ThunderHead

A Smokey Mountain original attributed to Joe Hall of Bryson City, the Thunderhead is one of the most popular flies fished in the area. Different from the Adams Wulff in that it's tied with opossum fur and was developed in an isolated area to fit the local conditions. I fish this fly all the time, because it is visible and fits a variety of conditions. It's also very buoyant, which is a big plus in the fast water of Western North Carolina streams.

Thunderhead (variation)

hook: mustad 94980 or equivalent (10-20)
thread: gray
tail: moose mane
wing: white calf tail or white antron
body: opossum fur or muskrat
hackle: brown and grizzly hackle

step 1:
Start the thread about an 1/8 of the hook length behind the eye, wrapping it to the hook shank. Tie in the tail, I usually make mine just under 1 1/2 the hook length. I like longer tails.









step 2:
Next, wrap the tail up 3/4 of the hook length to secure and trim excess. Tie in the wing, securing it where the tail was trimmed at. I like my wings to be the length of the hook. During all of this, you want to leave enough room to add hackle and the finish knot at the front of the fly.












step 3: Trim the excess wing and bring the wing into an upright position. Trim the excess staggered to help create a tapered body when adding the dubbing. I use antron because I'm a lazy fly tier. I also don't split my wings, again, because I'm lazy. And frankly, I don't think the fish care!
















step 4:
Add dubbing to the thread, tapered, and wrap up to almost the wing base. Leave enough room for the hackle to be tied in. Tie in one brown and grizzly hackle.














step 5:
Wrap the hackle. I tend to tie this fly pretty heavy on the hackle. Three wraps of each hackle behind and in front of the wing. This gives me enough hackle to trim a little later to clean up the fly.
















step 6:
All that is left is to whip finish the head and trim up the hackle a bit to give it a cleaner appearance. The last step can be omitted, but I like the way in makes the flies look.














The Thunderhead... kinda. I replaced the tail for moose body fur. I like the silhouette it gives the fly and how buoyant it is. I tend to use muskrat, out of convenience for the most part. The antron wing is just a whole lot easier to deal with than calf's tail. I know it's cheating, but the fish don't care, and I am by no means a purist when it comes to tying.

I fish this pattern a lot! I have some as big as size 8 all the way down to 20. I tie them in gray, dingy yellow, green, and brown. I usually fish this as the dry fly with a dropper underneath it, likely a hairy moose. I love this fly! I feel lost when I run out of a particular color or size. I tend to tie them in the dozens now, mountain trout love em! Bluegill like this fly a lot too.