"Hare's Ear With Flair!" by Chuck Kaminsky

This month's TIE THIS fly is brought to us by Charles "Chuck" Kaminsky. It is a variation of a hare's ear fly that works wonders.

In Chuck's words:
The traditional Hare's Ear Soft Hackle is a very successful fly and has been a staple in my fly boxes for as long as I can remember. The pattern itself is a very old fly pattern and is often referred to as a “Flymph” because it's not a dry fly, not a nymph and is too shaggy-unstructured to be a North County Spider.

I often say It's a little bit of everything because it’s not specific to any one thing and based on appearance and action I place it into the lane of a Jun Kebari. 

Big Brown Trout and his pal Chuck Kaminsky

The fly is a great impressionistic pattern that can represent a variety of aquatic life at various stages of the life cycle. Because this pattern is generic I feel its fits very well into the tenkara realm as it can be fished nearly anywhere in the water column and is effective using a cross section of techniques such as dead drift, pause and retrieve, tapping, lift and drop, down across swing, and by simply changing rod position you can move the fly into various levels within the water column.   
 
This variation is my attempt to add in a bit of flash and light to the traditional pattern to increase attraction and feeding response.  
 

Recipe: 
Hook:  My preferred hook is a slightly curved, down eye, 2x short, 3x heavy, in sizes 10-16.   
Note: The fly in the photos is tied on a barbless Fulling Mill FM51 15, size 12
Hackle: Hungarian Partridge 
Dubbing: Hareline Hares Ear Plus Dark
Thread: Uni Thread 8/0 Dark Brown - Another option is Dark Red. 
Ribbing: Pale Olive Flashabou
Head: Peacock Herl

Lets "TIE THIS!"
1. Place hook in the vise and lay in the thread foundation base finishing at the bend
2. Starting at the bend tie in the single strand of flashabou returning the thread to the bend
3. Wax the thread and dub in Hares ear body material. You can use a simple touch/twist dubbing method or use a dubbing loop (tyers preference) 
4. Wrap the dubbing forward building a tapered body. Ensure to leave enough space between the body and hook eye to tie in the hackle, herl head and allow room to whip finish.
5. Wrap the flashabou forward in 3-4 spiral wraps tying if off just in front of the body.
6. Prepare the hackle for a tip tie in
7. Tie in the hackle and wrap forward with 2-3 turns and tie off. 
8. Tie in the peacock herl.
9. Spin-Twist the peacock herl and thread together for durability.
10. Wrap forward to build the head - it typically takes 4-5 wraps. 
11. Tie off the herl and whip finish the head.