The switch to Mylar eased the bloodletting and ended tarnish, but had the same problems with its application. Now you had to remember to tie in the color opposite what the body would be, as one side was silver and the other gold, which would result in the only cost savings two hundred years of fly tying has ever produced.

Figure 1: Gold side facing you means the fly will have a silver body

Tinsel bodies are quite common in trout streamers and steelhead flies, and can be tamed with three simple tricks; always use the widest tinsel available to cover the most with the least number of wraps, never overlap turns, and always double wrap the body, never attempt to single wrap the fly.

Tinsel is cheap – there’s little advantage in hoarding it.

Figure 2: No turns overlap

If even the slightest overlap occurs it will create a “bubble” or air gap that will eventually slip to reveal the thread wraps beneath. Always wrap the first layer so you can see thread color between turns.

Figure 3: Final layer of tinsel added

There are no overlaps on the upper layer of tinsel either. Because the two layers are at right angles to one another, no thread is visible despite our leaving rather obvious gaps on the bottom layer.

In the above “Comet” style of steelhead fly, I used an under-the-tail-wrap to change direction and bring the second layer forward to the eye. This makes the change of direction seamless, and lifts the tail away from the hook bend.

As an additional step, one that I’ve been asked about, is how the “tip-first” style of hackling subsurface flies can accommodate a second color.

Comet’s have a mixed orange and yellow hackle, and “folding” hackle so it drapes back naturally, precludes a second color – given that winding it forward would bind the first to the shank.

Instead, treat both feathers as if they were a single feather. Size the hackles by spreading the barbs perpendicular to the stems with your fingers. Place one on top of the other, and using either the thumb (top feather) or forefinger (bottom feather) slide the two along each other until the stroked barbules are the same length, as below:

Figure 4: Both orange and yellow fibers match in length

A better view below, showing the two hackles now tied in, yet spread from the stem so you can see they’re of identical length …

When gripped thusly, the forefinger controls the tension on the bottom feather, and the thumb controls stem tension on the top color. Note how the stroked perpendicular barbules are of the same raw length.

Now all that remains is to keep the stems together under equal tension when you stroke them at right angles with your scissors, or saliva equipped fingers, whatever is your favorite tool for moving the fibers to the same side.

Figure 5: Fibers stroked roughly to the same side

I use the edge of my scissors scraped towards me to break the backs of all the fibers and push them to a single side. Fingers finish the task, by stroking anything unruly back into line. Note how close the two stems are kept, they might as well be a single stem.

Figure 6: Winding both colors forward

This technique ensures the proper balance of colors as one turn of orange yields one turn of yellow, and the mixed color is exactly half of each. Adjust the stems over lumps or bumps using the finger that controls the wayward stem – bring it back in line with the other so they wind as a single object.

Figure 7: The completed “Comet” style

This style of hackle does away with the overly large head caused by wrapping over the “dry fly style” hackling and forcing it down and over the back of the fly. A fly tied with this style hackle can have a head no larger than a trout fly if done correctly.

Note how the sizing we did at the beginning yields flues of equal length for both colors? No more guesswork needed to pick two hackles, simply slide them around until the flue length matches.

Using the right “style” of hackle for the task is a very important distinction a tyer makes on his path to mastery. When he understands why he abandons “butt-first dry fly hackle” for his underwater flies, it’s a real milestone in his formative process.

… although there is that trust thing …

Nor will I mention the hair extensions you’ll have to tear out by the roots, or the groans of the feminine members of the household as they watch fashion disappear into the firm grip of your hackle pliers …

Yes, the Boys of Summer – the top killing flies of my recent trip – were all dries.

Most of the fish killing was the result of my earlier experimental the “Hovering Predator.” Little surprise given that it has the mayfly upwing when dry, the downwing of a caddis when wet, and as much deer or elk as a full dress Humpy or Elk Hair Caddis.

The fish above gave it about a microsecond before inhaling the beast deeply.

These are so much quicker to tie than a Humpy, and uses only about three turns of hackle per fly, relying instead on all those trimmed deer hair butts to give it a high floating three point stance. I doll it up with floatant to preserve the mayfly silhouette in slow water – and fling it without regard for dampness in the faster currents.

Second best was the time honored Yellow Sally I was introduced to at Hat Creek. Bright yellow body and scarlet egg sac, natural elk tips and ginger hackle complete the fly.

