Realistic / Artistic Fly Tying Tutorial - Creating a Dragonfly

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Using a bodkin tip, preheated over a lighter flame, for a second or two, touch the desired bending point, and pull the bristles forward.

bending the bristle with a hot needle tip

The pincers are trimmed to length, and then small smooth faced pliers are used to flatten the tips.

flatten the tip of the cut bristle

The tips are then cut in the center with scissors and then shaped with the tip of a heated bodkin.

creating realistic looking claws

The piece of previously colored thin-foam-strip is tyed on as pictured below to start forming a head.

tying foam onto the hook to begin tying the dragonfly head

Next step is to tye on the eyes, one at a time, onto the top of the hook directly behind the foam.

The realistic eyes are tyed onto the hook

The foam is pulled back over the top, between the eyes, and secured with thread.

foam is folded back between the eyes to shape the head

Continue binding down the foam strip, far enough to fit three sets of legs underneath. Three brush bristles are tyed underneath the hook to create three pairs of legs.

three plastic bristles are tyed on the hook to begin creating legs

The thread is cut, and a coating of tinted varnish is thinly painted over the foam and threads wraps, and then set aside to dry.

the head and legs are removed from the vise

Finally, it’s time to start tying the dragonfly’s abdomen. A piece of copper wire is tightly secured in the vise.

wire is secured in the vise and covered with thread

This fly has a very strong wire, 22 gauge copper, which is then covered with thread wraps.

22 GA copper wire

I wanted a reddish orange tail to closely match the orange grizzly hackle that will soon cover the top of the abdomen. These feather fibers are tyed onto the end of the copper wire.

red fibers from the base of a golden pheasant are used to make a nice tail

The small red feathers at the base of a Golden Pheasant tail suited this purpose nicely, being exceptionally durable and pleasingly colorful.

Golden Pheasant tail

The next step is tying the tip of the orange grizzly hackle with the concave side facing up, ending as close to the end of the wire as possible.

orange dyed grizzly hackle tyed onto the wire

The tip of the blue and green parrot feather is then tyed on top of the orange feather, with the colorful side facing down.

blue parrot feather is also tyed onto the wire

The foam abdomen in placed under the wire with the cut side facing up. The wire should fit inside the foam, due to being hollowed out earlier with a hot bodkin. The very tip maybe tricky, but the feather will hide the wire if it doesn’t completely submerge into the foam.

Colored pre-shaped foam is now applied to the wire

Next step is to fold the feathers forward over the top of the abdomen, and wrap three tight turns of thread to create a segmentation point.

starting the segmentation process to create the abdomen

While holding the spool of thread out to the side of the fly, the foam is pulled downwards while the feathers are pulled upwards. This exposes the wire core and allows for taking the thread back onto the wire and wrapping forward to the next desired segmentation point.

thread is wrapped back onto the wire inbetween segments

Continue this process, moving the thread forward while keeping it only visible at segmentation points. (Sometimes it helps to use a marker and make pre-designated segmenting points by coloring lines onto the thread on the wire core.)

continue segmenting

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