Tying a Black & Purple

[raven4ns]

Ahhhhhhh......lol, I have indeed been Shucked. I suspect there are quite a few on here that have been Shucked. Bill is a kind gentleman.

raven4ns, Howdy;

When you wrote " I'm not familiar with that term "shucked". " you neglected to
spell Shucked with a capitol S as would be proper for someone's last name such
as, ... perhaps, Bill Shuck ??? A play on words as it were...

hank

[joaniebo]

My experiences have been that purple and brown Pearsall Gossamer silks get darker when wet (think of WC Stewart's "Black Spider") and thus, when wet, look almost a black color.

One of my favorite spiders / soft hackles is an old UK dressing for a "Black Magic Spider" with a black thread body; peacock herl thorax (with a few wire wraps below the peacock herl); and a black hen or starling hackle. Would think using a purple silk instead of black thread might also make a good fly (hmmm, maybe Purple UV Ice dubbing for the thorax might be good!).

[Trevis]

What a lovely fly I haven't seen that before.

[joaniebo]

Trevis

Maybe 15+ years ago, a fellow in the UK sent me the info for this dressing, which I tie, as follows:

Hook: Daiichi 1550 size 16
Body & Head Thread: Black Danville 6/0
Underthorax: Usually very thin red copper wire
Thorax: green peacock herl
Hackle: I prefer starling with the fuzzy stuff still on the hackle (black hen can be subbed)

The red wire unde the thorax adds a little weight to get the fly down a little lower in the water without sinking it down like a nymph. I do maybe 6 - 8 turns of the red wire and tie it in as soon as I tie in the black Danville thread, so that the thread secures the wire to the hook. I then wrap the thread down the hook shank and back up to the wire; tie in the green peacock herl and then do a few wraps of the herl.

I tie in the staling hackle by the tip and then wrap all of the hackle until the "fuzzy stuff" is at the front of the hackle; then whip finish and add a drop of cement.

This has been a very productive fly for me and for several of my fishing buddies. If you use a black dry fly hackle and a small black tail, makes another nice dry fly when all the little black stuff is on the water.

Bob

[Trevis]

Thank you Bob. I don't like adding new patterns to my boxes because I get easily confused, but I've copied your instructions and will tie some of those.