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Instructions
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The Stimulator is quite possibly one of the more popular
and versatile patterns used in the United States. Randall Kaufmann
introduced the Stimulator pattern. It is very much a knock-off of an
earlier pattern called the Improved Sofa Pillow.
The original Sofa Pillow was created by a fly
fisherman/tier named Par Barnes, in the 1940’s. As the story goes, Pat was
guiding a group of Texans who, for the life of them, couldn’t catch a thing
using small trout flies. To solve the dilemma, Pat tied up a huge stonefly
imitation using some random material lying around of his tying desk. One
of the Texans’ drawled, “Why, it’s as big as a sofa piller,” and the fly was so
named. Later on in the 1950’s, Barnes made minor changes in the fly using a
clipped palmered body hackle and renamed it the “Super Sofa Pillow” which later
became known as the "Improved Sofa Pillow".
Kaufmann’s Stimulator
became popular more through the marketing efforts of Randall Kaufmann. By
merely changing the color of materials and adding various sizes, he created a
pattern that has a wide variety of applications. The larger sizes are used
to imitate large stoneflies or salmonflies or maybe grasshoppers. While in
smaller sizes, the Stimulator is used for Caddis imitations.
The Stimulator is truly
a great pattern. I keep a large supply of them on hand at all times and
find myself tying one on when nothing else seems to be working. If for no
other reason, it makes a great edible “strike indicator” with a dropper nymph
tied on below. I like to use a Royal Stimulator with my Royal Prince nymph,
tied on as a dropper for searching out those fussy trout.
Gene Hall, of Cody,
Wyoming, (wildgene) has some great variations you should check out at:
http://www.fishingwithflies.com/Stimulators.html
I hope these instructions and accompanying photos will
help you feel more comfortable in tying this truly remarkable trout fly.
If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
TYING STEPS
 1) Start
off by wrapping a nice even base of thread starting near the eye of the hook
and extending to the point where you are going to tie in the tail. This
point should be roughly even with the barb of the hook.
 2)
Take a small clump of Elk hair and pick-out or brush the “fuzzy”
under-fur from the cut end. Pick out and discard any extremely long hairs, then
place tips into the hair-stacker, as shown. With your index finger
covering the top opening, gently tap the hair-stacker several times to enable
the tips to stack evenly. Next, tilt the stacker at a 45-degree angle and tap a
couple of times to consolidate the tips into an even-tipped bundle, as shown.
3)
Hold the hair-stacker horizontal and remove the barrel with your right
hand. Do this gently, to avoid disturbing the hairs. With your left
hand, grasp the tips and remove them. The tips have now been aligned and
are ready to mount.
4)
Tie in the tail, roughly equal to the gape of the hook. I prefer
the tail a little fuller than most. Make several “soft turns” towards the
hook eye to secure, then reverse wrap towards the rear using tighter wraps as
you wrap towards the rear.
 5)
Next, take a length of Fine Gold Wire and secure it to the hook at the
rear of the fly. The wire should be tied in so that it protrudes out the
rear of the fly and is out of the way for constructing the remainder of the
fly.
This next procedure is for a
Royal Stimulator. For one of the other versions of the Stimulator, you would
dub the thread, at this step, with the appropriate color of dubbing for the
Abdomen.
 6) Tie
in a thick piece of Peacock herl and wrap the thread forward towards the
eye approximately 1/3 of the Abdomen length. With Peacock herl, always try to
tie in the herl so that the thick part of the herl is facing outward.
 7) Now
wrap the Peacock herl forward to the point where you stopped the thread and tie
the Peacock herl off at that point. At this point, tie in a strand of Red Single
Strand Nylon
Floss and then wrap the tread forward another 1/3 of the Abdomen length.
8)
Wrap the nylon floss forward to the point where you stopped the thread
make a couple of wraps to secure the floss and tie in another piece of Peacock
herl. Again, wrap the thread forward for the final 1/3 of the Abdomen
length.
9)
Wrap the Peacock herl forward to the point where you stopped the thread
and tie the herl off with a couple of thread wraps.
10)
Take a Brown piece of Saddle Hackle and tie in with several wraps of
thread. Try to tie the hackle stem on top of the hook. Leave the thread
hanging at this point.
11)
Next, grasps the tip of the hackle with your hackle pliers and begin
spiral wrapping (palmered) the hackle towards the rear of the hook.
12) Hackle to
the rear, where the tail is, let the hackle pliers drop straight down and take
the fine gold wire and wrap forward locking the hackle in place.
Carefully, zig-zag the wire through the hackle in order not to
crush the hackle
down as much as possible.
13)
Once the wire has been wrapped back through the hackle to the last
section of Peacock herl, wrap the wire 2 or 3 times around the hook and tie off
with thread. The Tail and Abdomen are now complete.
14)
Now for the wing: Take a nice clump of Elk hair and stack as you did for
the tail in Steps 2 and 3 above. As you can see in the photo, you should
measure the wing so that it is roughly even with the end of the fly's abdomen.
To tie in the wing, first, make a couple of loops with the thread around the
hair only at the cut ends (not the hook), then cinch the hair onto the hook with
a few turns of the thread. Wrap a few more turns of thread towards the eye,
then back again. Here, I put a couple of drops of head cement to hold the wing
in place.
15)
Next, tie in a nice piece of Grizzly Saddle Hackle as you did before with
the Brown Hackle. Tie the feather in so that it extends towards the rear of the
fly with the shiny side facing you. Wrap a few turns of thread to secure and
trim the excess stem.
 16)
 17)
Now, grasp the tip of the Grizzly hackle with your hackle pliers and
spiral wrap (palmer) towards the eye with 3 or 4 turns and then tie the hackle
off using several wraps of thread. Trim off the excess hackle and whip finish to
form an orange nose. Add a couple of drops of head cement and there you have
it.
Yellow Stimulator
Black Stimulator w/legs
Olive Stimulator
"Uncle Sam-ulator"
--tied for the Red, White & Blue Swap
9/11/01
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