Thanks everyone for the kind words.
Once again it is an imitation of a natural that we so not share over here. My understanding is it is the female of the species that shows the red/claret at the butt as an egg sack or egg depositing fixture at the rear end and the male should be olive in the abdomen? Seems most every older tying book toy look in will have a different pattern, but generally as a wet fly they call for a dark slate coloured wing, that is why I went for the dark gun metal grey/blue in the thorax to maybe give the impression of bursting wings.
The abdomens are maybe a bit long and indeed the whole fly a bit large, just playing and practising, did tie some on #16 to try locally...... just incase. We have a mayfly spinner that is very popular here and has a mahogany/red abdomen.
#16 1XL
Red wool abdomen, touch dubbed with light grey wool.
Both of these use lighter coloured blue rabbit underfur.
I like the biots as they form a quick, easy slender body with "built in" segmentation and they save me stripping the fluff of the bronze peacock I have just to get stripped herl!
