An easy to tie long floating dry fly inspired by Gary LaFontaine's "The Mess".  Thanks to the packing foam back and poly yarn wings this fly floats for a long time without shaking it out or even drying it off.  Perfect for long slow drifts on small streams where false casting to dry out the fly only decorates the trees.

Materials List:

1. Size 12 - 18 Tiemco 100(BL or SP-BL) or Diachi 1190
2. Cream colored thread (match dubbing) - Ultra Thread 70 or Uni 6/0
3. Deer hair - Natural color, fine
4. White or cream colored poly yarn
5. Synthetic dubbing - natural fur is fine, but usually gets soggy quickly
6. Packing foam - thin, closed cell sheets typically found around electronics

Deer hair patch.  I like to use the fine, soft hair for this fly.  Spinning hair can be a pain to tie down to the hook shank without it flaring all over the place.  Whatever you have will work, but if you have a choice, go with the softest stuff you can find.

Poly yarn.  Synthetic yarn will not take on water and clump together.

The step-by-step instructions follow on the next page.

Step 1: Bind about 6 - 10 strands of deer hair toward the hook bend.  I like to make some loose wraps toward the eye to increase the body bulk.  Trim the ends leaving enough room to tie down the wings - about 1/4 the length of the shaft.

Step 2: Tie in the foam.  I cut a thin strip and double it up.

Step 3: Dub the body with your choice of dubbing material and color.  I like to use a cream color for the body to suggest a smallish moth.

Step 4: Lash down the foam leaving room to tie in the wings on the hook shank.

Step 5: Lay about an inch of poly yarn across the hook shank against the body.  Wrap the thread in a figure-8 motion around the yarn and shank.  After about 4 strong wraps, pull the yarn up and make 2 wraps around the base of the yarn (on top of the hook shank) like tying a post.

The fly can either be tied off now, or a small amount of darker dubbing can be added to suggest a thorax or head of the fly.  Finally pinch and pull the yarn wings straight up and trim them evenly at roughly 1/2 the length of the hook shank.

The yarn can be pulled down to the sides of the shank and either fanned out laterally to suggest a Mayfly spinner, or fanned up perpendicular to the shank as shown here.