How to Tie a Medusa Green Drake

Producer: Phil Monahan

It’s often hard to keep large Green Drake imitations floating in rough water, but Cheech from Fly Fish Food has come up with a great solution. He’s created an dry-emerger hybrid pattern that sits low in the water but stays on the surface. An indicator-wool wing and CDC hackle both respond well to treatment with a fly dip, such as Fly Agra. Here’s how Cheech describes his process:

If you have ever heard of the New Zealand indicator system, you’ll know that (if properly treated) it will land softly and float for a long time. One day while tying wool head streamers I was thinking to myself that I had like a lifetime supply of wool indicators if I wanted to use it for that. One thing led to another and I was tying flies with wool indicators shaped like mayfly wings. I treat these right off the vise with Fly Agra as shown in the video, and this is a pretty important step. If they aren’t treated, they might not float as well right out of the box. We’ve done a lot of tests with these, and they float for a long long time (but not overnight.) Anyway, this is a cool technique that I’m excited to explore a little bit more with other hatches.

Medusa Green Drake
Hook: Scud hook (here, a Gamakatsu C12), size 10.
Thread: Olive SemperFli Nano Silk Ultra Fine, 12/0.
Tail/shuck: Black marabou.
Body: Natural pheasant tail.
Rib: Gold Semperfli Micro Metal.
Adhesive #1: Superglue.
Rear Thorax: Olive dun Ultra Dry Dub.
Wing: Cream, gray, and light olive Sculpin Wool, blended.
Rear Thorax: Olive dun Ultra Dry Dub.
Hackle: Light dun CDC.
Adhesive #2: Superglue.
Treatment: Fly Agra.
Tools: Material clamp, bodkin, dubbing whirl.