Davie McPhail

There are a lot of talented fly tyers out there. A rare combination is when you find someone who can tie beautiful flies and TEACH too. Davie McPhail is one of those tyers.

Davie is from Scotland and has a Youtube channel I frequently watch. Youtube states he joined on June 26, 2009 and has posted several hundred fly tying videos with almost 15 MILLION views. When some of you ask if I plan to provide fly tying videos, I always direct them to Davie McPhail’s site.

His fly tying prowess runs the gamut from beginning flies to full dress Atlantic Salmon flies. Interested in Scottish or Irish wet flies? He has those too. How about a parachute pattern? Yup, there are several to choose from. A streamer? You guessed it. Whatever video you choose to watch, Davie ties the fly beautifully and with ease. On more than one occasion, I’ve repeated the video because I asked myself…”how’d he do that?”

I have learned a lot from him. One example is tearing deer hair…what? I use this technique for all my Sparkle Dun flies now. While holding onto the deer hair wing, I usually wrap about 8 turns of thread to securely hold the wing. Many tyers trim the deer hair at this point. I used to as well…trimming at an angle to help with the taper between the body and wing. Watching Davie one day, I saw him secure the deer hair, then move the butt ends back and forth, occasionally wrapping one more turn of thread. It took a little practice, but lo and behold it worked! He was tearing deer hair. Now I teach the same technique to the marvel of others. 

Here is one of my own Golden Stonefly nymph patterns I created, inspired by watching him tie one of his videos.

MCPHAILS GOLDEN STONEFLY NYMPH VARIANT

Here is a recent video of Davie’s, the CDC Bubble Caddis – Tan

And my first try tying the CDC Bubble Caddis. 

I plan to try a few more to get them right! After that, I’ll add a fly patterns sheet for the fly. In addition, I’m considering adding a Category under the Fly Pattern tab entitled Davie McPhail for the pattern sheets of flies I tie and use. 

So if you tie flies, be sure to check out his Youtube channel HERE.

If not, let me know if you see something fishy and I’ll tie a few for you!

Enjoy…go fish!