Bunse’s Natural Dun, A Work in Progress

In today’s post, I’d like to share a work in progress, a fly I’ve been meaning to master for at least 3 years. After all, Richard Bunse created Bunse’s Natural Dun for the Green Drake hatch on the Metolius River. Why wouldn’t I want to do the fly justice?

Except for a couple pieces of moose hair for a tail and deer hair for the wing, the image above shows all I need to tie the fly. I made a template several years ago as a guide to cut foam with the exacto knife. I color the foam with a Prismacolor marker. The only materials remaining are a hook and thread.

I’ve used the Bunse Natural Dun over the years. It’s an effective imitation for the Green Drake hatch, but somehow I’ve gone away from it and use my version of a Sparkle Dun most of the time.

My fly on the left was a feeble attempt, which is why I’ve been thinking I need to spend time refining my technique. Did the fish eat it? Yup, but the fly deserves better!

I featured the Bunse Natural Dun back in June 2019 in a Throw Back Thursday Fly. In that post, I wrote “This is a fly I tried to tie many years ago without much success. It wouldn’t turn out like the ones I bought at my local fly shop. I recall fish rising to my imitation, but I was never satisfied with the results of tying my fly.”

Less than a year later, I was thrilled to see a comment from Richard Bunse who “stumbled” across my post. It turns out we had something in common…we both learned to tie flies from Wayne Doughton, who owned Doughton’s Hardware in Salem, OR. Lots of great fly tyers can point to Wayne as a person who influenced them, including a couple of great fly tyers I know, John Shewey and Jay Nickolas.

Richard shared how the fly’s name came about in his comment:

“I’m glad that a few anglers are using the Bunse Natural Dun. Here is a little history about the name. I never liked attaching my name to a fly so Dave Hughes began calling it the Wonder Dun in jest. I have always been dogmatic about only using natural materials and averse to using synthetic materials for tying flies. Another fishing friend John Rodriguez started giving me a bad time for tying with plastic foam. John began facetiously calling it Bunse’s “Natural Dun” unfortunately that’s the name that stuck.”

Green Drakes happen to be my favorite Mayfly. Here are a few of my favorite images I’ve taken.

And I hope you remember this sequence from earlier in the year…

I was fortunate to capture this Rainbow Trout rising and eating a Green Drake!

But back to my work in progress to tie a better fly.

Richard shared a post with me of Skip Morris from his book Tying Foam Flies via Fly Anglers Online and their Fly of the Week – Bunse Green Drake Dun.

I’ve read and followed the instructions and am finding how important proportions are for tying this fly. Actually, that can be said for just about every fly I tie!

Here are the first three.

I used olive thread and will now try them with yellow and brown, which more imitates the natural insect.

In addition, I tried coloring the foam and adding a polyurethene spray over it before tying the fly. I’m finding it doesn’t work for me as the coating seems to flake off.

The instructions call for thinned Flexament (three parts thinner and 1 part Flexament), which I don’t have. I’m trying other products I do have to see if they may work.

I’ll keep at it until I get the results I’m looking for.

Thanks Richard for a great fly!

And something else we have in common is our love for the Metolius.

Enjoy…go fish!