How To Tie Galloup's Dungeon

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Follow Levi as he ties Kelly Galloup's Sex Dungeon. If you want to catch big fish, this fly is one that you should always have in your box. It's articulated, it pushes water, it's packed with movement, you can tie it in any color scheme you can come up with. Pike, trout, bass and just about any other predatory fish will hammer this fly. Loaded with marabou, rubber legs, and just enough weight to create a jigging motion, the Dungeon offers a wicked amount of movement whether you're fishing a ripping stream or a calm lake. Tied commercially in the standard, mini and micro sizes, tie the Dungeon from size 2/0-12 and find what works best for you!

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Materials:

Hook: Core C2461 (1/0 and 2)

Thread: Veevus GSP 100D (White)

Eyes: Hareline Double Pupil Lead Eyes (Medium, Black/Fl.Orange/Black)

Articulation Wire: Senyo's Intruder Wire (Large, Gray)

Articulation Beads: D's Flyes Glass Beads (Red)

Tail: Hareline Extra Select Marabou (Olive)

Flash: Hedron Flashabou (Pearl)

Body: Hareline Ice Dub (Olive) and Hareline Strung Saddle Hackle (Black)

Body Wire: UTC Ultra Wire (Small, Copper)

Rubber Legs: Hareline Grizzly Barred Rubber Legs (Medium Olive)

Head: Hareline Dyed Deer Belly Hair (Olive)

Video Transcript

Hey guys, Levi here with Trident Fly Fishing and today we're going to be tying a Sex Dungeon. It's a big streamer pattern developed by Kelly Galloup. It just plain works. Kind of a lengthy fly to tie but it's really not all that difficult. We'll get started right now. In the vise we have a Daiichi 2461 hook. This one is a size 2. We're gonna finish it with a size 1/0, a little bigger, and we'll lay a thread base down first. We're using Veevus GSP - this is the 100 denier. You kind of need to use Veevus for this. It's gonna spin some deer hair and this stuff is really powerful.

Let's get started with two marabou plumes for the tail. Whenever you pick out your marabou plumes, we're gonna use two plumes, and for this I like to choose the nice feathers that when you pull the tips together it's nice and straight. That's a good looking feather and that'll swim really well in the water. Select two that have the same look to them - you want them to have very similar qualities. As you can see, these two plumes look really similar to one another and that'll make them lay nicely on top of one another and will prevent your fly from looking amiss in the tail.

Once you select two feathers, go ahead and just get rid of these bottom fibers. Those are gonna make everything difficult to work with and you don't need all of that in there. You'll also see how once you strip that out, everything tapers to the same length and the same end. Do that to both feathers and tie them in. Just stack them on top of one another and measure your tail to be about the length of the hook shank. Spin your thread if you need to tighten it up and you can just cinch that right in. For the first one of these I'll just go ahead and wind that all the way up, build yourself some body, and then clip that out of the way. From there we're going to do the exact same thing with another feather. Strip those ends off, measure it out to be about the same length, tie it in, and add some flash on the sides. Get it nice and even, pinch wrap that in, and wrap this up as well. Tighten it up and get that out of the way.

Now that we have our marabou tied in, let's move into some holographic silver flash. Put a strand or two on each side. I don't like a whole lot of flash in these but you guys can do however you like flash-wise. I just tend to sparsely add it in there. We've got a real flashy body on this fly as well so you can count on some flash there. Tie that in on the side nearest to you and then fold it over onto the other side for nice even flash on both sides.

From here let's clean this body up before we start to dub and tie in feathers. Once we get our tail section done we'll move into some ultra wire - this is size small in the color copper. Just go right ahead and tie it in right at the top of the fly, and when you tie this in just bend that back and tie that in too. That way you won't have to worry about this coming loose. When you get wire, tend to give yourself enough to work with. I know it's appealing to be frugal but you don't want that to be too short.

We're going to move into some hackle. You can use schlappen or you can use just strong neck or Chinese hackle. That's what I'm using for this and this just happens to be a bunch that has a nice variety to it. You can see we have some webby fibers on some of these bigger feathers which are going to be great for the front portion of the fly, but for the rear portion we're looking for something a little less webby and a little smaller. We don't need these really long fibers. This fly can be a bear to work with, and if you don't want to deal with all of that trouble we sell these for seven, eight bucks on TridentFlyFishing.com so you can find a variety of colors there and it'll save you the time and the vise. But if you're one of those people who likes to tie your own flies, keep on watching this video because we're going to go through everything needed.

Once you have your feather selected, go ahead and tie it in right back here with the shiny side facing you. I tend to just palmer the hackle like this - I like it better than tying it in at the tip. That way you tie it in on both ends, but if you are one of those guys who likes to tie it in at the tip and then wrap it with the wire to secure it, that works totally fine. I just tend to like it this way a little better.

