Category Archives: Fly Tying

The fly tying equivalent of the One that Got Away?

Fly tying success is akin to fishing success, you’re happy to bore tears out of your fishing buddies, describing the instant of clarity when goat nostril was the perfect tailing fiber for your pre-menopausal emergent mayfly adult.

So long as you’re buying the beer they’ll feign interest…

What’s never described is the 750 refusals you got earlier, how you couldn’t buy a fish with your variant – and the really big SOB they’re congratulating you on was foul hooked in the dorsal with an Adam’s.

Fly tying is the same way.

I keep encouraging you to buy bulk, cut out the middleman, and go offshore … but that really nice out-of-production yarn I found that you wanted – may have been the Lemonade, and while you’re piling onto eBay to score some, I’m sleeping with lemons.

Oopsie, that ain't Olive

Another “factory direct” shipment from Turkey, minimum order is 10 skeins, and that mildly interesting navy blue mohair wrapped with a thin strand of silver tinsel?

… that’s dark Olive.

Mutt yarns are always a “home run” swing, there’s no bunting or swinging for percentage – it’s either what you wanted or Jimi Hendrix lit it on fire at Fillmore West.

It's a cross between Chenille and a bottle brush

It’s a head scratcher, chenille on one side and a bottle brush on the other?

I may have found the World’s Most Awesome Pipe Cleaner. Dip it in bourbon and watch the tar and dried spit melt from your stem…

I’ll wind it around a couple of hook shanks to check the effect, but I’ll not hold my breath.

The knitting cabal at the nearby church keeps showering me with stale sugar cookies everytime I produce a bag of colorful rejects – in between complaining about their kids I’m sure they’ve seen fit to put me in the good graces of the Man.

I see it as cheap insurance.

The K-2 of fly tying, a solo ascent on dry fly hackle

It was a comment made by Alex at 40 Rivers to Fish that had me pondering fly tying as a whole. Like all artisans you wake one morning and realize you’ve explored most continents – and wonder is this the pinnacle of the craft, and after years of toil – are there no dragons left to slay?

Two or three hundred years of small hooks and smaller feathers doesn’t leave many Everest’s to climb, and with the few surviving manuscripts of “them as came before”, you never know whether it’s really invention or modification you’re working on.

Most real innovation in fly tying has come from new synthetic materials, rather than technique. Simple items we’ve taken for granted hold a great deal more promise than their older counterparts – and poring over countless synthetic fashion yarns has introduced new worlds for me to conquer.

The Granddaddy of all fly tying mountains has been hackle, and most tiers will admit that the big dollars is invested in their collection of genetic chickens, and the unending desire to accumulate more colors and rarer strains to assist in either floating flies or imitating the terrestrial bug.

So long as that continent remains untamed, there’s plenty of uncharted territory for the tinker tyer.

Despite all the synthetics we’ve grown from test tube, and despite the efforts of thousands of fly tiers attempting to find a substitute, only the Haystack/Comparadun series of Caucci-Natasi has yielded an adequate substitute for hackle. Some may argue that the Swisher-Richards No Hackle was viable – but mallard wings don’t stand up to abuse and once tattered, may be eaten as a caddis emerger versus the fully terrestrial mayfly dun.

Cul Du Canard (CDC) has its legion of followers, but most flies are hybrids – a mixture of CDC and chicken hackle – not the truly hackle-free dry that would free us forever of the genetic chicken.

In response to the larger question, I’d suggest there’s a great deal more real estate for the journeyman fly tyer – but it’s rarified turf, a combination of physical properties and technique, where you’ll have to know the first and invent the other.

I’ve attempted Everest many times, and this year I’ve got working prototypes. Chicken farmers are safe, it’ll take a couple more seasons to figure out the tool I need to tie these blazing fast, but the physical qualities are sound, the materials tough as nails, and all I really need are some hungry and desperate fish to make me feel the effort was warranted.

There’s still plenty of refinement needed in both form and execution, and my Brownline activities don’t offer the ability to test dry fly theory – most hatches are Trico or Caenis and I’m reluctant to fish things I can’t see – hackled or otherwise.

I’ve never seen their likeness anywhere – but that doesn’t mean some canny Victorian fly tyer didn’t get tired of his stringy old roosters and use Red Deer in a similar fashion – the only advantage I have is his work was lost to Time.

Flies float because of combination of surface tension and square footage. Meaning, materials heavier than water can float so long as they occupy enough surface to prevent the fly from sinking. Chicken hackle itself is not lighter than water, neither is the hook, tail, or dubbing.

The hackle above the water provides no flotation, neither does the hackle underwater, so it’s the cross section that occupies enough real estate to resist sinking.

Drop a needle into the water point first and it sinks instantly, lay it on the water lengthwise, carefully, and it’ll float.

The answer to our Everest is to find a substitute material that’ll provide the same cross section as chicken – and if it’s durable and cheap, we’ve got something.

Like the Caucci-Natasi Haystack/Comparadun, I’m exploiting deer hair.

