How To Tie The Little Black Stonefly

Learn how to tie the Little Black Stonefly, including a video tutorial (coming soon) and a full material list. Improve your fly-tying skills here.

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The Little Black Stone Fly is a dry fly pattern that's a key player during the early hatches in Maine. Utilizing materials like the Gamakatsu S10 hooks and Hareline Cul De Canard, this pattern is designed to mimic the natural appearance of stoneflies, riding low in the water for optimal effectiveness. Available in black and dark brown, the Little Black Stone Fly is recommended in sizes 14 to 16. Whether you're a novice or an experienced fly tyer, this tutorial will enhance your skills and your fly box. Share your own tips and results in the comments, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more fly tying tutorials!

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Material List:

• Hook: Gamakatsu S10S (size 14)
• Thread: Danville 6/0 (Black)
• Wing: Hareline CDC (Natural Dun)
• Body and Wing: Hareline Hen Saddle (Natural Grizzly)

Video Transcript

Hello, I'm Carl at Trident Fly Fishing and today we're going to tie the Little Black Stonefly. This is one of the early hatches here in Maine. I see them in both black and a real dark brown color. This fly rides low in the water and it's recommended to tie in sizes 14 and 16.

Here's the fly in the vise. Our hook today is a Gamakatsu S10 size 14 - that's their standard dry fly hook. Our thread is Danville's Fly Master 6/0 in black. Start our thread about two eye lengths behind the hook eye and wrap back to the start of the bend of the hook, which will be about over the barb.

The body material is going to be some CDC. This is from Hareline and it's in Dark Dun. I've got a piece all picked out here. We're going to tie this in right here at the back of the hook with a pinch wrap to catch it, and then wrap forward to where we started our tie-in. Get out our trusty hackle pliers here and give this a bit of a twist to form the body. You don't want to twist it up too much because it's kind of delicate and it'll break. When we reach our tie-in point we'll tie that off and get rid of our excess. Since some of these are a little bit long, we'll trim them up a little bit now and come back later at the end to clean it up.

The wing for this fly is going to come from a Whiting Hen Saddle in Grizzly. I've picked out a feather already. This type of wing is called the Wally Wing - really pretty easy to tie once you've done a couple of them. We're going to create a tie-in point like so, and lay this up on top of the hook and take two nice light wraps. Just let your bobbin hang, and then we're going to pull the wing through on top of the hook to about a shank length and a half in length. About there. Now tighten that up. A couple of wraps in front to lock it down and keep it from spinning, and we'll cut off our excess material. Wrap over that to secure everything in place. As you can see, it presents a nice wing cover.

Prepare an area for our Grizzly Hackle to go in. Our hackle is going to come from a Whiting Hen Saddle, again in Grizzly. I've got one picked out here for a size 14 hook. We'll prepare that by snipping off some barbules on either side of the stem. Tie that in right in front of the wing, wrap forward to the eye, and take probably about four turns. When we get to the eye we'll capture our material, cut off our excess, and form a nice small head. Whip finish tool - do a four or five turn whip finish. Cut the thread.

This fly is going to ride low in the water, so we're going to take the hackles off on the bottom, being careful not to remove any of that CDC. A couple of pieces are a little long - I'll trim those up. And we're ready for some head cement. This is Loon's Water Based. Make sure the eye is clear. And our fly is finished.

Please feel free to add comments at the bottom of the page and don't forget to hit that subscribe button to view all the new content here at Trident Fly Fishing. Thanks for watching. I hope to see you again next time.