The Usual
By "The Grizzled Veteran" Gary Meier
Hook: TMC 900 BL or your favorite dry fly hook, size 16 - 20
Thread: Hot Pink 8/0
Tail: Guardhair from the foot pad of a snow shoe hare - length of hook shank
Wing: Guardhair from the foot pad of a snow shoe hare - length of entire hook
Body: Dubbed underfur from foot pad of a snow shoe hare
Hackle: None
Tying Instructions: Tie on thread, wind to point midway between hook point and bend covering hook shank (Editorial comment: don’t forget to bend down the barb as the first operation if you are using a barbed hook!). This will be your tail tie in point. Spiral thread back toward hook eye, stopping just far enough from the eye to allow for a head. Grab a clump of the springy hair on the pad (bottom) of the foot of a snowshoe hare suitably sized for a fan wing (Since the hair here is extremely dense, pinching the proper amount is the most difficult part of tying this fly – really!). Pull out underfur and save. You will be using it for the body. Tie in wing material and wind thread over the material back toward bend 3 or 4 turns. Return thread to wing tie in point. Lift wing to vertical and wrap thread tight in front of wing to keep it that way. Move thread back behind the wing. Grasp wing material between thumb and index finger of both hands. Pull and spread material into a fan shape, the bottom of which is roughly even with the bottom of the hook shank. Clip wing excess material extending beyond the hind most thread wraps at an angle. Spiral thread back to the tail tie in point. Grab enough pad hair for a thick enough tail to balance and float the fly (Not too thick. Not too thin. Just right!!!!) Again, pull out the underfur. Measure material and cut to match up with wing butts. Tie in and wrap thread to make a tapered underbody. Return thread to tail tie in point. Apply a heavy coating of a good dubbing wax to the thread. (The hare’s foot underfur is not easily dubbed without it.) dub a semi-sparse, tapered body of the underfur you saved from the wing and tail. It should look solid when you finish, but you should be able to faintly see the tying thread through the dubbing when you apply floatant on stream. Wrap body to base of thread wing. Whip finish head, lacquer head, and viola, you have your finished Usual.
The finished Usual looks a lot, according to my wife who is expert in these things, like an unkempt lintball tied to a hook. What the trout think this thing is, is beyond me. Presumably some kind of midge. I guess you’d have to say it falls into the generic category of “buggy lookin”. It will catch fish on top when nothing else will move them to come up. This little “piece of lint” It has saved my day on numerous occasions when my other go to attractors (parachute Adams and Royal Trude) have failed miserably and there is no visible surface activity. Without it I would have been stuck fishing nymphs.
The Usual is a low maintenance fly on stream. The guard hair is naturally water repellant and the more fish you catch, the buggier the fly looks and the better it works. I have enticed snooty browns to rocket up from the bottom of four foot deep pools for a Usual that has mostly just thread left on the body.
This batch of Usuals was tied with the summer brown snow shoe hare (feet pruned from a road killed hare a couple of summers ago) which is my favorite. You can also tie the Usual using the white winter hare variation. That will also catch fish and will also, occasionally, be the fly the trout prefer. Rabbit hunting friends provide me with the winter feet that I need. You can also get them from Hunter’s catalog. I carry the Usual in both the brownish-grayish color I tied for the swap and the creamish-grayish of the winter hare.
Check out this link for more tying instructions: Tying The Usual