Craft Beer + Neighbor + Fly Fishing DVDs ='s Big Streamers

Recipe:
Rear Hook: 2461 Size 1
Rear Body: Reverse tied extra select craft fur (3-4 clumps tied from the hook bend to the hook eye)
Articulation: Beadalon and 3 small red craft beads
Front Hook: 2461 Size 1
Front Body: Reverse tied extra select craft fun (3 clumps but tied closer together than the rear body to add the appearance of bulk)
Gills: Red hackle flash
Head: Deer body hair over wool and a 3D eye.

Story:
So my wife had a girls night in the city this past weekend.  That meant the fly tying material could sneak out of the basement.  Fly tying is always better in the company of friends and beer, so I summoned my neighbor and fellow fly fishing junkie.  Nothing was on the agenda other than letting the creative juices flow.

We both started playing around with hollow tied craft fur.  The pictured fly started as a single then the beadalon came out.  But what to do with the head? My neighbor was using craft fur and flash for the head of his flies (he added some blue ice dub in front of a dark olive craft fur head, which looked awesome!).

When I got to the head stage of the process I wasn't sure what to do.  Initially, we talked about all wool, which would push a lot of water as with craft fur but would add undesired weight.  Then we discussed deer hair, which would add some movement to the fly but by the same token buoyancy.  After some additional thinking juice, I came to a deer hair over wool combo.  Fly designs incorporating this tying strategy have popped up on the web from time to time.  In fact, I believe Orvis carries a pattern with this style of head.  This design will push water and add some additional movement to the fly but in less tying time and with less buoyancy.  Moreover, The hollow tied body gives a cool, realistic "in the round" baitfish profile.

Fortunately, craft fur, wool and deer body hair are all materials that are cheap, easy to get a hold of, and come in a variety of colors so your creativity can go wild with this one.  As an added bonus, this is an articulated pattern that you can create without the end product using $30 of material.  As an aside, you can certainly tie this as a single rather than a double to have a 3 inch fly when 6 inches seems a bit excessive.

P.S. This is the prototype. For those into critiquing flies, I admit there are plenty of imperfections.  This one was more about seeing where the design went for fun rather than business.  Imperfections aside, I'm confident this dog will hunt.