The Little Yellow Stone is a summer constant in the Sierra’s – and anything yellowish is sucked down with great glee by fish used to seeing it flutter by. In low light and with old eyes, it’s a welcome spot of white that can be seen immediately, and makes us geezers on equal footing with the younger crowd.

I tied all my dry flies on the fancy barbless tournament steel for the last two years. Not so much a preference as it is research in progress, a future article that may aid you in calculating their value to the casual angler.

Which is why we spend so much time gazing fervently at road kill and the neighbors Maltese.

The veritable Horner Deer Hair, Humpy, Goofus Bug, or by whatever local name you know the fly, is a poster child for precise hair selection. Too long a tip and the wing disappears into the hackle, and you wind up using Moose for the tail – simply because the black tip and yellow bar are too long for the size you’re tying.

Unless all of the colors are small enough they won’t fit on a wing which  dry fly proportions dictate is merely twice gape, and the long black tips will bury the gold bar in the thickest part of the hackle where it can’t be seen.

Deer do possess hair that will tie a Humpy smaller than size 20. The down side is that it’s the muzzle of a deer – the area between eyes and black shiny nose.

You won’t find that at the fly shop, as most of their selection is prepackaged six or eight states distant, but you may be able to find a local taxidermist whose hunter didn’t pay the bill – or some garage sale mount that isn’t too badly moth eaten or brittle and can still be salvaged.

I have the luxury of fleeing the fishless and flooded creeks in my area for our traditional twice yearly pilgrimage to Manzanita Lake. It’s become ritual at this point; once to mark the opening of the season, once in the fall to mark the close, and the fish always playing second fiddle to the real prize of a year’s worth of bragging rights.

… and with all well known lakes and the best laid plans, it always comes down to “mystery meat” that determines the Victor…

… the puff of breeze that dislodged all them awkward carpenter ants, or the hot midge color is florescent orange (even though last year it was Chartreuse), and while most of the day you’re flinging or dragging everything you thought would be there, the perversity of Mother Nature means every day becomes an episode of Monty Hall’s “Let’s Make A Deal.”

I’m dating myself surely, but as every episode ended he’d glance down at the Grandma squealing in her clown suit and say, “I’ll give you $500 for every clothespin you brought in your purse … Two? Okay, I’ll trade your thousand dollars for what’s behind door #3 …”

A Lifetime of Cheese slices or …

… and has you scrambling for the darkest recesses of your fly box hoping you can cut up something normal to make what you really need.

…kind of like Granny felt when she paid a thousand bucks for a metric ton of CheeseWiz.

A fistful of moose hair tied in and double folded in both front and back to make a comely lump, with the remnants pushed upright and wrapped as a parachute. Moose being tough allows me to dress the fly on a #10 hook without a single fish tearing everything to pieces.

After a couple of fish I should have the rough look necessary, broken fibers trailing under the fly to simulate legs.

Ants are always accompanied with a stiff afternoon breeze, and with the water surface roughened nicely it’s a rare opportunity to fish the dry with OX. Typically by that time you’ve got a few scores to settle and are less mindful of hurt feelings …

At some point we all flirt

… about our third fly we begin to wonder about synthetic reality and whether something that takes forty-five minutes to tie can outfish something made from a lumpy dog ear and owl feather.

About the half-dozen mark we’re willing to go back to the imprecise impressionism that is the Royal Coachman Fanwing, and we’re the luckier for it …

Not this fellow, I admire his work very much, and admire his resolve even more ..

He’s got quite a few videos as well as the wing burners and tools to speed the realism, always worth an eyeball.

But the most feared responsibility is the stalwart supplying the flies. A bit of inattention and the whole purpose of being is lost, a nickname results, and most of the beer consumed while everyone lounges about waiting for your return from civilization and the closest fly shop …

You’d think after fishing the same lake for nearly twenty-five years I’d make this easy on myself. Ear mark a couple of weekends and bang out what worked last year without modification, despite recent lackluster reception, and should anyone disturb my lake-side communion with questions about their validity, feign outrage with the “Candyass” retort…

“Dammit, these flies work fine. Most of the problem is that Candyass rod you’re using, with its Candyass limp butt, complicated further by a stiff breeze and that Candyass open wrist you develop every afternoon.

Try some of the brown ones … Meat.”

