Mahogany Duns with Different Wing Variations

I just finished tying a custom fly order and decided the next flies from the vise would be a few Mahogany Duns with different wing variations. Now is the time of year when you might find Mahogany Duns hatching and floating down your favorite river. It hasn’t been a hatch I’ve fished much, but others look forward to this hatch.

I don’t usually tie and fish flies with upright wings like these. The fly on the left was tied with Mallard slips to create the separated upright wings. On the right, I selected a turkey flat, a much simpler wing to tie.

The fallacy is after a few casts, the wings on both flies will appear very similar. The Mallard slip fibers will separate. But you know what? The fish won’t care!

I haven’t tied flies with Mallard slips in quite a while, so I thought I’d give them a try.

They didn’t turn out perfectly. My wing proportions weren’t consistent and the fly on the left shows the wings split as I tried to manipulate them. Notice the different hackle colors.

I remembered a saddle and cape I wanted to use to tie these flies. I pulled out a Whiting Heritage Hackle saddle – mixed combo (similar color to the cape) and a Whiting Hebert Miner Pro Grade cape – dark brown dun. The saddle is on the left in the image below and cape on the right.

I didn’t follow any fly pattern sheet. I just pulled out some materials and tied a few flies. I fish a lot of cripple patterns and that’s why I selected a Zelon tail.

Here is another image highlighting the different wings.

Tying an upright wing with Mallard slips isn’t the easy for many fly tyers. It’s why I wrote this post today encouraging you to give turkey slips a try.

Here is an example of what I do to create the wing. Below I selected one feather with even tips. Notice how I’ve separated the fibers. I’ll remove those and fold the fibers to create a wing.

Below is the folded section I’ll use to create the wing.

You could tie them in one bundle, which is what I did on the fly, or split them to create a look of a Mallard slip.

Again, I don’t think the fish would care!

I tied this style of fly several years ago with turkey flats to imitate BWO’s. I shared an Olive Thorax as one of my early Throw Back Thursday Fly posts.

I might find time in the near future to tie some flies in smaller sizes, like 18 – 20, to imitate BWO hatches I MIGHT run into.

Oh, and that fly I was tying for a customer…it was a Drowning Moth in sizes 12 and 14. This is a size 14 next to a nickel.

Enjoy…go fish!