Olive Trout Fin

Hook: Standard wet fly hook, size #2 to #10

Thread: White Danville Flymaster 6/0 for body, black for head

Tag: Flat silver tinsel – fine size French or #16/18 Mylar

Tail: Narrow sections of duck or goose wing quill – 2 barbs each of white, black, and red; married to and topping slightly wider orange

Rib: Flat narrow silver tinsel

Body: Olive floss

Hackle: Black

Wing: Narrow sections of duck or goose wing quill – 2 barbs each of white, black, and red; married to and topping remainder of orange

Head: Black

The High Priestess wet fly - an original classic design by Don Bastian. This hook is a #6 vintage Mustad 3399 Sproat Bend Wet Fly Hook.

High Priestess

Hook: Standard wet fly hook #4 to #8

Thread: White Danville Flymaster 6/0. Use white due to the orange floss tag. All colors of floss except black should be wrapped over a white thread base. From the perspective of fishing flies, floss over white thread retains truer colors when wet. This is especially true on light colors like orange, yellow, pink, light blue, etc. but even on dark colors like red, brown, purple – floss over black thread gets very dark when wet. Wet floss over white thread retains its true colors.

Tag: Orange floss

Tail: Orange, guinea fowl, dark blue, married

Rib: Yellow floss – you can see it is twisted and resembles wire. Twist the floss first by hand, this enables you to then grasp it with hackle pliers. Increase the twist more efficiently with hackle pliers – use a clockwise for right-handed tiers. This is because the twist will increase by 1/2 turn with each wrap. You don’t want the floss rib to untwist as you wind it. Lefty’s- reverse the procedure.

Body: Black floss

Hackle: Yellow

Wing: Narrow sections – 2 barbs each – of yellow and dark blue duck or goose wing quill, married to and topping yellow

Cheek: Kingfisher

Head: Black