Tying Instructions

Tie on 1/2 the way down the hook and start laying down a nice, smooth bed, about six turns, toward the bend. As soon as the thread is secure, tie on about a 4-in. piece of the gold oval tinsel to the top of the shank. Resume forming the bed for about another 4-turns. Tie in a 10-in. piece of flat tinsel on top of the gold oval tinsel. If your tinsel is gold on one side, tie it in gold side up. Keeping both tinsels aligned and on top of the hook, resume laying down the bed ‘until you’re about ¼ -in. from the start of the bend. Move the tag end of the flat tinsel forward and out of the way so, you can wind on about 8-tight wraps of the gold tinsel. This should take you right around the bend of the hook. Ram the wraps forward, up the shank, with your left thumbnail, packing them tight and neat. Start wrapping neatly forward until you just cross over the flat tinsel exit point. Move the flat tinsel tag end back and out of the way, so you can secure the oval tinsel with about six wraps, now working forward. Do not trim anything yet. Tie in one end of a 10-inch piece of the 4-strand floss. At that point, the tag end of the floss should be pointing towards the rear of the hook. Start laying down nice tight wraps, again working towards the rear of the hook. Six wraps should get the floss tied in securely, exit point right up against the front of the flat tinsel. You should now have the floss and the flat tinsel hanging off the back of the hook forgotten, while you wrap your thread, neatly forward, to within ¼-in. off the eye. If you have a bobbin holder and a rotary vice, you have the option of throwing a

extending about ¼-in. past the hook bend. Tie in no more than ten fibers of straight white buck tail, beneath the peacock herl, for support. Consider repeating Step 17. Select and tie in the golden pheasant crest feather along the top of the body. The object is to allow the barbules to “veil” the body. More CA? Tie in the one wing assembly, concave side in loosely, with about four wraps.

Note: See Rangeley Wing Assembly section following.

Tie in the mating side, again loosely.

Adjust, align, and then secure with successively tightening wraps. Final CA application.

Finish forming and shaping the head, Whip finish

Add the optional lucky Carrie Stevens Signature narrow red band then whip finish.

Coat the head carefully with 3-4 coats of the head cement or nail polish.

Rangeley Wing Section:

Note: Named after the Rangeley Lakes section of Maine, where the pattern is reputed to have originated. I pre-assembled 30-pairs after deciding on exact proportions, based on a prototype.

Wing: The wings on a Rangeley streamer are constructed using three specific elements - the hackles themselves, the shoulder feathers and the eyes. The best hackles are saddle hackles for a variety of reasons - their thin stems, their willingness to be tied flat along the sides of the fly, and their wonderful shape and web line. Saltwater saddles (shlappen) are particularly popular, especially for the larger trolling streamers. Strung saddle hackles are okay, but there tends to be many waste feathers that are not appropriate for Rangeley streamers due to one defect or another. Plucking hackles off the skin is the preferred way, as it allows the tier to match opposing hackles for each side of the fly.

Shoulder: The shoulder of the wing is about a third of the overall wing length and made from duck flank, pheasant body feathers, or other similarly shaped feathers that are "heavy" in their webbing. The wing is pre-assembled by running a bead of head cement, (Sally Hansen), along the stems of the feathers and pressing them together. If a pair of hackles are used, these are glued together first - the length of the glue bead being just shy of the length of the shoulder hackle. (For
quick half hitch over the front of the hook so you can turn on the floss. I chose not to use rotary techniques here. Start winding on the floss. Keep it very tight! Work it with your fingers to spread the wraps out. Because you now have four layers of thread base at the rear, you’ll want to start with as thin a layer of floss as possible, as the body diameter at the rear will define the diameter towards the front. Apply only enough to cover the thread. After several tight floss wraps, you can now trim down the tied in ends of the two tinsels and the floss, to neaten them up, before burying. As you wrap forward, you will have to adjust the width of the four-strand floss to compensate for the decreasing diameter of your thread base as you work forward. What we want is a smooth body, very slightly tapered, so that it is ever so slightly thicker at the front than the rear. When you get about ¼ inch from the eye, secure the floss with 4-5 tight wraps. Grab the flat tinsel hanging off the rear. With the gold side up, you will find it easy to make a nice tight fold and start palmering forward with the silver side out. Keep the wraps tight, evenly spaced and at least the width of the tinsel apart. Secure when you reach the bobbin. Add a tiny drop of cyanoacrylate, (Crazy Glue or Zap-a-Gap or “CA”), right at the tie-in point, if your objective is a super durable fly. Level out your thread base, over the still wet CA, at the tie-in point, to bring it exactly equal in diameter to the body. Tie in 4-six strands of straight peacock herl, so they are lying even with the underside of the body and the “fishin” model, I applied glue to the front quarter of the inside wings only. This allowed for improved action.) The shoulder hackle is then glued to the pair of hackles, the length of the glue bead being just shy of the length of the cheek to be added later. When the fly is complete, there is no visible glue as each bead of glue is covered with a feather.

Cheek: A pair of jungle cock eyes tied along the wing stems, the cheek of a Rangeley streamer is one of the most striking features. Open a box of streamers and those with real jungle cock eyes leap out and grab your attention. Is this lost on fish? I think not. Jungle cock is available in fishing grades and is a worthwhile addition to your fishing flies. If you can afford a premium grade neck for tying dry flies, you can afford a jungle cock neck for your streamers. The cheek is normally glued to the shoulder feather to ensure the entire wing assembly moves in a uniform fashion - with the central stems in alignment. While Mike Martinek chooses to tie his cheeks on after the wing has been mounted, you can add them as part of the wing assembly if you so choose. Just be warned that tying in four stems per wing could cause a problem. (Rangely streamer info edited and modifies from a piece written by Bob Petti).

How to Fish

This pattern will catch fish, At least brook trout up to four pounds. I held off writing this section until after I returned from my annual expedition to the Quebec wilderness. I used a 5-wt setup with intermediate line, a 6’-3X leader and 16-24” of 4x flouro. I tied on with a ¼ in. non-slip loop knot, as I truly believe that this promotes better action. When fishing the lakes I drifted up the shoreline casting in towards shore. I seemed to have equal success using either the leader plus tippet or replacing the leader with a four-foot fast sink tip. Tried a bead head version. Not a hit. Typically a take would occur if I casted out, let the fly sink to a depth of 2-4 feet then used a rapid 2-foot strip at a rate of one strip per two seconds. Interestingly enough, this year was the first time I actually have seen the brookies attempting to swim backwards, after they were hooked! This fly also takes small large-mouths, for you warm-water guys.