The “mohican mayfly” developped by Oliver Edwards is one of my favorites. This fly catches very well, it is almost unsinkable and holds up very well even after many hooked fish.
This fly immitates the stage in which mayflies have just pulled their wings out of the hull of the nymph and are beginning to unfold them. In the original fly, this is achieved by a parachute hackle which is pushed into a triangular shape by the foam. I have altered this a little bit and use two CDC-feathers instead.
The ingredients:
hook: Daiichi 1160 #10
tail: mallard flank or bucktail, pheaseant tail etc.
abdomen: white foam in 2mm
wing: tan CDC and roe deer hair (I like to use the color “yellow-olive”, but anything is fine)
dubbing: e.g. “SwissCDC Argentinian Long Hare” color “natural” or any other spikey dark dubbing
waterproof markers in yellow and brown
Here is a step by step instruction in pictures:
1. The body is made from 2mm-foam in white. I cut a strip of about 3mm in width and 10cm in length from the foam.2. A thin needle is placed in the vise and the thread wound almost to the point.3. Three fibres from a mallard flank are used as the tail – you can use other materials as well.4. Winding an “extended foam body” is a difficult to explain – just look for it on Youtube. You wind a segment, and then wind forward on the needle, then a segment again asf.5. You wind 7 or 8 segments, ideally the size will increase slightly as you go.6. After the last segment, tie it off, and carefully pull the body from the needle. By rolling the body between your fingers you can shape it a little.7. If you like, you can color it with markers – it won’t make a difference for fishing, but it looks nice 🙂8. Tie the body to a klinkhamer hook.9. Tie in a bundle of roe deer hair as a wing. Rather make the wing to short than to long – a long wing might unbalance the fly in the water and will be difficult to cast.10. Clean up.11. Wind the thread around the deer hair as in a parachute fly.12. Tie the foam to the back of the wing.13. Tie in two CDC-feathers losely.14. Here is the same from above.15. Pull the CDC feathers so that two triangular wings are created.16. Cut the CDC at the ear of the hook and secure with thread.17. Wrap some dubbing around the thorax.18. Pull the foam forward on both sides of the deer hair.19. Here is the same situation in a closeup from above.20. Cut the foam, wind to secure (careful, the foam likes to slip!)21. I like to color the head dark and put a drop of glue on it – DONE22. The finished fly.
