Rosy Dawn

The Rosy Dawn is a wet salmon fly created around 1910, documented in Dr. T.E. Pryce-Tannatt’s 1914 book, How to Dress Salmon Flies, London, Adam and Charles Black.

Last Saturday, award-winning fly tyer Jim McCoul led a workshop in Stillwater. He took a small group of us back in time 100 years as we tied an authentic Rosy Dawn. Here’s the specifications.

Rosy Dawn

Hook:                         Daiichi 2052 Silver Salmon, size 3/0

Tag:                            Extra-fine oval gold tinsel

Tail:                            Golden pheasant crest

Tail Veiling:               Golden pheasant tippet strands

Butt:                            Black ostrich herl

Body:                          In two equal halves: first half is embossed silver tinsel; second half is medium oval gold tinsel. These sections are butted at the joint with a magenta hackle wound on as a collar and pushed back with one turn of thread.

Underwing:                Pair of golden pheasant tippets, back to back.

Throat:                        Magenta hackle

Wing:                          Married strips of yellow, blue and scarlet goose shoulder, then turkey tail strips.

Sides:                        Jungle cock

Throat Hackle:          Silver Doctor blue hackle.

Crest:                         Golden pheasant crest

Horns:                        Blue-and-scarlet macaw

Head:                         Black thread sealed with glossy clear head cement

Please stay on the line …