Let's tie this bug!
Straight shanked hooks are my preference and I use standard length although you could use a short shanked hook.  The tying thread is not critical in terms of color...try a contrast or something that blends, the choice is yours.  Start the thread, one hook eye length, behind the eye and using a long tag wrap back to the midpoint of the shank.  Keeping the tag and not cutting it off, wrap past it - keeping that tag at the mid point - and take your thread back towards the bend until you are in line with the hook point.  Begin wrapping back towards the tag you left behind and when you reach it do one wrap in front and stop.  Select the type of feather you are going to use - hen pheasant, hen capes, partridge, starling, or rooster hackle.  The length of the barbs on the feather should be at least the hook gap in length...I like about 1.5...  Expose the tip of the feather using hackle pliers or your fingers and stroke the remaining fibers back.  Tie in the tip of the feather and move your working silk up to the initial tie in point.  Now take the feather and the tag and line the tag end of thread up with the stem of the feather.  Using your fingers or hackle pliers pinch both the stem and the tag and start to to spin the two gently to entwine the tag thread and the stem.  Don't spin too much or the feather stem will break.  Just a few and then take a wrap around the hook shank then maybe spin a few more and repeat.  Stroke the fibers back as you go and do consecutive wraps up the shank to the waiting thread in a tight spiral fashion.  Tie off the feather and tag with two tight turns and then cut off.  Make a small head and whip finish.  If you have trapped any hackle fibers during the wrapping you can pick them out with a bodkin.

Adam Rieger

Let's tie this bug!
This fly is tied from tail working towards the head or eye. 
Tie in the red thread and form a body base working from the bend towards the eye of the hook but leaving room for the hackle that will be tied in shortly. Return the wrap back down to the butt of the fly.  The red butt is tied off with a simple half hitch then glued or left alone. (Your choice.) Now form a 2-2.5 inch dubbing loop and add 2-3 peacock herls. Use a dubbing loop spinner to create a thread and herl noodle, or you can bind the loop down in a plunger style hackle pliers and twist until the herl is tight. The dubbing loop makes the peacock herl "bombproof." Wrap the dubbing loop towards the head end, working your way up the shank. Note again that you must leave room for the hackle. Tie in Hackle in the normal dry fly fashion. (2 or 3 turns depending on how full or sparse you want it.) Finish the fly by building up a bead size head and add head cement to finish.

Jonathan Antunez