Spey Flies, Tying a Spey

Spey Flies

Tying a Spey is simple, and fun:

Frame 1. Wrap thread 2/3's down the shank.
Frame 2. Tie in your spey hackle by the tip 1/3 down the shank.
Frame 3. Tie in 3" piece of tinsel at tail end.
Frame 4. Spin dubbing on thread and dub a slender tapered body.
Frame 5. Wrap the tinsel that was hanging to the head of the body. Take pains to keep each turn evenly spaced.
Frame 6. Holding the butt end of the hackle. use a wetting agent or saliva, fold the hackle. This is the key step in speys. Lay the stem carefully in turns to the head. Most good hackles will allow 2 and 1/2 turns.
Frame 7. It should look like this if done correctly. Tie in and your biggest decision now will be the choice of winging.
Frame 8. Easiest winging tie is hackle points, as used here. Notice the large angle to the hook shank. The provides slightly additional feather action. In heavier water the hackle points can be doubled up which will require greater pressure to move them.

Tying time per spey 5-7 minutes.

As most successful tying the key is in the material. This spey was tied on a Partridge Wilson hook, Jack's Tackle Steelhead dubbing, Lagartum tinsel and Blue Eared Pheasant hackle.

Materials
For those wishing to try tying speys, blue eared pheasant capes are normally available thru FlyBuy (in FlyBuy listings under Pheasant).
An excellent source for small packets, is Siskiyou Aviary. Presently Siskiyou offers a 4. blue eared pheasant package. These feathers are from molting birds.

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Spey Flies, History and Ties

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