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- Hook: Mustad 3671, #18-12
- Thread: Danville's Prewaxed 6/0,
black
- Head: taper-drilled brass bead
- Weight (optional): .015 lead wire
- Tail: grouse body feather fibers
- Ribbing: fine gold wire
- Abdomen: tan or light brown dubbing
- Thorax: ostrich herl, brown and
white mixed
- Collar: grouse body feather fibers
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| The Ruff Drummer gets its name
from the the material used in the tail and hackle collar, the
Ruffed Grouse (referred to as "Drummers" in some areas. These
well-marked, soft feather fibers combined with the ostrich herl
thorax, create remarkable life-indicative movement, no matter
how the fly is fished. Lead wire and a brass bead gets it down
in a hurry, or you can omit the lead wire for a slower sink in
calmer waters. |
Tying Instructions:
Step One- weight
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| Use needle-nose pliers to smash
down the barb on the hook. Place the bead on the shank,
inserting the hook point into the smaller hole so this ends up
at the hook eye. Insert the hook into the vise. Take about ten
turns of lead wire around the shank, using your fingernails to
squeeze the wraps tight together. Push the lead wire up into
the brass bead, then secure the tying thread behind. Cover the
lead wire with thread wraps. To do this, use your fingernail to
push on the wraps, forward to keep it tight, then loosely wind
the thread over it in open spirals to the bead. Wrap back
loosely to behind the lead, then forward with tighter, closer
turns. Repeat until the lead is covered, build up a smooth
taper with the thread behind it, then wind back to the bend. |
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Step Two- tail and ribbing
| Select a well-marked
feather from the back of a ruffed grouse skin. Separate a
segment about as wide as the hook gap, then align the tips by
bending the segment toward the butt end. Hold onto the tips and
cut the segment from the feather. Use your right hand to fold
and pinch the segment into a bundle, then grasp the clipped ends
in your right hand. Hold this bundle against the hook to
measure for length (=3/4 hook shank). Switch the bundle back
to your left hand, using your thumbnail to mark the tie-in
point, and tie the bundle in at the bend: hold the bundle at an
angle and take a loose turn of thread around it; pull up on the
near side of the hook and let the thread torque pull the fibers
up on top- allow the fibers to splay a bit; take two more tight
turns of thread in front of the first to secure. Lash the butt
ends to the top of the shank up to the taper behind the lead
wire. |
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| Clip the excess at an angle and cover with the thread. |
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Wind back toward the bend a
couple of turns. Place the tag end of the wire ribbing on the
far side of the hook, yet in front of the tying thread. Take
two turns, pull down to tighten, and cover any exposed forward
wire with the tying thread, creating a smooth transition into
the taper. |
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Finish lashing on the ribbing by
holding it below the level of the hook shank and tightly winding
the thread back to the bend. The thread torque should move the
ribbing to the underside of the hook. Once at the bend, spiral
the thread forward one wrap in front of the tail. We are now
ready for the dubbing. |
Step Three- dubbing
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For the abdomen, you can use any tan or
light brown dubbing such as beaver or rabbit. Here, I have used a
blend of natural brown mink underfur mixed with about 1/4 as much
cream Antron dubbing. Spin the dubbing onto the thread without wax
(so we get a somewhat shaggy look), keeping it very thin near the
hook and getting a little thicker as you work down the thread.
Slide this up to the shank and take a turn around. Your second
turn with the dubbing goes behind this first one, and the next
overlaps it going forward. Essentially, what this does is lock down
the sparse fibers so we have a fully covered abdomen near the tail
with no thread showing and no excessively long stray fibers out over
the tail. Continue winding the dubbing forward in slightly
overlapping turns, filling in any gaps to maintain the tapered look.
Stop at the half-shank point and take a couple extra turns of
thread to anchor the last fibers of the dubbing. Note that the
brass bead covers a little more than 1/3 of the front half of the
shank...keep this in mind so you don't make the abdomen too short.
Counterwrap the ribbing by going up on
the far side of the hook, over the top, then down on the near side.
Keep the spacing somewhat close to get five or six wraps before you
reach the tying thread. We "counterwrap" the ribbing for a couple
of reasons. For one, it makes the ribbing more visible. The other
is to help bind the fibers so the shape is held through a few more
fish. At the front of the abdomen, bind the ribbing down with three
turns of thread and clip the excess wire with wire cutters. Use
your fingernail to push the clipped end down and cover this
completely with the tying thread...be careful as the sharp edge of
the wire can sever the thread.
Step Four- thorax
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Clip a full, long
herl from both a brown and a white ostrich plume. Place these
together, align the tips, and stroke the herl backwards toward
the butt ends to get the individual fibers to stand straight out
from the stems. Tie the two herls together on top of the hook
right at the front edge of the dubbed abdomen with three close
thread wraps. Clip the excess tips. |
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Form a dubbing loop with the
thread and anchor it directly on top of the tie-in point for the
ostrich herl. (Click
here to view a diagram of how to form the dubbing loop.)
Wind the thread forward to the brass bead. Place the two herls
within the dubbing loop. Stroke the herls and the loop
together, making sure all are taught, and clip the end of the
loop in a hackle pliers. Make sure both herls and both sides of
the loop are secured in the pliers, and that all materials are
equally tight. |
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Twist/spin the dubbing loop to
form a rope of the ostrich herl. Keep spinning until an even,
tight rope is formed. If some of the fibers tend to stick
together instead of spinning around the rope, gently wiggle them
with your fingertip. Once the rope is formed, wet your
fingertips and stroke all the fibers to the rear. Wind the
folded rope forward, every turn or so stroking the ostrich herl
fibers back out of the way. Wrap the thorax all the way up to
the brass bead, tie off on top of the shank with three turns of
thread (each on top of the previous turn), and clip the excess. |
Step Five- hackle
| Select a well-marked
body feather from the grouse skin. You can use the same feather
as the tail, or choose another with different markings.
Separate a segment as wide as the hook shank length and align
the tips. Grasp the tips in your left hand and clip the segment
from the feather. Carefully, so you don't misalign the tips,
switch the bundle back to your right hand and hold against the
hook to measure for length. They should be as long as the
shank, minus the area occupied by the brass bead (slightly
longer than the tail). |
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| Keeping the section of fibers
flat, insert them into a clip, the edge of which marking the
length. Trim the butt ends so they protrude about one and a
half hook eye widths from the clip's edge. Form a dubbing loop
immediately behind the bead and insert the edge of the clip.
Pull the loop taught and slide it off the edge of the clip to
trap the feather fibers. CAREFULLY remove the clip. If any
fibers get too far out of line, VERY gently tap them back into
place. |
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Twist the loop a couple times to
tighten it, then note the length that the material occupies in
the loop. The "rope" of hackle we are forming needs to be just
long enough to make one complete turn. If it's too short, VERY
CAREFULLY pinch a few fibers and move them along the loop. When
the length is right, spin the loop. As with the ostrich herl,
if any fibers stick together, nudge them along with a gentle
push. |
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Once you've spun a tight, even "rope,"
wet your fingertips and stroke all the fibers rearward. Take a full
turn with the loop to wrap the hackle, then tie it off on top. Clip the
excess loop, which should just be the extra thread. Whip-finish the
tying thread and clip. Run a bead of head cement all the way around the
thread just behind the bead while the hackle fibers are all still
leaning to the rear. Sneak in with your dubbing needle and stroke just
the ostrich herl thorax so the fibers stick straight out from the fly.
This will force some of the hackle fibers forward, which will stick to
the head cement and end up forming a nice, splayed collar.
The
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