Teal Blue & Silver

Wet fly imitating baitfish, for sea trout and trout. Intermediate.

A golden pheasant tippet tail, a flat silver body with a wire rib, a blue hackle throat and a barred teal flank wing.

Materials

Steps

  1. Attach thread Attach the thread at 90% of the way along the shank with a few turns and trim the tag end.
  2. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to the start of the bend in touching turns.
  3. Tie in: golden pheasant tippet Tie in the golden pheasant tippet, leaving 1.2× the gape sticking out behind, angled about 6° up from the shank. Five or six fibres, so the black bars show at the tips.
  4. Tie in: silver wire Tie in the silver wire with a few firm thread turns.
  5. Tie in: silver flat tinsel Tie in the silver flat tinsel with a few firm thread turns.
  6. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to 88% of the way along the shank in touching turns.
  7. Wind: silver flat tinsel Wind the silver flat tinsel forward to 88% of the way along the shank in 14 turns. Touching turns, untapered.
  8. Tie off: silver flat tinsel Tie off the silver flat tinsel with a few thread turns and trim the excess.
  9. Wind: silver wire Wind the silver wire forward to 88% of the way along the shank in 5 turns. Open turns, protecting the tinsel.
  10. Tie off: silver wire Tie off the silver wire with a few thread turns and trim the excess.
  11. Tie in: kingfisher-blue hackle fibres Tie in the kingfisher-blue hackle fibres under the shank as a beard, reaching 1.1× the gape back.
  12. Tie in: teal flank feather Pick a feather about 0.6× the gape wide. Tie in the teal flank feather so the tips reach over the bend (2.2× the gape from the tie-in point), angled about 16° up from the shank. A section of teal flank folded lengthwise, so the barring shows on both sides; start wider than you think.
  13. Whip finish Form a small head, whip finish with 5 turns and cut the thread. Varnish the head black.

History

One of the Teal series of Scottish loch and sea-trout flies, which share the barred teal wing and vary the body and hackle. No originator or date is recorded. Tom Stewart saw it as a pared-down Silver Doctor. R. C. Bridgett's 1929 ranking of the ten most popular Scottish sea-trout flies includes a "Teal & Silver", which may or may not have had the blue hackle.

Fishing it

Above all a sea-trout fly. Stewart rated it highly for sea trout, and for salmon in brackish water, where it passes for fry or sprats; small sizes take brown trout at night in high summer. On lochs and rivers it shows up well in coloured water, and it does best in September and October, when trout are chasing fry.

Sources