Foam Bodied Daddy

Materials

  • Hook: #12 All purpose light (Fulling Mill Suppliers)
  • Body: 2.3mm dia orange foam cylinders (Veniards Suppliers
  • Legs: Knotted pheasant tail fibres
  • Wings: Red-brown cock hackle tips
  • Hackle: Red-brown cock hackle

Instructions

  1. Tie in thread and run it halfway down the hook-shank with touching turns.
  2. Break off the end of the foam cylinder by pulling it and this will form a tapered body.
  3. Tie in the body, halfway down the hook shank, so that the abdomen is the same length as the hook shank.
  4. Tie in 3 x knotted pheasant tail fibres on each side of the hook, in front of the abdomen, to create the legs.
  5. Tie in one hackle tip on each side, just in front of the legs, to form the wings.
  6. Make a collar hackle in front of the legs and wings leaving a space at the front of the hook to tie in the thorax.
  7. Pull the foam cylinder over the legs, wings and collar hackle and tie in behind the hook eye.
  8. Whip finish and cut off the foam cylinder at an angle (sloping backwards) to form a head.

Background

This fly was very successful towards the end of the fishing season, at Draycote reservoir, particularly around the “boils”, when very little else was working. Can be fishes as a team, with buzzers, or on its own.