This is an excellent all around nymph that combines the best of the nymph and wet fly. The look is similar to the Hare’s Ear Nymph in the tail and dubbed and ribbed abdomen, but then it departs by forgoing the wingcase and using a wet fly, wound/hackled wing. I probably over hackled the wing. The pattern profile can be tied with the red squirrel, hare’s ear or a synthetic dubbing. But, traditions abound in fly tying. Out of the gazillion options and combinations in fly tying, you might as well tie true to an original or close to, once in awhile.  Additional info re Whitlock’s Red Squirrel Nymph. There are further linked sites that give the tying instructions that are slightly different than how I tied mine here. Actually, I have several squirrel tails. I have had them several years and have no idea what type of squirrel they came from. I bought them at one of those bulk materials sales by a FF club fund raiser at a FFF fly tying expo. I used that for the tail on the bottom one and dubbed the rest with a hair blend (top fly’s tail is deer hair) .  So, although I say be true to the pattern, I too fudged re the Red Fox Squirrel material. The thorax is a smidgen of ice dub. If the thorax area were comprised of one sparse turn of hackle or spiky dubbing this would be a simple nymph pattern for sure.            FFIC-RFSN