Welcome Guest to Charlie's FlyBox! Biot Epoxy Golden Stone, Mercer's step: 1 Pattern Description The Biot Epoxy Stone is yet another pattern from tying guru Mike Mercer. Mike has a string of great patterns out there available through Umpqua Feather Merchants and adds more killing rendetions every year. The Biot Epoxy Stone has become a best-seller for good reason. A nicely segmented biot body coupled with an epoxy coated wingcase and a bead make for a pattern that is both realistic and durable. There are a few tricks in tying this pattern that aren't readily apparent, so take a look through the tutorial before you start in on tying one. Nothing beyond basic tying skills are required, but above average attention to detail is also a prerequisite for this pattern. Feel up to the challenge? Get on it! Materials Needed: All materials used here available for mail order. Please use the contact form for pricing and details. Hook: TMC 2302 #6-16 Thread: 6/0 or 70 Denier Yellow Bead: Gold colored Brass or Tungsten, sized to hook Tails: Gold Goose Biots Weight: Lead Wire along sides of hook shank. Abdomen: Sulphur Orange Turkey Biots (usually at least two) Wingcases: Mottled Turkey Tail Quill Slips (2) Thorax: Mercer's Buggy Nymph Dubbing, Golden Stone color or Tan Wapsi Sow Scud Dubbing Legs: Mottled hen Saddle Feather or Partridge Body Feather step: 2   Slide the bead onto the hook and up to the hook eye. Start the tying thread and wrap a thread base back to the bend of the hook. click to enlarge step: 3   Cut two goose biots from the stem, oppse their curves and even their tips. Tis the biots in at the bend of the hook so their tips extend beyond the hook bend about a half shank length. click to enlarge step: 4   Wrap forward over the butt ends of the biots to the mid-point on the hook and clip the excess there. Tie in a length of lead wire along the far side of the hook shank starting right behind the bead. Bigger hooks will require larger diameter lead and smaller hooks...well, you know... click to enlarge step: 5   Wrap the thread back over the lead to just in front of the base of the tails. wrap tightly as you go over the lead. Once you have the wire secured along the side of the hook, pull on the long end of the wire and it will break off cleanly and taper its end in the process. click to enlarge step: 6   Repeat the lead along the side of the hook process on the near side of the hook. This lead underbody forms a wide, flattened chassis for the biot overbody. Chez Realistic. click to enlarge step: 7   Wrap the thread over the lead underbody forming a smooth thread base. click to enlarge step: 8   Select a long, wide turkey biot from the stem. Tie the biot in by its tip end with the ridge on the bottom side of the tie down. We want to from a ribbed body with this biot so the stand-up edge should be facing down when we tie it in. Like this>>>>>>>> click to enlarge step: 9   Grab the butt end of the biot in your hackle pliers and wrap it forward in evenly spaced turns as far as you can. When you run out of biot, tie it off and clip the excess. You will probably only make it halfway with the first biot, but here's where Mercer's Magic comes in... click to enlarge step: 10   Now, cut another biot from the stem and trim the tip of the feather back a bit so the alignment will match up with the first biot. (If you tie it in by the natural pointed tip, the segments will be too close together in the middle of the body). click to enlarge step: 11   Tie the second biot in as you did the first, taking care to butt the tie in down to the front of the first biot. You want as seamless a transition as possible, something I didn't quite get here on this pattern, but I had this damn camera in the way and I had a headache and I was really sad cause my dog ran away. You'll do better. click to enlarge step: 12   Wrap the second biot forward to the two thirds point and tie it off there. Clip the excess. See what i mean by a not-so-seamless transition here, LOL? click to enlarge step: 13   Cut a slip from a turkey tail feather that is about as wide as the gap of the hook. Clip the tip end of the feather so it is square and tie it in on top of the front edge of the biot abdomen with the inside of the feather facing up. click to enlarge step: 14   cut another identical slip from the turkey feather and prepare it as you did above by cutting the tip square. Tie this one in on top of the first. You are indeed making two wingcases, one on top of the other...a double decker wingcase, if you will... click to enlarge step: 15   Dub a thorax with either Mercer's Buggy nymph dubbing or the tan SowScud dubbing. mercer uses a dubbing loop for the thorax on his flies and in the case of larger patterns (#6 and 8), this is the right thing to do. for smaller patterns, just direct dub the dubbing onto the thread and wrap a robust thorax as shown here. click to enlarge step: 16   Clip the tip out of a partridge or hen feather, forming a V shape as seen here. You are only going to clip the center stem of the feather, leaving the fibers sticking out the sides. Peel the fluff and fibers from the bottom of the feather so the remaining fibered stem of the feather is only as long as the thorax/dubbed section of the fly. Tie the feather in to the hook shankin front of the dubbed thorax so it is centered on the hook with the stem of the feather running straight up the center of the thorax. click to enlarge step: 17   Pull the top wingcase (the second one you tied in) over the top of the thorax and feather and bind it down just behind the hook eye. click to enlarge step: 18   Pull the second wingcase over the top of the first and tie it down as well. This double layer wingcase will prevent the epoxy from soaking all the way through later. click to enlarge step: 19   Put a coat of epoxy on the top of the wingcase, from front to back and edge to edge, forming a smooth bulb on the top of the wingpad. click to enlarge step: 20   Now sit there and wait for about five minutes while the epoxy dries. maybe read a book, clean up your tying mess a little...feed the dog...kill a few mintues while you wait. Whistling is good too. click to enlarge step: 21   Alright, first of all, admit it...You really did whistle, didn't you? Dub a bit of dubbing (the same stuff as you used for the thorax) onto the thread and wrap a short collar to fill in the gap between the bead and the wingcase. Whip finish the thread ight behind the bead and clip. click to enlarge step: 22   Use a brown marker to color the ribbed edge of the biot abdomen and mottle it up a bit. Run the marker down the biot tails as well just to mix it up a little. click to enlarge step: 23   How's that? click to enlarge step: 24   Bottom view. click to enlarge step: 25   Top view. And since you're gonna ask....I don't do biot antennae, as cool as it looks. I always seem to end up tying them down in my clinch knot when I tie the fly on and then end up trimming them off, so I just save myself the trouble and skip them. Your mileage may vary;-) click to enlarge

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