Thorax Style | Hen Tip Winged Blue Wing Olive
The late great Vincent Marinaro developed a whole new understanding of how trout view insects in the surface film. His book “In the Ring of the Rise” illustrates wonderfully through much experimentation what triggers certain responses in surface feeding trout. Further developing thorax style dry flys into a new realm was his major passion as well as creating the ultimate bamboo fly rod which was an ongoing drama with many ups and downs.
Basically thorax style dry flys sit flush in the surface film, abdomen and thorax both create a convincing profile, evoking a much more lifelike attitude, posture, and silhouette from the trouts POV. Often Marinaro would clip a V beneath his hackle collars and or X wrap around a thorax dubbed ball geometry. The thorax ball allowed for a criss cross wrap splaying the hackle fibers forward and backward making the fly sit lower in the surface film and not on its tippy toes as in a traditional hackle collar dry. The below pattern demonstrates the assembly of my methods, BUT I do not remove hackle from beneath until I am on the water using a stream side scissor that I carry with me always. I create a thorax dubbed ball to help splay the hackles leaving a gap between the rear hackles and the forward hackles (see below photos) The reason I do not clip the hackle during the tying process is because I have the choice depending on what part of the hatch I'm experiencing and what posture the naturals are taking at any given moment.
