Masked Mayfly

Disguising a bead by turning it into a head with multifaceted insect eyes

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Masked Mayflies
Masked Mayflies
Nick Thomas

Sometimes tungsten beads are a necessity when you might rather not have one. A chunk of metal at the front of the hook may look out of place and spoil the look of an imitation, at least to the tyer, if not the fish. However, if you are fishing a deep pool or a fast run having some weight in your fly may be required to avoid it drifting totally ignored over the fish. You can of course use some copper, or other wire wrapped around the hook and hidden under the dressing, but that can bulk out a slim pattern and doesn’t add nearly as much weight as a tungsten bead. One approach that I use in several of my patterns is to disguise the bead, in this case by turning it into a head with multifaceted insect eyes.

Masked Mayfly
Masked Mayfly
Nick Thomas
Masking the jig bead
Masking the jig bead
Nick Thomas

Masked Mayfly

A jig where the bead is masked

Nymph
Nick Thomas
Hook Sprite S2200 #12
Bead Get Slotted 3.3mm copper jig off tungsten
Thread To match body color
Mask 3mm brown organza ribbon
Tails Pheasant tail
Abdomen Yellow and medium olive Vicuna dubbing
Legs Yellow partridge
Thorax Natural pine squirrel
  1. Push the hook point through the middle of a piece of 3mm ribbon next to the woven edge and then thread on the tungsten bead.
  2. Run on the thread and build up turns to lock the bead in place.
  3. Fold the ribbon around the sides of the bead, tie in and trim off the waste ends.
  4. Take the thread down to the bend, catch in the tail fibres and bind down up the shank.
  5. Tie in the rib at the bend, dub the abdomen and wind the rib in open turns.
  6. Tie in the rib, remove the waste and add a couple of turns of thorax dubbing.
  7. Strip the base of a partridge hackle, snip out the tip to form a V and tie in with the fibres on either side of hook.
  8. Dub the thorax up to bead, smear the thread with varnish and whip finish.
Easy
Drifting a Masked Mayfly
Drifting a Masked Mayfly
Nick Thomas
The result
The result
Nick Thomas
Image gallery for Masked Mayfly

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Selected by the system, based on these keywords: Mayflies | Nymphs | Beads | Jigs

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