Dette Beetle by Nicole March

Thread: Black 6/0 
Uni 6/0
Superfly 6/0
Danville 6/0

Body: Black Deer Hair

Body: Peacock Herl

With your hook firmly secured in your tying vise, start your thread about a hook eye length behind the eye and run the thread down the shank of the hook. Stop the thread across from the barb before running it back up towards the eye where you initially tied it in.

 Tying in the Deer Hair

Remove a good sized clump of black deer hair from the hide, about the thickness of a pencil and prep it by brushing out the under fur. Trim the butt ends off flush and tie them in behind the eye. Before covering the waste ends, take loose and wide spaced wraps down the hook shank to tie down your deer hair. Once you’ve reached the end of the shank, bring the thread back up to the eye using tighter wraps to secure it in and then cover the butt ends.

Peacock Herl

With the waste ends cleaned up around the eye, bring your thread back down across from the hook barb and tie in three pieces of peacock herl by the tips. Leave your thread hanging in front of the herl as you wrap it forward it as this will help secure it better. The thread will advance up the shank with the herl. Once you have reached about a hook eye length behind the eye you can tie it off and trim the waste ends. I also recommend doing a quick whip finish or half hitch here before continuing.  

Creating the body

Now that the herl is secure you are going to take the deer hair from the back of the hook shank and bring it forward over the hook to create the beetle’s body.  Grasp the deer hair and bring it over the hook shank, keeping the hair on the topside of the fly.  Once you have it over the hook eye, take two loose wraps to hold it in place. You can now move it around a little bit to get it into a better position so that it resembles a beetle better before cinching down with that thread to lock it in.

Once you have it where you like it, pull the butt ends back and take a few wraps behind the eye to prop the deer hair up but DO NOT cut them off yet. Whip finish and snip your thread off. You can now trim the butt ends off to about half the length of the hook shank.

Creating the antennas

Looking down at the top of your fly, place your scissors in-between the butt ends and snip out the middle. You want to leave a few strands on either side. These will be the antenna. You are all done and can now finish your fly with a little head cement. Additionally, you may coat the entire back with a layer of flex cement to ensure durability.