It’s been a while since I’ve tied. But I saw this fly over on Rivertop Rambles’ website under the blog titled “Welcome to Paradise”. It’s called a ‘Bleeding Heart’ and I believe it may either be a creation of one Mr. Bob Stanton, or at the very least, I was inspired by his tie of this fly as pictured there. Bob shared the recipe with and intermediary (thank you Walt!) that passed it along to me. Below are my attempts to tie this great looking fly. Click here if you want to go check out the original picture I was inspired by.

Yes, there’s a hair outta place and the thread head isn’t so neat but… you get the idea. This is a size 12 Orvis hook – a 1639 – Down eye, 1X Fine, 1X Short Shank. The gold tag and rib I used was fine oval gold tinsel. Bead was from JoAnne’s Fabric shop, a 8/0 Czech glass ‘seedbeads’, ruby in color. Dubbing was a mix of Hare’s Ear(HE) Krystal Dub and HE Ice Dub. I laid down 4 or 5 turns of flattened 0.020″ lead under the dubbing. Finally, I used Whiting Brahma Hen for the hackle. I’m sure a grouse or partridge could be used and might be in the original recipe.

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Then I had to experiment a little. The olive one didn’t turn out too badly. The March  Brown one,  well it looked better in person. It’ll catch a fish!

I can’t wait to try these out next Spring and Summer!

UB