I've tied a lot of Lady Caroline's recently; simply because I like tying this fly, the way this Spey fly looks and I've read a little of its history.
Somewhere I read that it was tied as a Shrimp fly. I can see that, the sleek Bronze Mallard Shoulder wing, the long soft Heron Hackle, a touch of red/orange In the tail and head hackle.
However I felt somehow something representing eyes was missing at the tail. Shrimp and Prawns have prominent eyes.
No way would I think I could improve on such a successful Salmon and Steelhead fly, I just wanted something a little different.
So I have used three materials in the tail: the usual Golden Pheasant Red breast feather (I used dyed orange) on top of which G.P. Topping, on top of which a small G.P Tippet feather.
The Tippet gives the impression of eyes, the Topping adds contrast.
A Blue Eared Pheasant feather is used for the body hackle
The head hackle consists of 2 G.P Red hackles from near the tail of the skin, dyed orange. I used 2 as my feathers were quite sparse.
The body is dubbed green/brown Wool with the usual 3 ribs; flat gold, oval gold with oval silver locking down the B.E.P. hackle wound counter-wise to the gold ribs
See photos for clarification. Apologies for poor photo resolution, I have no camera so used my iPhone with available light.
