PALMER-BACK BEETLE PATTERN

Text and pictures by Agostino Roncallo

I love natural materials. However, I also recognize that synthetic materials, used wisely, can be very useful for tying superb artificial flies.

If we match synthetics with high quality materials such as peacock quills and cock hackles, good results are all but guaranteed.

I put a lot of store in a palmered foam strip back made of peacock quills and cock hackle. It is simple and quick to tie.

Dressing

Fix a foam strip to the end of the hook shank, along with a cock hackle and three barbs of the peacock quill.

1. Twist the peacock quills together and wrap them up the hook shank.
2. Near the eye, tie off the peacock quill and trim the surplus.
3. Holding the foam strip in the horizontal plane, wrap around the cock hackle palmer style along it. When the turns of hackle are the length of the hook shank, bend the foam strip forward to near the eye of the hook.
4. Trap the foam strip near the eye and trim off the excess hackle.
5. I run the final node and the fly is finished. With markers of different colors, paint the back of the foam strip.