Step-by-Steps: The Animal by John Terje Refsahl
Beginner / Brown / Caddis / Dry Fly / Hatches / John Terje Refsahl
Materials
Hook: Dry Fly Hook
Thread: 6/0 or 8/0
Tails/Underbody: Deer or Elk Body Hair
Body: Coarse Dry Fly Dubbing
Hackle: Brown Dry Fly Hackle, about 2X the hook gape long.
Head: Deer or Elk Body Hair
Secure the hook in your vise and attach your thread at a point about two hook-eye widths behind the eye.
Secure a small clump of deer body hair to the hook. Be sure that once this clump is secured in the following step, that the tips will stick out past the bend of the hook forming your tails.
Streamline the deer hairs rearward with your left hand. Secure it by bringing your thread rearward to a point directly above the barb.
Tie in a hackle feather at the point just above the barb.
Twist the dubbing onto your thread and dub the body forward. You want the body shape to resemble a cigar.
Palmer the hackle forward to the point where you initially started your thread onto the hook.
Trim any excess hackle, and then trim the deer body hair butts the same way that you would when forming the head on an Elk Hair Caddis.
Trim the hackle on the top and bottom of the hook so that you only have hackle sticking out from each side of the fly.
The finished fly.
This is a great caddis fly and it was created by a creative and innovative Norwegian flytier named Gunnar Bingen.
Gunnar has inspired lots of Norwegian flytiers with his flies.
If i`m not totally wrong “the animal (Dyret)” was originally done with the hackles cut only underneath.
It´s possible to vary the color on the body as you find suitable, and also cut the hackle over and under as i prefer.
I made this step by step to let you all have a chance to use Gunnars extremely efficient caddis fly.
Terje!
The fly looks great, not overdone but with good symmetric and easy to tie.
Do you have any good advice how to fish it properly?
I always start dead drift.
If that don´t work i start to vibrate the rod lightly to make tiny movements so that the fly kind of
shakes a bit.
I also prefer to let it go across the river like a swimming pupa, using the rod to make vibrating movements on its way across the river. When the swimming pupa are on its way to dry land, it kind of vibrates, and crosses the river in different speed. Sometimes the speed is reduced and then it speeds up again.
I´ll always try to imitate this movement but it sure is difficult……. but fun
Terje!
keepop degood work
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