Deer Hair Emerger (DHE) - step by step
- Details
- Published on Thursday, 04 November 2010 11:44
- Written by Bob Wyatt
The Deer Hair Emerger, or DHE, combines the essential features of Fran Better’s Haystack and Usual, Caucci’s ComparaDun, and Hans van Klinken’s Klinkhamer Special.
Wyatt calls the image that the fly presents to the trout its "prey-image". The DHE is designed to present a strong prey-image and incorporates a couple of primary stimuli, or triggers: a visible wing and a sunken abdomen.
These triggers exaggerate the natural features of the important features of the trout’s natural prey and ensure that the fly will be noticed. The DHE is designed to represent the phase of the hatch when the emerging nymph is an irresistible 'sitting duck'. The fish notices the sunken abdomen from much further away than a regular hackled dry fly. The DHE is fairly easy to tie if you study the tying recipe, and is more or less indestructible when tied correctly.
To fish the DHE, touch only the wing and thorax with a gel floatant. Keep the floatant away from the abdomen, so it will be sure to penetrate the surface film. Having no hackle, the DHE rides quite low in the water, usually with only the wing above the surface, but by applying floatant to more of the thorax it will sit up a bit higher in the surface, making it easier to see in fast water.
Pattern
Hook: Kamasan B-100, or similar curved emerger style
Thread: Benecchi 8/0 slate grey
Wing: Medium to fine deer hair (roe deer is good for this, or coastal blacktail)
Abdomen: Olive/brown mix of seal and hare fur. Variants include seal's fur, stripped peacock quill, and herl
Thorax: Dubbed hare's mask. Use the spiky hair from front of face
Tying Instructions (all photos courtesy of Hans Weilenmann http://www.danica.com/flytier )
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Tie in the deer hair wing as shown note the thread tag end is left for the rib. |
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Dubbed abdomen, thread rib is wrapped in the opposite direction from the dubbing. That is : if (looking from the front of the hook) the dubbing wrap is wrapped clockwise, the thread rib should be wrapped counter clockwise. |
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The thorax dubbing ball is started from eye and wrapped up tight up against the wing |
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Now spiral thread over thorax towards the eye of the hook |
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The completed DHE |
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DHE: Bottom view |
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DHE: Top view |
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DHE: In surface film |
Bob Wyatt was born in Alberta Canada and has been fly fishing since the fifties. Bob writes for several fly fishing magazines, spends the trout season in NZ, and hosts the FFF Southern Fly Fishing Conclave at Middlemarch each year. Currently, he is just finishing his new book "What Trout Want".
On The Fly productions has just released a two part DVD featuring Bob’s go-to flies, how to tie them, and why and how he fishes them.
Bob loves fly fishing’s traditions and lore, and although he thinks most of it is nonsense he believes it’s as important as anything else in his life, maybe more so. His last book Trout Hunting: The Pursuit of Happiness is clear evidence that he has taken the whole thing too far.
Check out Bob’s web site at http://www.trouthunting.co.nz