How to Tie Kelly Galloups T&A Rainbow

Step 1

Start the thread somewhere in the middle and wind to the bend.

Step 2

Now you will take 2-3 individual strands of marabou, from the strung, not wooly bugger marabou. This is really important because if you select bad marabou, your fly will come out the same way. We’re going to palmer (wrap) this around the hook shank going forward. Oh, you’ll tie it in by the tip, cut the excess tip and wrap the thread up a little and start wrapping. After you’ve tied it down and trim the excess, tie back down on it and wind back to the bend. Make sure you don’t go all the way to the bend because we are trying to build up the fly as we go forward. This will force the marabou to lay down. Note: You need to find the longest marabou you can. Hareline has some that is called X-select that works great for these types of patterns. Select marabou from Wapsi will work, but buying a pack of strung you’ll more then likely get four or five good ones and the rest will be junk.

Step 3

Showing you a good feather. It needs to be soft.

Step 4

Showing you where to split it and tie it in at the tip.

Step 5

Tie in the second feather.

Step 6

By now you should be up at the front of the hook, depending on if you had to tie in two or three white marabou plumes. Wind back a little on the marabou and you’re ready for the olive marabou for the top.

Step 7

Peel off the stem and tie in so it’s only on the top. We’re not going to palmer it around the shank. You don’t need much so watch how much olive you tie in.

Step 8

You’ll do the same with pink. Tie in the same amount on each side. You don’t need much so go easy, even less then olive. You can see how much I peeled off. On the olive and pink I used select marabou from Wapsi.

Step 9

Build a nice thread head and whip finish. Add some glue (gloss coat is what I recommend) and let it dry while you’re tying the second hook.

Step 10

Tie in at the center of the hook. Cut the tag and tie in the hard mason mono.

Step 11

This is what your looking for. Another thing you can use is fishing wire in 20 pound or this stuff called bead-a-line in .38. That’s how they are commercially tied. You can get it at Micheals.

Step 12

Tie in the mono and wind to the bend.

Step 13

Slide on the beads. I’m using a total of four and that’s pretty standard for these articulated streamers

Step 14

Slide on the back hook. Then thread the mono back through the beads and tie it down with few turns to lock it. This is where you can adjust where you want the mono to align everything straight.

Step 15

After you know everything is right, advance the thread back up where you tied in the mono. Cut any excess mono off.

Step 16

Take about 15-20 strands of multi-color flashabou. Cut them to the desired length you want. I usually cut mine a little past the back hooks eye.

Step 17

Now you are ready to repeat the same steps you did on the back hook. Since the hook is longer you’ll definitely want three marabou plumes in white. Make sure you tie in at the tips and wrap it around the shank.

Step 18

Make sure the body is full.

Step 19

This time we will wrap the olive around one or two turns. Trim off the rest. Wind back just a little on it to lay it down.

Step 20

Notice how much hook shank I have left for the wool head.

Step 21

Select a marabou plume and prep it like this. I like using a little darker one so it represents the gill plate. The body is usually pink and the gill plate is red. I’m using a fl. Pink.

Step 22

Peel of this much on each side for each side of the gill plate. T&A Rain.

Step 23

Once you’ve tied it on each side your ready for the wool to shape the head.

Step 24

So if you’ve ever worked with deer hair this will be tied in the same way you would stack hair. Cut a clump and tie it in the center. Make about three turns, keeping it from shifting. Don’t pull back and tie in front of it until you’ve tied the bottom clump in.

Step 25

Cut the same amount of white and tie it in at the center. Make a few turns locking this in as well. Pull back the olive and tie in front of it and then pull the white and tie in front of that. You can’t pull both back at the same time so don’t try to attempt it for a short cut.

Step 26

Repeat the process one more time.

Step 27

Showing you the front view.

Step 28

Trim it to shape. First trim the sides to be flat.

Step 29

Now cut the top and bottom to a round shape tapaering off towards the back.

Step 30

Glue on the doll eyes and you have yourself a killer rainbow pattern that moves like no other.