Black Pennell

The Black Pennell is a classic pattern. This small streamer works great in rivers and streams.

Start your thread a quarter of the way back from the hook eye and lay a thread base back to the hook bend. Tie in six or seven Golden Pheasant fibers, a hook shank in length, at the bend for the tails. Next, tie in a strand of silver oval tinsel. Finally, tie in a strand of black floss. Cover the butt ends of these materials moving your thread up to the starting point a quarter of the way back from the hook eye.

Wrap the floss up the hook shank to create the abdomen, making it just slightly tapered. Secure the floss and remove the waste. Next, take open, even wraps of the oval tinsel up to the front of the abdomen. Secure it tightly so it doesn't unwind and remove the excess.

The Pennell is a soft hackle pattern using a black hen saddle feather. Remove the fuzzy fibers from the base of the feather exposing the stem. Now grasp the center tip of the feather and stroke the fibers down, exposing a small section of the feather's tip. Secure the feather by the tip and put the stem into your hackle pliers. Holding the feather straight up, stroke the fibers back towards the hook bend as good as you can, and begin taking touching wraps moving towards the hook eye. On each trip around the hook, stroke everything back again. Continue until you reach the bare stem, secure the stem, and then remove the stem.

Finally, stroke back all of the fibers and hold them back with your fingers. Take thread wraps back into the base of the fibers. This will make the fibers project back towards the hook bend creating the classic wet-style fly. Whip finish and you are ready to hit the stream.