Slide the cone on and start the thread in the middle of the hook. Once you have it secured cut the excess off and tie in the wire.

To really make this look full of rabbit hair for the wing you need a wider cut than regular. The best cut would be Texas cut. Measure the tail to either be half or one full length of the hook shank. Split the hair before you tie it down. If the hair going towards the eye gets in the way while wrapping in-between, wet your fingers and stroke the hair, that should keep it back. Make about four turns keeping the thread in the same spot. Lift up on the strip and tie right in front of it, this will lock the strip and prevent it from shifting around the hook shank.

On this pattern I’m using dubbing. Build the body bigger as you go up the fly. I’m using the new prism dubbing. I’ve really became a big fan of this stuff. Try it out if you haven’t already.

Continue the dubbing all the way up. Remember to leave enough space for a collar of deer hair right behind the cone.

Since were tying deer hair over the rabbit strip we are not going spin the hair. Instead we are going to stack it. It really doesn’t matter what side to tie on either. When measuring how much will depend on how much “head area” you have left. If you crowd this area you will pay for it. You definitely need room to make this fly look proportioned right. And a rotary vise works better then taking the hook out of the vise. The rule of thumb when tying deer hair going from tight, tighter, tight. Three turns testing the tension of the thread the whole time. Once you made the turns, the hair should stay on that side. If they do shift I would hold the side of the hair opposite from you while your making your turns around the deer hair. That’s usually the problem. Now you’re ready to repeat the same thing on the top

Once you’ve tied the next clump then your ready to tie between the hair (butt ends) until you are right behind the cone. It usually takes about three turns.

If you’re trying to imitate a gill then tie in some accent flashabou and trim it to the length you

Tying in legs. This is when you would want to tie in the sili legs. I usually tie two on each side