How to Tie the Del Brown Merkin Crab — Step by Step

Hey everybody, it's Ryan again with Trident Fly Fishing today We're gonna be tying the Merkin fly, which is a Dell Brown permit fly Very popular fly back down in the Key West area And I'm gonna be tying it on a 1-0 SC 7 7 sorry SC 15 Gamakatsu hook. It's a little big. This is more of a permit style tie This fly is also used for permit for a permit and bonefish the bonefish versions will be a little bit smaller But I'm going to tie it on a 1-0 just for visibility purposes and answer the teaching process I'm going to start with 6-0 beavis Thread it's short. It's sort of chartreuse bright yellow color permit flies generally speaking Are heavy and they're tied with dumbbell eyes to get down you have to fly down on the bottom So I'm gonna be using silver Size-large dumbbell eyes here I move the event advance the thread about one hook eye length Behind the eye itself and then I'm going to tie the eyes the dumbbell eyes in there a Couple of crossing wraps here just to kind of get it in place You notice I'm using my fingers to make sure as I wrap that the eyes don't spin around the hook shank You want them to stay in place and to do that? I'm gonna tie some Oops you can see how even the thread itself kind of knock them offline. I Want to create this kind of thread base beneath the eyes So I'm wrapping all the way around them and it creates this kind of donut shape with the thread itself And that donut shape will create this kind of Ridge that holds the thread holds the eyes In place and prevents them from spinning around The side of the hook shank. So a couple wraps behind that to lock it in a couple in front And I can use my fingers to kind of test that and that feels pretty good You might hit that with a little bit of superglue just to make sure it doesn't wrap permit are notoriously Very spooky fish. I'm gonna make sure as I wrap my thread back towards the hook bend As for those of you who permit fish, you know that permit a pretty paranoid fish This is a fly that I really want to cover the hook shank when I wrap back I don't want an exposed hook shank as far as flash and light go So I'm gonna tie back beyond the sort of line with the hook point There we go just in front of the start of the bend of the hook I'm a little bit beyond the hook point Right in there and I'm gonna grab I'm gonna use grizzly hackle Variant and what I like to do is I go through the bunch and try to find I'm gonna use four feathers total two on each side so I want to find Pairs of feathers that kind of match as far as length and width like these two do and pair them together I've done that already and What I like to do is make sure that the feathers are facing the same direction and I want to make sure that tips are about there They're even like so and I can use my fingers to kind of marry the two feathers together Like that as far as the length of the tail. I Want this to extend out from the bend of the hook? It's going to be about a Half inch to an inch longer than the hook shank itself. That's the length. I'd like for my tail and What I like to do is pull a little bit of the fibers from the feather to create that sort of V shape Like so and that's the spot I want to tie my thread in so rather than tying it straight back I'm going to tie it so that the quills are laying crosswise across the shank of the hook And I'll show you why in just a second. So a couple of loose thread wraps you can see it's kind of Keeled out like that at an angle and that's great. It's splayed out and again I have it by I do that by laying the quill crosswise across the hook shank Get that nice and locked in place I'm going to take my other two tail feathers again, I kind of pre-selected these for length and width and I can measure this nicely again. I want this to be even I want to be the same length as far as the other The first two feathers that I tied in so I can just eyeball that and actually use that as my measuring There so now I have These tail material of equal length and again I'm just going to do the same thing where I create a little bit of space on the quill Creates this kind of V shape and that's the spot that I'm going to actually tie this in This is going to be going the other direction. So it's splayed the opposite way as the first Feather those first two feathers I tied in I'm going to hold that same thing. I can see it's a little bit too long That's better. Hold it crosswise like so right on top of the hook shank a couple loose wraps Sometimes it will kind of turn a little bit. You have to adjust it like I just did I Notice I noticed it was a bit short as far as the Being equal to the other feathers So I just kind of pulled it through just a touch and then I can crank down with my thread wraps To really lock that in place So now you can see I have that nice splay So when you strip that fly and it moves through the wire the splayed tails will move like this and it will mimic Like a crab that's fleeing as far as the the claws And I'm going to cut off this excess material here. I Can trim the rest of that off too. You could tie that in if you wanted, but I'm just going to trim it away Make life a little easier when I tie in the body So now I'm going to just cover up that little bump and I'm going to add a little bit of flash The flash is going to exist between the splay. So I'm going to use flashabou In this pearl color. I have two pieces. I'm going to wrap them around my thread and Pull that thread up on top of the hook shank Now I have that nice tie-in point nice and neat a couple of thread wraps and we're in I want that flash to be a little bit shorter than the length of the tail That looks pretty good a couple more wraps to really capture that Cool Great now we're ready to create the body of the merkin Historically, this is a fly that's tied with yarn and they would tie the body of the fly on top of the hook shank moving Directly back from this tail material I'm going to actually flip this because this is the way that fly is going to ride through the water It's going to be hook point up the heavy-weighted eyes are going to bring that fly down So I want the fly material actually need to tie back just a little bit There we go I want the body material to be facing up which will help me with the coverage of the hook shank and For a spooky fish like permanent. I like that look a little bit better. So for the body, I'm going to use Spirit River UV sparkle yarn in light brown and again, all these materials are available on our website tridentflyfishing.com I'm keeping in mind as I add this body material You can see that the way it's packaged it has these sort of built-in strands I'm cutting those strands as is and using those for materials for the that's the sort of width I want as I tie in the body for the shell of the crab I'm keeping in mind within this space