This being the second year in a row that everything fit to hold water is swollen to the gills with runoff, we’re retiring to the safety of the Sierra’s and the millions of lakes that will be full – where we can remove the furrows from our brow dallying in the deep end – armed with floating sofa cushions and breadcrumbs for the ducks.

… and while the rest of the fly tying world plays stop-action with the phases of mayfly, we’ll focus on fast sinking, sinking, and Black Hole of sinking…

Three guys, three days, and one beginner. I figure eight dozen to cover the losses; broken branches, busted tippets, and the balance to be loaned long term.

Brass cones, kirbed hook, red for blood and dark purple for great silhouette at depth.

Not as big as the Red Butted, but equipped with a similar heavy bead and lead.

Most importantly is to have plenty of leech style flies the same color as the weed growing up from the bottom, how else to imitate the hide and seek nature of the local chow.

The latest in a long line of damselfly imitations, size 11, the real thing being a large morsel for a fish gaunt from ice out.

… and for the almost sinking, semi top water, you’ve got to have a handful of Calibaetis nymphs should the midday emergence finally come to fruition.

Small trout fry in case nothing else works, slim profile and nothing to impede sinking and stripping past a cruising fish.

If we’re lucky we might encounter some Calibaetis, here are the “predator” flavor of that self same bug.

I’ve got the initial five dozen cranked out this weekend in between largemouth bass and bluegill, which’ll cover the other fellows nicely – yet save all the batter-dipped scented experimentals for my box and the secrecy of open water …

“Huh? I got it on the brown one like I said …”

With no fish visible last night I had to eat my own creation, and absent my glasses, proof of concept is casting the fly rod left handed and upstream, poking the camera into the water as the fly draws near hoping we get a couple of good shots.

At left is proof of landing correctly despite being cast forty times, the fly being soaked, yet I’ve got enough stabilization to keep the proper attitude.

The wings are in the Mayfly configuration, and as the camera lens is bisected by the water you can see the blob of upright dyed gray elk, exactly as planned.

At right is the view we see, the wings are dry and absent the wax I’d original used to clump the fibers a little more.

Two turns of hackle, a bit of my special dry fly dubbing, some dyed gray elk, and we’re looking at something designed from the ground up to be a really efficient killer.

What determines the best and most effective flies is not how many fish they’ve caught and where, it’s how confident the owning angler is using the fly – and whether he leaves it on for a few casts or a few hours.

As a guide I’ve heard many learned anglers mention the killing qualities of their favorite flies, I’d nod knowingly as each was completely correct in their assessment.

“I catch all my fish on the Adam’s …” – and if that’s all you ever put on – it’s a prophecy.

Rules are simpler yet; it has to be as fast or faster to tie than a traditional dry fly, and it has to use at least one waste byproduct of fly tying – some butt end or common scrap we’ve discarded routinely.

That way I can insist mine’s better than Theodore Gordon’s halting imitations as my fly is “green” as well as guaranteeing an early supper …

I’m not sure I was supposed to come up with anything at all, it was the challenge that drew me to the vise week after week.

I reversed the wing from a Quigley Cripple using deer hair trimmings as the discard material. His Cripple uses the trimmed stub over the body, and the long end over the eye of the hook. I added a dab of tacky wax to the wing … just enough to add a bit of clumping (for the mayfly version) and allows me to pull the wing down over the body to turn the fly into a caddis imitation.

Pull the wing up for the mayfly hatch and down for the caddis grab – neither requires you to retie the knot when it’s near dark.

What’s not to like in a fly that can imitate two of the major trout food groups?

The real test of a great fly is not in its design or function but in the hidden meaning of its name, which will naturally be lost over time, yet adds mystery and illusion to a pedestrian effort.

There were two royal coachmen for each carriage, so which inspired the fly?

I call it the “Hovering Predator” which we’ll know as the drone that’s kept Osama behind them high walls and rooted to the compound, and the rest of history will have to guess at – while wadding handfuls of #16’s into their fly boxes.

Better yet, I’ve shown you mine, now I want to see yours …

Most new tiers never see it coming, as the “Shoe-Box” phase, when everything they own can fit into a shoebox ends, and they’re so badly hooked they’ll drop all pretense at ethics or morals, and cover the kitchen table in a blink of an eye.

… nor are they mindful whose credit card is doing the covering.

It goes double for us hoarders. We’re slow hanging up all the Olive turkey wing we dyed last night, and the six or seven pounds we left dripping in the garage, none of which we dare move, have us leaving the vehicles to the streets tender mercies. Add the peroxide of beaver left on our ersatz clothesline rigged in the only shower – and colors, materials, and ideas, enter your subconscious unbidden.

