Dorato's Hare's Ear

B

By Gary "GV" Meier)

Hook:  Tiemco 900 BL or your favorite dry fly hook  10 - 16
Tail:  None
Body:  ½ hare's ear and ½ Australian opossum blended
Hackle:  brown and grizzly - tied full and clipped
Thread:  tan

Directions:
1. Wrap thread from eye to half way down hook bend.
2. Dub a chubby caddis body and start wrapping from the point half way up the hook bend.  Finish the body half way down the hook shank.
3. Tie in oversized brown and grizzly hackles.  (This is your chance to use all those big hackles in size 6 and up that you don't know what to do with.)
4. Wrap hackle so that you get a mixed look.  Fill the front half of the hook shank with dense hackle leaving room for the head.  
5. Clip hackle flat on the bottom - even with the bottom of the hook gap.
6. Trim the rest of the hackle to a length of between the hook gap and 1.5 times the hook gap.
7. Build a small head and whip finish.
8. Scotchguard 'em.  This is the step that makes it possible for you to use the big hackles without much regard to the webbiness that would otherwise be problematic in a dry fly (Having said that, don't use feathers that are mostly web).  To do this, I dump all of my finished flies in a Mason jar and spray them down good with the Scotchguard.  That usually produces a surplus on the bottom of the jar that I swirl the flies around in until they are thoroughly saturated.  When that is done, I dump them out on some paper toweling and gently press out the excess liquid.  I then hang them up to dry.

USES:
1. Great searching attractor pattern for "pounding them up" when there are no bugs on the water.
2. Excellent pattern when tan caddis are hatching/egg laying.  Good either dead drifted or skittered.  It has been deadly for me when skittered across riffles and the head of pools just at dusk.
3. Superb indicator fly. Since these things float like corks, they are great for dry fly/ nymph combination fishing.  Each size will comfortably stay afloat with a weighted nymph of the same size (Assuming the nymph doesn't weight the earth!) tied to its hook bend.  Frequently, because of its power of attraction, I catch more on the indicator than the nymph I'm using despite the absence of any hatch.