Now that we have everything tied in, we'll move into some ice dub in the color olive. Just apply it straight to our thread. If you like to use a dubbing loop that's totally fine right now too, to build up some bulk. Advance your thread to the front of this fly first. We'll wrap this back once and then forward once again as well so that we have that bulk built up, because this is a big fly. If you have a rotary vise you can let it shine right now. Apply more dubbing as needed and work it right back up. If you haven't noticed, this back portion of the fly is essentially a woolly bugger with some rubber legs, so it doesn't need to be more complicated than it actually is. I know this fly looks like it's a lot but once you break it down it's not that much to work with. Get your dubbing taken care of there, add just a wee bit more, and finish off this head right here.

Now that we have our body dubbed, just palmer this forward. Sweep the fibers back as you wrap it - you want them laying toward the rear of the fly, not the front. You'll see how this gets larger toward the front. Get some of this fluffy, more marabou-looking fiber in there as well and just tie that off. Now that you have your hackle palmered, go ahead and clip that stem out, add a couple of wraps, and you can throw a half hitch in there. Now we will counter wrap with that copper wire. When I do this I just track my hackle and that tends to keep things from getting trapped - if you just follow the same path you just wrapped with your hackle. If you have fibers that get stuck just get in there with your bodkin and free them up. It's no big deal. Get that wire right behind the eye, tie it off, and get it out of the way.

Now we have this body and we're going to move into some rubber legs. We're just using barred olive - any color is fine just so that it complements the color of the fly. Tie this in by pulling it behind your thread, work it right up to the eye, and then secure it. It's real nice and easy. You won't have to worry about tying it in both ways and you can manipulate it from there with your fingers. You'll get two on either side. Do the exact same thing on the other side - pull it behind the thread, pinch it, and tie it in.

Once you have these rubber legs tied in, I'm going to actually add one more layer of marabou up here on top. This is a pretty big fly - if you were tying a smaller Sex Dungeon you probably wouldn't need to worry about this. But I like this nice transition here between it all. I want this to lay a little shorter than my tail, so cut it about 20% shorter than your tail maybe. It just creates a nice back to your baitfish and also adds more movement to the whole fly - although this fly doesn't need any extra movement, it's pretty seductive in the water. Get that to lay back just a little bit there, clean that up, and now you can whip finish it off. Hit it with a little head cement just because these flies can be a time suck - whenever you're whipping them up you want to make them as durable as possible. So that's the back half of this fly.

Now we'll set that aside and grab our 1/0 hook. Again this is a Daiichi 2461 - get that in the vise and we'll start laying a thread base down. Clip the excess. Right off the bat I'm going to tie in some size medium double-pupil eyes. I have a nice hot orange here. Yellow would be fine - all colors do tend to work. But I like this sort of bright hot spot right here. Let's get that tied in about 70% of the way up the hook shank on the bottom. Get a couple of loose wraps in there and then crank down on it. You want them to be nice and centered. Get a wrap on the other side. Now that's taken care of - go ahead and seat that with some adhesive so they don't move anywhere and we'll wind on back.

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Now that we have a thread base and our eyes tied in, let's get this tail section attached. Go ahead and throw the wire in side by side - you don't have to worry about it spinning on you or anything, and these hooks will then ride straight to one another. Get a couple of loose wraps over there and tighten this up right until about the bead starts to hit the bend of that hook. You don't want it to go too much more than that because then you'll notice that it starts to cock the fly upward. These glass beads are actually pretty durable - you get a little rattle noise in there and a nice bit of attracting color as well. Secure that and take this all the way up. Get that tied in and cut this out of the way. I'm going to use these big kitchen shears so as to not dull the expensive fly tying scissors.

Now that we have our extension tied in along with our eyes, we're going to cover this connection up with some marabou. This is where your sort of ratty fibers really tend to shine. Once we get this connected we're going to want something to hide this connection point. You can use a whole marabou plume but what I do is just sift through and find a ratty looking feather. You don't need a really nice one - this isn't like the tail where you need to really select your feather. This is a great time to use some of these worse-off feathers from your pack. It's rare that you need a low quality feather but this is one of the cases where it gets the job done just fine. We're looking for short marabou fibers here because we're just going to pull a clump off.

Now that we have one, get rid of the bottom just because that's a little rough to deal with. Sweep this back and grab about an inch and a half off either side - just strip that right off the stem, then grab it in your opposite hand and pull it together. You'll see you have a nice plume and we're going to tie that in on the top of these beads and on the bottom of these beads. Just tie that in and that is going to make everything look nice and neat, hides that connection, and also completes the profile of a baitfish. Same thing on the bottom - strip off about an inch and a half, clump it together, put it over the hook, measure it, and tie it right on there. Get that tied in and cut it. We're going to throw a little flash in here as well. I like it to be about the length of the fly to give that lateral line effect. I'm only going to use one strand just because I don't like a whole lot of flash in here, but that is entirely up to you.