You sit down with an idea of banging out a couple dozen flies for a pal and creativity takes the bit in its teeth and by the time someone starts yelling, you’ve got a couple dozen truly remarkable flies, only they aren’t what you were supposed to make.

I was content working on a new dry fly series I had dreamed up, and instead of groundbreaking and earth-shattering, I wound up with stuff that works – which is far more useful, only won’t boost the myth and legend of any memoirs I might later publish.

Too many pieces of lightened beaver lined the garage drying, each possessed of seductive tan guard hairs suitable for the Fluttering Caddis dries of Leonard Wright’s, “Fishing the Dry Fly as a living Insect” fame.

I’m off on a tangent with original intent forgotten while I find the least-damp Olive turkey wing for biots, replacing the authors original pheasant tail fibers. I think the original Fly Fisherman magazine article suggested Mink guard hair, but beaver is free, closer, and willing …

The line maker insists that slick or pebbled is the one true finish, and countless scientists struggle to define slick, in hopes of making it more so.

Heavy butted, limp, monofilament or fluorocarbon to transfer the line’s energy to the fly, but there the refinement and science dies, as fly choice is a mixture of semi-educated premise, intuition, and guesswork.

Figure the average outfit has been tuned by forty or fifty scientists, each with their own ideas on action, stiffness, and weight. Many thousands spent on rare earths and minerals to coat and build the ensemble, and when it finally gets to you, you can’t decide whether to use one or two split shot to drag sharp stuff through deep stuff?

I find it just a bit humorous, and why I can’t stifle a giggle when some rod engineer uses terms like “pure” and “essence”.”

As a fly tier I find fault with overtly heavy rigs or flies. Early Spring fishing is largely dominated by weighted, beaded, thick and heavy, all of which yanks at me when I yank at it, and makes fishing a series of flop casts that carry the weight due to energy imparted by my arm, versus imparted by a fly line – or something that bent the blank.

Like all those engineers are likely to tell you, there’s more than a single way to do anything – including sinking a fly.

Profile can act like more weight if it’s catered to in the fly’s design. Wide and fat increases resistance to motion in any direction, especially fast sinking and lifting the rig back to the surface. Extra shot can drive anything to the bottom quickly, but is never much fun to lob for any length of time -considering the wear and tear on knots and especially  lighter tippets.

Recognizing this from past seasons and planning to switch to a lighter line size this year, allows me to preplan some of the flies needed, given that I have the luxury of tying flies that will be lighter, yet sink as quickly as needed due to their slim profile.

Just as important, a slim profile allows me to get them out of the water with alacrity, something quite desirable in a hook set, and may allow the rod to roll cast the rig to the surface to position for the next cast.

Spring being host to all those big dark artificials, stoneflies mostly; many of us will be cracking out big pillow shaped chenille monstrosities, replete with rubber legs and tungsten beads. That’s less of a bother with #5’s and #6’s, but using a #3 or #4 line they’ll be effective only in lobbing flies given both their weight and water resistance.

I decided to “channel” some of the old Polly Rosborough Golden stone designs to different colors as his design is a lighter weight than traditional fare, and allows me some additional flexibility while I prepare for a high water Spring – and a light line mainstay.

The shank is covered in lead from tail to whip finish, with only a bit of combed fur to impede sinking. It’ll fish where the fish should be without extra beads and split shot, and ensures an enjoyable heave compared to the weighted hamburger the other fellow is throwing.

Thin silhouette is matched by other functional attributes consistent with a heavy nymph. Reinforcing wire on all the feather delicates, three coats of cement on the head, and a blood red tuft of fur making the underwing, adding a hint of attractor to the finished pattern.

Heavy wire is consistent with banging about the rocks, as is the thick spear point – on a fly destined to hook many things, some of which may be desirable.

Few anglers optimize their flies knowing what’ll be throwing it. Favorite patterns also restrict us a bit, given our reluctance to try anything new. On a big meal like a stonefly I’d suggest fish won’t be as selective, allowing us to add that additional dimension, something tailored for the characteristics of the rod.

That’s a lot of scientists insisting a few grams are worth many hundreds of dollars. No reason not to pay attention to the ease of your rig when fished, and the shape and style of its terminal tackle.