By Agostino Roncallo, master in CDC and author of the celebrated book, ‘Magie in CDC’

In previous articles on this website on the Palomino and Midge patterns, I showed how to create an extended body by twisting CDC fibres on themselves.

Having been happy with the result, I tried to create even larger extended bodies, but the limited length of CDC fibres did not allow it. So instead of using CDC fibres twisted on themselves, I used an entire CDC hackle.

Using this sort of extended body I tie the imitations that I illustrate in my book about using CDC as a fly tyer, "Magie in CDC." 

Dressing

1) Hold the CDC hackle by its base and tip and twist it.

2) The twisted Hackle.

3) The extended body.

4) Fix the prepared extended body to the back end of a grub hook.

5) Trim the excess.

6) Fix a CDC hackle just ahead of the extended body.

 7) Wrap the hackle around the hook.

 8) Fix the hackle near the eye and trim the excess.

9)  Pull all fibres forward and fix them just behind the eye of the hook.

10) Lift the fibres and fix them vertically by running thread around them while forming the head of the fly. 

11) Take the fly from the vise and trim the fibres for the wings.

12) The finished fly.

The Tipula, a more complex example of a full CDC hackle used as the extended body. 

And finally, the Twisted Hackle Red Midge