here from the tail to the back of the dumbbell eyes I need to add four pairs of legs or four legs silly legs I'm going to start by tying in this body material wrapping it around my thread just like I did with that flash Advance the thread up except instead of going on top of the hook shank I'm going to go on the side a couple of firm wraps so it doesn't lose its spot And now I'm going to take that material and wrap it across the hook shank And tie it in like so Great Now I probably want to use a little bit more that might have been a little bit thin So I'm just going to add a little bit more to the next clump I Have to remember in this process If I was tying a bunch of these I would want to manage the amount of material I'm using So when I tie this in rather than tying it in at the midpoint I can tie it a little bit less knowing that I won't need to use all the material. I'll show you what I mean So I tie that in On the side a couple of firm wraps to really lock the material in I'm pulling material across Tying it on the other side now of the hook shank and Then advancing the thread it creates this nice little neat pattern of thread material thread material I moved this thread I advanced it in front of the material like so and now I have all this excess That I can continue to use for the fly itself. So I'm going to leave enough That when I trim I'll have enough material But I can cut this off here and I have all this material to work with and at this point I know I have to add four legs And again, there are different ways to tie the Del Brown permit fly a lot of folks will finish the body first and then use knots To actually tie in the legs through knots and like tie them that way on top of the hook My preference and I think in part I like that. I like the aesthetic like how it looks but I also think logistically If I tie this in with my clump of yarn on top of the legs like so It protects the legs a little bit so I've found that if you have the legs exposed on the very top They're more apt to break off after a fish or two So I'm positioning this so that I have enough leg on either side of the hook shank And I'm going to tie this in with the material the yarn material on top of the silly leg I'm pinching them together in this case. I'm going to hold that on top of the hook shank and A couple of a loose thread wrap to kind of capture the material like so and now I have Half the silly leg on one side. I pull it. Oops. I need to wrap that a little bit tighter You see how that moved that means I did not wrap it strong enough now It's locked in now. I can pull really pull that material across the other side and tie it in So now I have another Bit of yarn material tied in and Underneath it. I have one of the four legs. I'm gonna let that leg material dangle down and kind of hang out there for now So again, I have to keep in mind throughout this process that I have I have three more legs. I need to tie in so I'm gonna take another clump Another silly leg And this part's a little tricky you kind of have to imagine and envision enough of The silly legs to sort of maintain the length on both sides of the hook shank Lay that on top of the hook shank loose wrap Pull the material across the other side like I like so What I like about the pattern is it creates this nice flat neat neatness to the top of the hook I'm gonna grab a little bit more material here for the body. So now I have two legs tied in I have two more to go Okay, I'm laying it across the body of the hook Loose wrap to capture And now I can pull that across Like so Advance the thread Cool. Now I have three legs in I Have one more leg to go. I'm going to use this excess material from that last clump To make my life a little easier. I have one last leg and this is tricky. I have to position it again I don't have a ton of material on my last clump here So I really need to eyeball that and make sure when I tie it in I have enough leg material on both sides Position it crosswise just like you did with the body material without the legs Loose wrap once you get positioned a couple firm wraps and then I'm pulling that across like so Really get that locked in your last wrap now, I'm gonna advance the thread in front a couple wraps there I'm gonna go around the eyes And I'm gonna whip finish a lot of folks will tie in a weed guard at this point I'm not gonna do that But if you added a weed guard now would be the time right at the front right behind the eye of the hook I'm gonna whip finish. I got some trimming to do. I got some Coloring to do but I'm almost done. So whip finish Cut that off Now there's a couple things I need to do The first thing I need to do is shape this body and I want this to be like the shape of a small Crab-shell and what I can do what I like about having the legs tied in beneath the material is they're dangling down and not in Your way, you don't have to worry as much about cutting them or accidentally, you know Cutting them as you're trimming now that I have the body material there My job is to shape it and to do that I can pull down the silly legs So I know that they're not going to get in the way and I can use my right pointer finger and and thumb To sweep up the body material like so and you might miss a few clumps. That's okay You can kind of work around that and now I'm going to transfer it to my offhand my left hand Now I have all that material all the body material captured between my thumb and pointer finger and I can use my Scissors to follow the natural shape of my fingers The sharper the scissors the better you can see there was one kind of straggler we'll deal with that in a second now I can use my Scissors to flatten this out And now I have that nice sort of crab carapace shape and that shape that's with one cut, right? That's just using the shape and contours of my fingers to give that natural kind of rounded look and in this case I'm gonna find this straggler here and just tie it cut it off around the same length. Try not to damage any of the legs If you cut off a leg, it's not a big deal Cool Now what I want to do the sort of classic merkin fly they usually tip the legs with a little bit of color I'm gonna use a red sharpie. I'm gonna look at this kind of eyeball this I don't want the legs to be super long, but about as long as the tail or a little bit longer And at that point, I'm not stretching and pulling them down just holding them in place kind of naturally I'm gonna color in a little bit of red Doesn't have to be perfect and then I can use my scissors to go right beneath that Make that cut Now I have these nice legs hanging down. They all have a little bit of a hot spot a little bit of red So when that fly is laying on the bottom, which is what it will do You'll have the nice movement of this tail as you strip the fly and also the movement of these legs dangling down That is a done fly You