn milky white when being fished. If, as here, I want to cover the bleeding through of the black hackle wing stems I coat the head with several light coats of a red finger nail polish.