Tying the Humpy

After playing with some Humpies over the course of a couple of weeks I've found that a couple of wraps around the base of each wing after setting them with my method doesn't hurt. If you don't do this the resulting wings can be a bit incoherent once you've wound the hackle. The same applies to wings made from calf body hair. Humpies are not a fly I've tied much over the past 20 years or so; I just don't fish them on the slower water I frequent. I've settled on a method Charlie Craven uses for doing these. He ties in the tail, then uses a separate bunch of deer or elk hair to tie in the wing. You can then control the bulk of the hump by trimming out a lot of the hair once the wing is tied in. You can also control the wing height exactly with his method. One thing that I've learned is how critical the thread is. I've seen many references to 70 denier UTC thread, or 6/0 Danville thread in recipes, and yes, they can work. That said, you will spend a lot of time twisting up the thread to make it strong enough to mount the wing and tail exactly where you want them. Wing placement is important to the success of this fly and the thread must be wound forcefully so the wing doesn't move after tie in. What works best for me is Lagartun 74D or 74 denier thread. You can really crank down hard with this thread and your wing placement will stay put at exactly the 1/4 shank mark. It is finer than either the UTC (denier ratings aside) or Danville, and much stronger. 50 denier GSP can also work, but the I find the colors are not as vibrant as the other threads mentioned. The hair used is important as well. Long and fine are the hair's most important attributes.

Step 1. Wind thread back to the bend, then unwind it 3 turns. If you tie in the tail right at the bend, you run the risk of the thread showing between the hump and tail later. Tie in a tail of either yearling elk or long fine deer hair. The tail should be about shank length. Take the thread forward to exactly the 25% point of the shank. I like to count the thread wraps as I wind back from the eye. That gets me there exactly every time assuming I've gotten it right once. If you miss the wing placement by just a little, you'll run into trouble with the hackle later.

 

 

Step 2. Tie in a bunch of cleaned and stacked hair. Be sure that all the short fibers are gone. Wing should be shank length or a touch longer.

 

 

Step 3. Trim out 1/2 to 2/3 of the hair.

 

 

Step 4. Bind down the hair on top of the hook all the way back to where the bend starts using your tying thread. If you don't go all the way back, the thread will show between the tail and hump when you fold the hair forward.

 

 

Step 5. Fold the butts of the hair forward to form the hump. Bind down just behind the wing and trim. Leave room for hackle behind the wing.

 

 

Step 6. Post up the wing with wraps in front, then continue wrapping almost to the eye and back. Repeat this process until the wing is upright.

 

 

Step 7. Use my method to separate the wings. Then, take a couple of turns clockwise around the base of the far wing and pull it up a little so it's a bit more upright. Pull the thread toward you, and wrap it over and around the shank behind the wings. This turn will be in the opposite direction that you normally wind. Now take a couple of turns clockwise around the base of the near wing, and pull it up a bit. Wrap thread to the hump.

 

 

Step 8. The wings should look like this from the side.

 

 

Step 9. To achieve dense and compact hackle, try the following: Start by mounting a brown and grizzly hackle together, bottom sides (concave sides) facing each other, the brown hackle to the rear. Leave some stem visible so that each hackle will start cleanly when wound. The idea here is that the strands on the brown hackle will cup forward a bit when wound, and the grizzly strands will cup backward when wound. Station the thread halfway between the wing and the eye.

 

 

Step 10. Wind the brown hackle first. Take two turns spaced very closely together behind the grizzly hackle. Then take a turn halfway to the back of the wing in front of the grizzly. Then pull the wing back and take the next wrap right in front of it. Finally, take a 5^th wrap right to where your thread is stationed. Tie off this hackle on the bottom with 3-4 wraps forward. The hackle will move up due to thread torque and wind up on your side of the hook just behind the eye. Trim it there, and take the thread to a point about halfway between the brown hackle and the eye. As you can see, we've created spaces between the brown wraps in which to wind our grizzly wraps.

 

 

Step 11. Wrap the grizzly hackle forward, trying to cover the 3 green spaces. Take 2 more wraps right in front of the forward-most wrap of brown hackle. The idea behind this method is to form “bookends” of hackle that contain the rest. The two close wraps of brown at the back cup forward, constraining strands in front of them. The two close wraps of grizzly in the front cup backwards, constraining strands behind them. The result is compact collar that doesn't have strands going everywhere.

 

 

Step 12. Here are the divided wings from the front.

 

Humpy Recipe

Hook: TMC 100BL or similar dry fly #6-18

Thread: Lagartun 74D or UTC 70 in fluorescent orange, yellow, green, or red

Tail: Yearling elk or long fine deer hair

Wings and Hump: Yearling elk or long fine deer hair

Abdomen: Thread

Hackle: Brown and grizzly saddle hackle