The Monaltrie Queen
The Monaltrie queen was designed for the river Dee for Monaltrie fishing. The original fly was gifted to the Ghillie for this specific part of the river, and a group of Norwegian fly fishermen was behind the choice of colors. I simply put the fly together, and it will be fished for the first time spring 2015.
This step by step is dedicated for my friend Michal Skogland, a good friend who guided me on my first salmon trip.
Tail:
Body:
Ribbing:
Body hackle:
Throat:
Wing:
Head:
The Monaltrie Queen as a tube fly
The Original Monaltrie Queen by Long Nguyen
Crest and tippet
2/5 yellow Seal fur and 3/5 blue Seal fur
Flat silver tinsel and silver lace (or oval silver tinsel
Black Heron or Black dyed Eared pheasant
Barred teal
Yellow polar bear, dirty yellow temple dog, fiery brown temple dog, 2 strands of flash and a few peacock strands on the top
Jungle Cock and blue feathers outside (here I used fairy blue bird, but Kingfisher or a blue hackle will also do
Yellow cone
First attach the soft tube for the hook to sit inside to a Pro tube, put on a metal shank to add weight. I put some super glue before attaching the metal tube, so it stays firmly. It also make the body more durable as it wont bend.
Attach a tail of Golden Pheasant crest and a small orange tippet from the same bird. I put it upside down with the nice colors down, as the fish sees the fly from beneath sometimes.
Attach the flat silver tinsel and the silver lace before attaching the seal fur. I like to put 2 turning of seals fur before tying down the heron feather, that are going to be tied in the reverse way. Then put on the rest of the yellow seals fur.
Make the rest of the body with blue seals fur, make sure there are 2-3 millimeters of the metal tube free so tinsels and hackle can be tied down here. that way the body wont have a weak point in the front. Wind down the flat tinsel the normal way.
Okay, here I tok a big leap:
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first I tied the hackle reverse way on top of the flat tinsel
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then I winded the silver lace behind the flat silver tinsel, over the black heron hackle. That way the hackle gets secured each time the silver lace are overlapping the hackle stem
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then the throat should be applied. This one can be applied on the plastic part (I do one round of blue seal fur to hide the wrappings over the tinsels and hackle..)
Tie the underwing with the lenght of the tube, the main wing should be well tapered, so the underwing of polar bear, which should lift the wing upwards a bit, should be the shortest wing
Big leap again:
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Tie the first overwing (dirty yellow), then 2 strands of flash
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Then tie another teal hackle. This will prevent the head to get too big, and the throat will have more volume
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Attach the last part of the mainwing on the top, make sure its longer than the first 2 wings. Tie some strands of peacock hearl on top
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Put on the cheeks and cut all waste end. Apply superglue and finally the cone head.
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Cut off the waste end of the plastic tube, leaving 1 mm. Melt it with a flame, to make a nice finish Then it´s ready to swim!