Note how the wings of this little Baetid Dun are still slightly compressed, creating a number of highlights. I have seen this so many times, even when the dun is close to emerging as a spinner, the wings are still not fully formed, or as I say, fully pumped up. As you can see, the colours of the wings are not flat, they have highlights. This possible trigger point can be represented with a small bunch of Dark Grey Dun fibres or the Blue Dun blend. Play with the colours and you will see what I mean.
Note the highlights and valleys in our “Dark Blue Dun” Trigger Point material and compare it with the picture of the natural dun above. It will give you some idea of just how versatile this range is.
Another pattern that I used this versatile colour combination on was a Spider Dragonfly Nymph (in Australia we call them Spider Mudeyes) and one of the key features of this pattern is that the method used creates bulk without weight.
Blue Duns
Blue Dun, Blue Winged Olive, Pale Morning Dun are all very similar in wing
colouration; some are just lighter than others. In the TPI range we
currently have two shades of blue/grey, light and a slightly darker version.
With these two colours alone they make up around 85% of the tonings
required to match most of the grey winged mayflies we find around the world.
The balance is either a little lighter or darker. This is easily covered
by blending your materials; a little black not only gives wing venation but
also darkens the texture. On the other hand, a little Quick Silver
added to the PMD lightens the colour and again adds wing venation.
We use lightweight patterns like this during the larva’s migration to the
shoreline, where they then hatch into an adult dragon fly. During this
migration they often swim into the shoreline high in the water column. It
is this practice that makes this pattern so effective.
To create the body you simply take a bunch of March Brown fibres about
2˝ inches long and tie them all together around the centre of the bunch with
three or four turns of tying thread. This will hold all the fibres in place
and you can even touch it with a little cement if you like.
Fold the bunch in half and tie onto the shank leaving as much of the folded
section protruding out over the back of the hook as you want. It
should now look like a loop tied onto the hook.
Take the butt sections and fold them back into the open space in the loop.
You may have to trim the butts to fit in the space. And that’s it; you
have a very lightweight body. You can add your pheasant tail legs (I only
use four because trout can’t count, I hope), plastic eyes and use a bit more
of the March Brown winging material to dub the body.
The Silver-Grey whether tied with a full collar hackle for fast water or parachute for glides and pools is one of my favourite Blue Dun patterns. The wings are made from the Quick Silver blend.
