The Mega Hare’s Ear
The Mega Hare’s Ear – By Dana Harrison.
I don’t know about you guys, but I hate winter. All I want to be doing is walking the banks of my favourite rivers looking for places to toss my fly. I really don’t care if I am delicately presenting a dry to a rising rainbow, tossing meat into a bottomless pool for bull trout or bouncing a nymph along the bottom for whatever may be down there; I just want to be fishing! Instead I am stuck inside hiding from the wet, cold, dark monster that is winter. I suppose if there were a silver lining to all this it would be spending time in front of the vise; something I don’t do often in the warmer months.
One of my most productive patterns last year was the classic Hare’s Ear nymph. So of course, why leave something the way it’s supposed to be when you can just mess it all up. I decided to make it bigger, because bigger is better and add rubber legs, because why not?! What I ended up with is probably something along the lines of a stonefly nymph pattern, but I am simply calling it “The Mega Hare’s Ear”. So without further ado, let’s get tying!
Recipe:
Hook: #6-10, 2x Long Nymph Hook
Bead: 4.6mm-3.8mm Copper Tungsten
Weight: .030 Lead Free Wire
Thread: UTC 70, Tan
Tail: Natural Deer Hair
Rib: Small Gold Wire
Body: Hare’s Ear Dubbing
Legs: Barred Rubber Legs
Wing Case: Natural Pheasant Tail
Wing Case Cover: UV Resin
Step One:
Pinch the barb on your hook. Place the bead on the hook and take approx 8 warps of .030 lead free wire. Make sure the wire is pushed up snug to your bead.
Step Two:
Start your thread directly behind the wire wraps and secure them in place. Continue taking wraps to make a small thread dam as well as over the wire a bit. The thread dam helps secure the wire in place tight against the bead.
Step Three:
Cut about a pencils diameter worth of natural deer hair from the hide. Removed the guards hairs from the hair by rolling the hair in your fingers and stroking them out. I also find a cheap dollar store comb can be very handy for this. Cut the deer hair to length, the tail should be ⅓ of the hook shank length. Secure the hair to the hook and secure it in place. The wraps closest to the tail should only be snug and not tight. If the wraps are too tight the hair will flare.
Step Four:
Tie in a length of small gold wire that will give you enough room to work with. This should be tied in at the bead and secured with thread wraps backwards toward the tail to secure it. Now make a slender dubbing noodle of Hare’s Ear dubbing on your thread. Create a tapered body to around the ⅔ mark. Now wrap the gold wire forward creating a rib and segmentation on the body. Capture the wire with your thread and secure it in place.
Step Five:
Helicopter or cut your wire free. Create another dubbing noodle of Hare’s ear and continue wrapping forward to the bead. Now cut 10-14 pheasant tail fibers free from the stem, make sure to cut the butts off even. Tie the butts in flush with the bead and take thread wraps backwards towards the tail capturing the pheasant tail to the top of the fly. You should wrap back to where you stopped the gold wire.
Step Six:
Tie in rubber legs on either side of the fly. Exact placement is personal choice of course, but as you can see in the photo I like to do it about an eye length in front of where the gold wire ended.
Step Seven:
Yet another dubbing noodle! Get a noodle started and fill in all the areas around the pheasant tail and rubber legs. Use the dubbing to get the placement of the legs just right. Bring the dubbing right up to the bead. Once you have reached the front of the fly pull the pheasant tail forward and capture it with your thread forming the wing case.
Step Eight:
Whip finish the fly right on your capturing wraps for the pheasant tail. Cut the remaining pheasant tail off and discard. Trim your legs to the desired length. The length is completely up to you! And finally, add a healthy coat of UV resin to the pheasant tail fibers and cure it with a UV light. Now get out there and fish it!
Dana Harrison
Dana Harrison is a local Kootenay kid, living the Kootenay Life. Avid fly fisherman, fly tier and Hook An Vice Ambassador, his favorite Hook And Vice cap is the LoPro Trucker – Hook.
Follow Dana on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/kootenay_kid
Watch Dana’s videos on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOXpZCYu52Sc43N83pXBLvg
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