These two flies get their names from the Tutu, the short skirt made of multiple layers of thin material, worn by female ballet dancers. In the Tutu-1 stripped silk ribbon is wrapped around the hook to give the impression of unfolding legs of an emerging insect. In the Tutu-2 the same ribbon is wrapped around a wing post to imitate the legs of a hatched fly.
Silk ribbon
Nick Thomas
Tutus are tied with natural silk ribbon that’s made from actual silkworms, as opposed to the semi-synthetic stuff that’s made from cellulose extracted from bamboo or wood fibres. Most commercially available silk ribbons are made with artificial silk, and they are fine for tying soft body pupa patterns and for little fish imitations like my Silky Bugger. Real silk ribbons have much finer fibres which allows them to imitate the legs on smaller imitations
Preparing the ribbon is pretty straightforward, the trick is not to strip out too many fibres at once otherwise they will tend to get stuck and slow down the process.
Cut a piece of ribbon around 5cm/2inches long and trim off one of the woven edges.
Clamp one end of the remaining edge in your tying vice jaws.
Pull the ribbon taught and use a dubbing needle to pick out the fibres that run along the ribbon until you reach the woven edge.
Save some of the stripped fibres for dubbing the thorax of the Tutu-2.
Tutu-1
Nick Thomas
Tutu-1
Emerger
Nick Thomas
Hook
Fulling Mill FM50 60 #14/16
Thread
Semperfli 18/0 Nano Silk
Abdomen
Brown DMC metallic thread
Legs
Stripped 7mm brown natural silk ribbon
Thorax
Natural pine squirrel dubbing
Wing
Fulling Mill tan and light dun ultra-dry yarn
Run on the thread, catch in a length of DMC thread and tie in down the hook.
Twist the thread to cord it up and wind forward in touching turns, tie in and remove the waste end.
Snip the fibres from a short section at the end of the stripped ribbon and tie in this section.
Wind forward in touching turns, tie in and remove the waste.
Tie in the wing fibres by their middle in front of the wrapped silk.
Dub over the thread turns. Lift the front fibres and wrap the thread just behind the hook eye.
Fold the rear fibres over the dubbing forming the wing case and tie in.
Lift the wing and add some turns of dubbing to lift up the fibres.
Whip finish, remove the thread and trim the wing to length.
Easy
Tutu-1 - emerging
Nick Thomas
Tutu-2 - emerged
Nick Thomas
The Tutu-2 is intended to represent a Tutu-1 after it has fully hatched. The silk ribbon is wound around the base of the wing in the same way as a parachute hackle.
Tutu-2
Nick Thomas
Tutu-2
Dry fly
Nick Thomas
Hook
Fulling Mill FM50 60 #14/16
Thread
Semperfli 18/0 Nano Silk
Abdomen
Brown DMC metallic thread
Legs
Stripped 7mm brown natural silk ribbon
Thorax
Dubbed silk fibres
Wing
Fulling Mill tan and light dun ultra-dry yarn
Run on the thread, fold the ultra-dry yarn around the hook from underneath and secure with cross wraps a little way back from the hook eye. Add thread wraps around the fibres to form the wing post.
Catch in a length of DMC thread and tie in down the hook.
Twist the thread to cord it up and wind forward in touching turns, tie in and remove the waste end.
Snip the fibres from a short section at the end of the stripped ribbon, catch in at the base of the wing post and then tie in up the post.
Dub some silk fibres onto the thread and wind around the hook behind and in front of the post.
Attach a pair of hackle pliers to the ribbon and wind around the post down to the hook.
Hang the hackle pliers in front of the wing post on the near side of the hook, pull back the post and legs, tie in the ribbon and remove the waste.
Whip finish, remove the thread and trim the wing to length.
The Global FlyFisher has been online since the mid-90's and has been free to access for everybody since day one – and will stay free for as long as I run it.
But that doesn't mean that it's free to run.
It costs money to drive a large site like this. See more details about what you can do to help in this blog post.
