How to tie 'The Scruffy Olive' - it won't win any fly-dressing guild prizes yet it WILL catch you some fish - that's 'if' you use it properly!
The video herein is as rough and ready as the fly itself (I am 'not' Spielberg!) but it gets the general picture across. The very fine thread actually bust after I had completed the whip finish but that didn't matter a jot as the job was done and we didn't have the time to shoot the video again.
I made this fly primarily as an example of the innate 'simplicity' required in river dressings, which will do what it's supposed to do and that's catch wild trout, grayling etc.
It 's just a rough olive type dressing which can be tied in sizes ranging from numbers 20 to 12 and which will cover a great many species of fly found on the river.
This particular pattern has a tail and hackle of short grizzle cock and a body made from dubbed on pale grey rabbit fur on grey thread. The fur is courtesy of our old family pet rabbit 'Colin' (cheers Col) who quite likes me to comb out a little of his coat on hot days when he's moulting. The hook in the video clip was a size 10, used mainly for ease of viewing yet I would rarely use such a large meat hook for general purpose dry fly angling unless something like large green duns or perhaps brook duns were drifting down the stream. It's a wingless version and due to its short hackle sits quite low in the water imitating either a hatching fly or one that is perhaps drowning.
Flies like this fellow can be knocked up very fast and don't worry if they are ragged and scruffy looking affairs as this actually adds to their fish-catching appeal.
Here is the finished 'Scruffy Olive' just waiting for a chance to prove its worth on a nice spate stream - go fetch boy!
Thanks go to Kyle for his patient efforts in helping me get this fly videoed and online.