Beadhead Hendrickson

The Beadhead Hendrickson is a nicely weighted variant on the Hendrickson nymph pattern. Begin by adding several wraps of lead wire to the hook shank and slide the lead inside the bead. You can add some glue to the thread wraps to secure them to the hook. Now create a thread base extending back to the hook bend. Use seven to eight fibers from a Mallard flank feather to use as the nymph's tail. These should be about a hook length or a little smaller. Secure them to the top of the hook. Tie in a piece of copper wire - Brassie size - to the hook and secure it back to the base of the tails. The pattern is dubbed with three different colors of dubbing - tan, brown, and black. Begin using a tan dubbing and begin a tapered abdomen beginning at the base of the tails. Wrap the tan dubbing about one-quarter of the way towards the hook eye. Next, transition to a brown dubbing. Continue the taper by dubbing just beyond the halfway point on the hook. Next, take open wraps of the copper wire through both the tan and then the brown dubbing. Secure the wire and break it off. I tend not to pull the wire too tight to keep it from sinking and disappearing in the dubbing. I like it to be visible. Now add a 1/8" wide piece of thin skin or scudback behind the bead, and wrap backward to secure it where your dubbed abdomen ended. Add black dubbing to your thread and build a heavier thorax right up to the bead. Turn to the same Mallard flank fibers at this point to add six to seven legs on either side of the hook - one set at a time. These should not extend further than half of the hook shank and probably less. Once both sets are secure, pull your thin skin forward over the bead, stretch it tight, and take wraps over the top of it just behind the bead to lock it into place. This will be the nymph's wing case. Remove the excess thin skin, whip finish, and cut your thread. Finally, take a drop of head cement and add it to the top of the thin skin and spread it to cover the the skin.