Now that we have those little connecting marabou points, let's get started on the body. Get in there with your copper wire and tie it in just like we did on the rear - bring it in and fold it over for some extra security. Now that we're moving into the front portion of this fly, we're also going to need a feather to palmer the body with. For this feather we're looking for something with those webby characteristics. This could fall into the category of schlappen - it is from a neck, but this neck just so happens to have a lot of these nice webby feathers. We're looking for decent barb length and just a nice webby characteristic. You want it to be bigger to create a nice tapered profile with forward bulk - webbier and longer with longer fibers than the one we chose for the tail.

Now that I have my feather chosen, sweep these fibers back and tie it in by the tip at a 45 degree angle. We'll just wrap it all the way up to continue to build bulk in that body, and I'll even reverse it and build more bulk that way. From here, advance your thread right to behind the eye and grab some of this olive ice dub and apply it to your thread just loosely. We'll wrap it rearward and then bring it forward just to create a nice bulk in here. Add dubbing as you need to and keep advancing it to create a nice thick body. If you guys have a story about this fly, I'm sure at least one of the viewers out there has probably caught a hefty fish on one of these - feel free to drop that in the comments, or if you have questions those are always welcome too.

Now that you have a nice body, let's start wrapping this big webby hackle. Nice and evenly spaced - sweep the fibers backward if you need to. Do one full wrap and then one more right behind the eyes to add some profile. Pull that upward to really tighten it and snip that off. From here, throw some legs into the mix - two on either side. Grab two barred rubber legs, size them up, and just like we did in the back, pull these behind the thread, pull them up, and tie it right in. Do the same on the other side.

One more step before we start spinning some deer hair - grab one more marabou plume and tie it in on top. We're gonna lay this over the back. This sort of ties the minnow profile together, keeps everything without having gaps and steps, and just creates a natural profile. Get rid of the bottom quarter to third of these fibers and see how everything's nice and even on the tip. Measure it to come up about 50-55% of the way of that wing that we tied in at the front of the rear extension. Just get that on there - that completes the baitfish profile really well.

Right now, grab a drinking straw, cut a slit in it, wrap that around your bobbin - this is a tremendous help whenever you're working with deer hair. Just pull it parallel and that way you don't have to worry about cutting something that you just spent quite a while dealing with.

Now that we have this fly mostly done, we're gonna get into the hair spinning. We're gonna stack this hair - we're using deer belly in the color olive. Again, color to match your fly. This fly has no limits in terms of colors. We're gonna start with a fairly big stack of hair, so cut that close to the hide. A hair stacker is crucial at this point in the fly, especially for the first stack that's gonna build that nice collar. Get the shorts and the fuzz out and then stick it in your hair stacker. We're using a nice large hair stacker - this is a Griffin one and it's great for this application. I would highly recommend using the larger one so you're not stacking multiple bunches. Get that even and you'll see those tips are nice and lined up. Cut it so that it's all even on the end. We're just gonna stack this right here and make it about 40% of the hook shank. This GSP really shines here - spin it to the right and you can crank on this stuff real well. See that flare? A couple of wraps is all you need there.

That first stack - I won't use any of that to create the profile, so I'm just gonna trim it down now and get it out of the way. What I do so that I don't have to worry about whether or not I'm cutting this collar off, I just reverse it and put the cut ends back here. That way whenever it comes time to trim this head, I know that anything that doesn't have that nice fine point can go. Sort of a cheat code for making your life easier whenever you're dealing with a lot of deer hair. Go ahead and cinch that. Now we'll advance our thread forward and stack some bundles on either side. Even bunches of hair - just keep grabbing about the same size, a little more on top than the bottom. Always get rid of the fuzzies too. Put the cut ends facing this collar so you know those can get trimmed whenever you go to sculpt this head. Flip it over and do another one on the bottom. Spin your thread if you need to. At this point we don't even need to add another bunch because I used such dense clumps - this is just fine.

Weave your thread through those fibers. It always helps me if I bring it to about this point, then bring it up a couple more degrees to about a 45 and snake it through - that tends to be easiest for me. Go ahead and whip finish it. It's hard to do with all of these fibers, so just cut this out of the way, sneak a whip finish in, and singe it. Cut your thread off and then we'll work on sculpting this head.

If you have one of those catch-all waste baskets, great time to use it because this makes quite a mess. We're going to start with the bottom and just get it trimmed straight. You'll see we've got a nice big head on this thing - it'll really push water well. It's a great fly for using at night. Those of you guys out after the really big brown trout at night, it's a good one to do that with. Just sculpt it upward - a basic minnow shape is what you want. We've all seen baitfish. They have a round head, it's a little taller on the top than the bottom, and the bottom tends to be a little on the flat side. You can put yourself through the wringer trimming these fibers and really drive yourself nuts, but they all tend to catch fish. If you put the confidence in, it tends to translate to the water too. Pop that straw off and see this thing coming together. A rotary vise really, really helps here. Just trim around the clock until you're satisfied.

All right, three and a half hours later, that is a Sex Dungeon. I want to thank you guys for watching and I will see you next time.