2. Start the thread just behind the lead. Bind three fibers from a turkey quill along the shank to the hook's bend. Pull the two outside fibers out, and then take a few turns of thread over the center fiber and against the rear of the side fibers--the tails should now be well spread and equal half to two-thirds the shank length.

3. Bind a section of turkey quill on top of the shank, behind the wire, to the bend. The section should be about half the width of the hook gap.

4. Trim both sides of a large dry-fly hackle, leaving stubs about 1/8 inch long. (Or you can strip one side and trim the other, which tends to come out a little neater.) Bind the hackle by its tip, up the shank to the lead.

5. Tie in gold wire on the far side of the shank and secure to a point just short of the bend. Dub a tapered abdomen from the tails to slightly past mid-shank. Trim off the butts of the turkey, hackle, and gold wire behind the lead.

6. Wind the hackle up the abdomen with five to eight turns. Bind its end at the front of the dubbed abdomen. Trim the butt of the hackle. Trim the hackle fibers only on top of the abdomen.

7. Draw the strip of turkey forward, on top of the abdomen, and bind its end. Rib the abdomen with the gold wire--try to wind the wire between the turns of hackle. Try to avoid binding down hackle fibers under the wire; pull any trapped fibers out with your bodkin, or zig-zag the wire through the fibers. (You may find this easier to accomplish with the one-sided hackle I mentioned in step 4.) Bind the end of the wire at the front of the abdomen.

If the gills (hackle fibers) look a little long, trim them slightly along the sides. Use the photos from step 9 on as a guide to gill length.

8. Trim off the ends of the turkey section and wire. Tie down a slim strip of clear Scud Back or Stretch Flex over the lead, back to the abdomen (an optional step). Bind another section of turkey, about two-thirds as wide as the gap, on top of the Stretch Flex.

9. Strip the fluff from the base of a partridge feather. Strip most of the long fibers off the sides. Try to keep the tips even. Bind the fibers on top of the lead (tips forward) halfway between the bead and abdomen. Trim the butts and bind them.

10. Pull the fibers back firmly and crease them upright with your thumbnail. Set the fibers upright by building tight turns of thread up against them.

11. Dub a thorax up to the bead.

12. Divide the fibers, then pinch them down hard with your thumb, or with something flat and hard like the sides of your scissors blades. This should splay the fibers like real nymph legs.

13. Pull the turkey section forward and down over the abdomen. Bind the section behind the bead with several tight turns of thread. Pull down the clear strip over the turkey and bind it at the bead. Trim the turkey and clear strip closely, make a whip finish, trim the thread, and add head cement to the whip finish. Trim the hackle fibers on the underside of the abdomen if you wish.

14. Two versions of the Skip Nymph alongside an Anatomical Callibaetis.

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Skip Morris is the author of more than ten books on fly fishing and tying. His latest is Morris on Tying Flies (Frank Amato Publications, 2006).

This article originally appeared in the May 2007 issue of Fly Fisherman.

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