Tying Instructions: Barr Emerger, PMD (Wet)

1. Press the barb of the hook with the vise to flatten it, then place the hook in the vise with the point protruding from the jaws. This protects the hook from damaging the point during the tying.
Step One
2. Attach the thread and wrap back to the bend of the hook. This can be an arbitrary location since the entire hook is curved. Generally, it is before the bend goes directly down when the top of the shank behind the eye is level.
Step Two
3. Select a spade hackle from a rooster cape or neck. The spade feathers have longer and stiffer fibers and are located on the shoulders of the cape or neck.
Step Three
4. Tie in a clump of ten to twelve brown Spade hackle fibers. Keep the fibers together as a bundle as they represent the shuck of the mayfly nymph.
Step Four
5. Wrap the tag ends of the fibers to the top of the hook shank to the the 75 percent position of the shank. This will assist in knowing the abdomen size.
Step Five
6. Clip the tips of the fibers so they are flush with one another and are about 1/2 hook shank long. Wrap the thread back to the shuck tie-in position. Note that I am keeping the thread flat for a smooth abdomen.
Step Six
7. Apply the Olive Brown superfine to the thread, thinly applied. Secure the first fibers of the superfine with a wrap around the shuck tie-in position. Then, twist the dubbing around the thread for a tighter rope of dubbing.
Step Seven
8. Dub a tapered abdomen from the base of the shuck to the seventy five percent point on the hook with the olive brown superfine dubbing. Wrap the tying thread back up onto the front of the abdomen overlapping back to the +/- 60 percent point.
Step Eight
9. Select a Cream or Pale Olive hackle, this does not need to be a spade hackle but one with long fibers.
Step Nine
10. Tie in a clump of ten or twelve Cream hackle fibers at the front of the abdomen at the sixty percent point. Dub the thread with the PMD Superfine dubbing. This dubbing rope does not need to be a tight as the abdomen.
Step Ten
11. Wrap the dubbing to form a ball from the sixty percent point forward to the index point (one eye length behind the hook eye). Be sure to leave one eye length of bare shank behind the hook eye at this point as it will become important in the next step.
Step Eleven
12. Pull the Cream hackle fibers tightly forward over the thorax forming the wingcase. Bind them down behind the hook eye with two or three tight thread turns.
Step Twleve
13. Pull half of the remaining fibers back along the near side of the hook shank and bind them down with a couple wraps.
Step Thirteen
14. Pull the other half of the remaining fibers back along the far side of the hook shank and bind them down as well.
Step Fourteen
15. Whip finish and clip the thread. Clip the ends of the legs so they about the same as the wingcase. The finished Barr Emerger, PMD (wet version).
Step Fifteen

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