The Thurso is a wonderful river placed on the far north of the Scottish Highlands, famous to the fishermen of its good runs of spring salmon and grilse. In first part of the season, when its water are cold and the salmon tend to have a rest close the bottom of the deepest pools of the river, the fishing impose the use of sinking lines and heavy tube flies or Waddington, in order to present the artificials at a short distance from the fish, so to induce them to take although they are torpid and dull.
  Quite rich is the selection of “heavy” flies useful to face the Thurso; in the last years, anyway, the beautiful Fast Eddie is became one of the most popular patterns. This fly was invented by Stan Headley, a popular British fly tier and author of fishing literature, who elaborated its dressing following the advice of Eddie McCarthy, the superintendent to the fishing on the river, in regard to the more effective colours of a fly for fishing on the Thurso. Substantially Eddie suggested to Stan to make an artificial with the wings dyed of orange yellow and green, and with the a golden body. With a little of fantasy, Stan gave life to a splendid fly and he decided to dedicate it to his friend Eddie.
  I trying the Fast Eddie for the first on the Loch Beg, situated on the beat twelve of the Thurso, and during that day of April I was able to catch with it two magnificent spring salmon of eight and fourteen pounds in a few hours of fishing.

INSTRUCTIONS

I start to build the Fast Eddie by fixing a treble hook of appropriate size on the Waddington shank and introducing the edge of the shank into a small piece of silicon rubber tubing. Next I push the silicon tubing along all the length of the Waddington shank, stopping it on the treble. I fix the Waddington shank into the vice jaws and I tie the red thread

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With the red thread, I realise a sort of bandage around the open part of the Waddington shank and I tie in front of this a piece of fine oval gold tinsel, which I use to create the tag, wrapping it around a short section of the shank

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In front of the tag, I fix a long piece of flat gold tinsel (or mylar) and a piece of medium oval gold tinsel

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Wrapping in tightened coils the flat tinsel around the Waddington shanks, I build the Fast Eddie body

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With wide passages of the oval tinsel over the body, I realise the fly ribbing

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Just behind the shank eye, I bind in some fibres of pearly Crystalhair, placing them so that they extends backwards to reach the central section of the treble hook

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From the bucktail dyed of orange and yellow, I cut off two tufts of hairs and I fixing them just behind the Waddington shank eye. The hairs must be placed all around the fly body, so that their tips extend backwards a little over the treble hook

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With a third tuft of bucktail, this time of green colour, I complete the wing structure, applying it over to the previous ones. Next I cut off the front surplus of all the bucktail tufts

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I realise the head of the fly with some turns of the red thread and then I whip finish it

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Along the central section of the head, I form a ring with some turns of black thread

I whip finish the black thread and I complete the Fast Eddie with two hands of clear varnish, distributed over its head one at a distance of some hour from the other. The varnish must be applied also to the bandage around the opening part of the Wandington shank

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MATERIALS LIST

HOOK: Waddington shank size 20 to 55 mm with treble hook size 12 to 4
TREBLE HOOK FIXER: silicon rubber tubing
THREAD: red
TAG: fine oval gold tinsel
BODY: flat gold tinsel (or mylar)
RIBBING: medium oval gold tinsel
UNDERWINGS: pearly Crystalhair
WINGS: bucktail dyed of yellow, orange and green
HEAD: red thread with black thread around the central section, finished with two hands of clear varnish