Usual

[scotfly]

I recently received a couple of magazines and in one of them was a piece on Frans Better?s ?Usual?. A fly I had forgotten about, but which is now, once again, prominent in my fly box. It is basically a ?Haystack? tied with Snowshoe Rabbits foot. A nice buggy fly that has caught a lot of fish for me over the years. I really don?t know what possessed me to forget about it!
I?ve use dyed light dun Snowshoe here, but you can use any colour including natural.
Try to tie this one as rough and buggy as you can, the fish seem to prefer it that way.


Instructions assume right-handed tyers.

HOOK ? TMC 103BL #19
THREAD ? Claret 8/0 Bennechi
TAIL ? Snowshoe Rabbit
BODY ? Snowshoe Rabbit
WING - Snowshoe Rabbit

Snowshoe Rabbit.
A fairly easy material to work with and very durable. You want to use the crinkly hair from the pad.



Snip a clump out and use your fingers or a nit comb to remove the underfur. Don?t through the underfur away, it makes good dubbing and you?re going to use is on this fly.





Once you?ve combed it you will be left with a small bunch of guard hairs. If you want you can align the tips, I prefer to leave them as is.



STEP 1
Attach the thread and wrap to the tail of the hook.



STEP 2
Tie in a small bunch of Snowshoe guard hairs for the tails. Prepared as shown above. Trim the butts at an angle after tying in.



STEP 3
Wrap the thread to 1/3 shank length from the eye and tie in a bunch of Snowshoe for the wing. This should be 2 ? 21/2 times the amount used in the tail.



STEP 4
Lift the wings and build a bump of thread in front to hold the wing upright.





STEP 5
Take the thread back to the tail and apply a pinch of the underfur to the thread.



STEP 6
Wrap the dubbed thread to the eye.



STEP 7
Finally, whipfinish and varnish for the completed fly.

[scotfly]

Natural floating properties, but ginking it won't do any harm.