The Backward Tied Fly is an ATTRACTOR pattern, good for searching for trout, or a Mayfly imitation, good to imitatate a like sized adult - or emerger if the wing is tied shorter, and the fly was tied with an antron or zlon sguck. So many options.

But it's the tying technique, wholly or in part, you will find useful. Read on...

Hook: this is a 2XL fine wire dry fly hook; I've tied similar flies on TMC2312, 2XL nymph, or other longer shank hooks. Thread: UTC70; Danville 6/0 (70D) color of choice; this is burnt orange Wing: one hank of dun poly material Tail: spade hackle fibers; these are CDL Hackle: furnce over abdomen; dyed golden yellow around wing/thorax Body: dubbing color and type of choice; this is seal; any dry fly dubbing is fine: here, the abdomen is olive, the thorax cinnamon/orange

Flatten the barb. Start thread behind eye, make 3-4 BA wraps; wax thread, then make 6-8 BA wraps, the, wind thread forward to about this position

Select rooster feather from cape of saddle, sized to the hook - fibers should flare about 1-1/2X the hook gap; prepare feather, orient with tip forward, top away. Wax thread; tie in hackle with tight BA wraps of thread, then continue making BA wraps to back of thorax area

Thread position detail, centered within thorax

Select a hank of poly material; orient on top of shank, with short section over eye, long end behind shank, with 2 wraps of thread

Select dubbing, dub to thread making a rope the correct length andd fullness to create the thorax

Pull front section of wing uproght, and dub back from where hackle is tied in to the wing; make enough wraps to hold wing upright in correct position

Now pull back wing portion upright and dub behind with tight wraps to support, then cover thorax area with dubbing. Trim long section to about the same length as the front section. NOTE: the thorax hackle will further secure and keep the wing in place

NOTE: this technique for the wing, hackle, thorax can be used when tying any mayfly wing, or post. The point is fly durability

There are two steps here. 1. wax thread, select a rooster feather with short fibers - this is a furnace saddle feather with size 20 fiber length; prepare, tie in with tip forward. 2. select tailing material; make BA wraps of waxed thread until it hangs over where barb was, then with 3-4 FA wraps of waxed thread tie in tail on top of the shank so fibers extend a shank +/- past the bend. Here, i moved the thread forward with tight FS wraps

Make a dubbing rope, leaving bare thread between tope and shank

Start dubbing abdomen where hackle is tied in, making BA wraps to where tail is tied in. Use the correct quantity of dubbing to create the abdomen. NOTE: since a large insect like this probably is thick, I'm not particularly concerned about tapering the abdomen. Besides, the hackle makes it fuiller, as you'll soon discover.

Make BS tuens of hackle, palmering the abdomen as full of sparse as you like. Maintain the initial angle of the feather - you can see the one I used by the orientation of the feather to the shank here afyer it was tied off with 1 turn of thread. NOTE: before I wound the hackle, I made 1 turn of thread under the tail fibers and over the shank.

With thread at the same inversed angle as the hackle, make tight FS wraps to back of thorax NOTE: the thread may capture hackle fibers; if so, unwrap that turn, then slightly move the thread from side to side, weaving it through hackle.

Trim saddle hackle end without trimming the tail Leave thread hang at back of thorax, then wind hackle back through the dubbed thorax area to the base of the wing, then under ajnd adjacent to the bavk of the wing, then back to the thread. Hold hackle upright, as it is here, then wind the thread through the hackle, as before, to the back of the eye. Whip finish; clip away hackle end. Tie more.

An extra: when I pulled the thread through on the whip finish, it was frayed and broke. 1. trim away excess - this is one reason I use wax: broken thread does not unwind. 2. restart thread in head area; wax; whip finish.

The fly and its kin czame out fine, and are ready to fool stream trout. I think a pattern like this would imitate crane fly adults, maybe with a spent or trude wing. Thart's what tying does when the imagination os free to wander trout streams and tying tables.