The first leaves are starting to fall and up here by the Arctic riverside the evenings are getting slightly darker. There's still a few good weeks of fishing left of the year, and still some mayflies left to emerge up and conclude their mating ritual. Trouts are often getting picky around this time of year, but usually one should be able to find a rising trout if mayflies are hatching. The Autumn Dun is a good pattern up here in the north late in the summer season, it can imitate up to a few different species on the late summer and autumn hatches, and both brownies, arctic char and garyling has fallen victim to the Autumn Dun.
The following step-by-step shows how I tie my Autumn Duns, but is also a good reference to how I tie many of my mayfly dun imitations. Feel free to change the colors to match your hatch. I will enclose a few variations to this site at a later point.
The Autumn Dun
Hook: Standard dry fly hook size 14 to 18
Thread: Fiery Brown 8/0
Wings: Starling or bluejay primary feather quills, or duck
Tail: Brown rooster hackle fibers, 6 to 10 at most
Body: Turkey biot dyed light brown,
Hackle: Rooster hackle in natural dun color
Thorax: Fly-Rite #6 Chocolate Brown
Step 1: Hook and Thread
Use your favorite standard dry fly hook. Start the thread behind the eye of the hook and tie your way 2/5th backward, then proceed the thread halfway up again toward the eye of the hook. This marks the tie-in point of the wing.
Step 2a: The Wing
Make two mirrored slips of natural gray wing quill, either from starling, bluejay or duck, tie these in as you normally would for a quill-wing dry-fly; with the tips pointing forward.
Step 2b: The Wing
Trim the waste-ends in a tapered fashion to help on the tapering of the abdomen.
Step 2c: The Wing
Tie down the waste-ends with adjacent turns of thread, advance down the shank of the hook until you are almost in line of the barb of the hook.
Step 3: The Tail
Tie in six to ten hackle fibers from a natural brown rooster feather.
Step 4a: The Body
Tie in a turkey biot dyed light brown Notice that I tie it in by the tip with the barbed side facing up and the smooth side facing down.
Step 4b: The Body
Wrap your thread in close turns forward towards the wing, at the same time make sure you have a nicely tapered under-body for your biot to lay on.
Step 4c: The Body
Before wrapping the turkey biot, add some superglue to the under-body to ensure some durability to the fragile material.
Step 5: Raise the Wing
Fold the wing upward and now place the thread in front of the wing and build up a small bump for the wing to rest on, now make some crossing turns between the wings to set them apart.
Step 6: The Hackle
Now prepare a natural dun colored rooster hackle by trimming off the barbs at the bottom before tying it on to the fly. Place the bottom end between the wings and secure with some wraps of thread. Notice that the hackle looks brighter than what it actually is, see further down for better color reference.
Note: If using a genetic hackle, in particular saddle-hackles with very thick and stiff fibers you should trim off the fibers on the underside of the fly after it is done. This can also be done at a later point as I usually do. If you use a cheaper and softer hackle, you can get away with just forcing the fibers out to the sides and eliminate the trimming process.
Step 7: The Thorax
Dub some Fly-Rite #6 Chocolate Brown on to your thread and make a nice bed for your hackle to rest on, This add great durability as well as making a more natural looking thorax than just a billion turns of dense hackle.
Step 8: Wrap the Hackle
Wrap the hackle in four turns; two behind the wing and two in front of the wing. Secure with a few wraps of thread, fold the hackle feather backward and form the head.
Step 9: Finish the Fly
Finish off with a few turns of whip finish and coat the head in varnish. Tight lines!
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All photos are taken by me and shall not be used without permission.