Grayling dry
Treacle Parkin
Grayling · TroutSurface
Peacock herl, a wool tag and a natural red cock hackle — the Red Tag’s Yorkshire cousin, named after a treacle-and-oatmeal cake eaten late in the autumn, when the trout season is over and the grayling season is in full swing. Greenhalgh notes the tag should properly be orange, though it is more usually tied yellow. It imitates nothing at all and catches grayling everywhere, which is the whole argument for the peacock-herl school in one pattern.
Fish this when
Any mild autumn or winter day when grayling are showing, and as a searching fly when they are not. Also a perfectly good trout fly in a summer evening rise, whatever the books say about it being a grayling pattern.
Naturals it imitates
general small dry
terrestrial
Typical zone & fishable range
usually
Surface
Film & swing
Subsurface
Deep & bottom
Setup sensitivity: low
Quick facts
Tying difficulty
Beginner-friendly
Heritage
ModernClassicHeritage
Heritage
· Northern England, named for the treacle-and-oatmeal cake — a Red Tag variant with the red tag swapped for orange, or more usually yellow. Dressing per Greenhalgh, An Encyclopedia of Fishing Flies, p.226.