Sparkle Gnat - A Little Giant

[speydulika]

A wonderfully simplistic pattern that will take fish on the surface pretty much all year round. In summer however it just excels.

The Dressing

Hook: Any dry fly size 14 to 28. This is tied on a Daiichi Size 24
Thread: Sheer 14/0 black
Trailing shuck: 3 strands of fine mother of pearl Krystalflash
Body: 2 stands of natural peacock herl
Hackle: Grizzle hacklre from near the base of the cape

[corsican dave]

and would take almost any species of fish, too! very nice  :

[Wildfisher]

That is a cracker, patterns like that work very well on our wee local river in high summer. 

[Harpo]

One of the patterns I enjoy tieing..... Size 16 though, not 24!

[haresear]

A very useful fly is that.
A version with hackle clipped underneath has been getting me fish from the lower Clyde this year.
For durability I substitute a synthetic peacock dubbing for the fragile herl body.

Alex

[rannoch raider]

Something like that (but a bit bigger!) Sounds like Franz Grimley's  'Big Grey' . I was introduced to this a few years back by some Ayrshire anglers who were at Tomdoun Lodge and were fishing dry flies on Poulary. One of them gave me one of his patterns that had been catching fish. It was a slightly bigger Sparkle Gnat type dressing with the hackles cut off flush along the underside just like the 'Big Grey' and as previously described by Haresear. So , not just a river dry.