Hook: Kamasan B405 #14. Silk: crimson, waxed. Body: Fiery brown seal's fur, mixed with complementary colours. Rib: silver wire. Body hackle: Dark furnace genetic hen - I suspect a variant. Head hackle: Magpie scalp.
Last year - before i'd even heard of a bumble - I found myself experimenting with soft palmered hackles - mostly over ostrich herl but also hare's ear - and fishing them in the surface and just below. They did very well for me, and are doing again this year. I usually tie them much sparser than this one, often stripping one side of the feather if it is a dense, genetic hen. It ain't pretty, but it is effective!
Thought it would be fun to tie it up more like the Derbyshire Bumble (My home county in the UK)- or bumble surprise, the surprise being it hasn't got a tail! This is all very soft, this fly, and ideally I would fish it on its own to rising fish, or fish just near the surface, just a short cast (all that's needed on this small stream) and maybe twitch it down a bit, just to get it under. Even though it is much bushier than I usually fish, 'll give it a go as i reckon it has a fighting chance of looking 'alive', in that it should move well. And it would make a good story if it catches...
Andrew.