The profile is a parachute dry, which after a couple decades of intensive personal use, I fish more frequently than the traditional Catskill dries popularized over the last century.

The Brownline NoHack, slow water edition 

This is the lightly dressed variant, a Blue Wing Olive in size 16. Dun gray elk hair is tied in as the wing, then bent 180 degrees and flared around the post. Wing length and “hackle” retain traditional proportions. The whip finish is spun around the wing rather than the hook shank, as the wing is the final component of the fly.

I had an idea that I could cut the wing loops and pull down more hackle if the fly was fished in broken water. If it works you’ll be able to adjust the amount of hackle with your nippers.

That and you could sever the wing to make the spinner, leaving a little nub so you can pick it out from all the other naturals in the surface film.

The heavier hackled variant is tied completely differently and is still in the beta phase. I’m hoping to finish a couple dozen for the season Opener, which’ll give me and SMJ something to giggle over while fishing.

 Brownline NoHack PMD freestone flavor

Above is #16 Pale Morning Dun using the “heavier hackle” construction method. I didn’t put too much more hackle on this version, but this style allows me to reduce the wing mass despite the use of more elk hair. Hackle and wing are a single bunch of elk/deer that’s trimmed to produce the final wing shape.

I guess I’d answer 40 River’s comment with something different; you spend a couple decades painfully mastering the craft, and when you look around and see nothing that stimulates you, it’s time to stimulate others, taking the craft one small step past your comfort zone.

For me, the tinkering component is an endless amount of hideous barriers to overcome; chicken hackle a physical obstacle, and angler perception an emotional barrier, both await some fellow not satisfied with a McGinty – and wonders can he make a better bug’s arse with a popsicle stick.

The fly tying equivalent of two buck chuck is a three buck flyer

While everyone else is hunting a “10” – us unkempt fly tying types are content with a four. We’re not lowering the bar, rather it’s how many dozen flies we bang out before exhaling.

New materials are like that, anything capable of strumming the Creativity gene, leaving an “Edward Scissorhands” cloud of snips, tucks, flying debris, and a wake of forgotten half-filled coffee cups – is worthy.

Friday’s mail included a “three dollar flyer” – a package of unknown yarn whose grainy eBay picture looked promising, but out of focus. I saw sparkle and the potential for a trophy mutt – whose colors and qualities could generate a four or better.

 Berocco Crystal FX "Amber Mix"

Saturday morning I woke with fly tying scissors still in hand and a trail of dander leading to neatly ordered phalanx’s of replacements marching across my desk.

The yarn is called “Crystal FX” from the Berroco Yarn Company of Italy. It ceased production in 2007, so like everything else it’s in limited supply. eBay still has plenty, offering an assortment of colors for $8 per 147 yard skein.

Leech patterns showing color transitions 

I’d describe it as similar to an Estaz, Fritz, Cactus, or Glimmer chenille – but in a soft and flexible yarn form. Comprised of 100% nylon, it’s a flexible, semi-stretchy braid with mylar strands coming off as a fringe. It’s a trophy “mutt” – with color changes every 3 inches, which allows flies to take on any number of color transitions as the yarn is wrapped forward.

I’d purchased two skeins of “Amber Mix” which is blue, green, olive, gold, rust, and brown repeated along the fiber. It lacks the opalescence of glimmer chenille, but makes a fly that looks like shattered glass, with enough sparkle to blind a camera lens. 

 Czech style caddis with a single wrap

Ribbing the finished body reduces the scruffiness somewhat, allowing you to adjust the fringe effect to whatever length is desired. It’ll produce a “Czech” style caddis with a single wrap, and yield a worm if you plan a color transition at the head.

It’s heat sensitive, so you can melt the top fibers and leave the bottom shaggy, and lends itself to just about everything.

 An AP style mayfly nymph tied with Crystal FX

The yarn is thin enough to be useful on flies down to a size #12. The AP style mayfly above is a size 10, and showcases the fiber sizes and width of the mylar straggle.

You can trim the fibers easily with scissors to allow the dull nylon braid to show – I’ve left mine full length to test whether they break with abuse.

I grabbed some hot pink to use for Shad flies and the magenta mutt to use for steelhead. I tested them yesterday for fragility and they’re bulletproof.

Good color transition for streamers and leeches

This is first class leech material. Most of the patterns I’ve used in the past have some sparkle, some hackle, and fur to complete the forward portion of the fly. This delivers all three plus the added bonus of the color transition – which can be planned at any point on the completed fly.

Roughfisher has a good thing going with his glimmer chenille patterns, this may be a useful addition as the yarn dimensions are different enough to allow use in areas where glimmer chenille becomes unwieldy.

It’s a commercial fly tier’s dream

The Dubbing Divan I had the same problem with watercolors as a kid, sooner or later the entire sodden mass was a muddy brown from intermingled color.

Dubbing dispensers have rattled around my tying area with similar issue – the top layer becomes a blend of everything I’ve tied in the last couple of weeks. Dander and feather duff mixed with the original color, whose self-sealing lid no longer keeps adjacent colors at bay.

The idea of a “dubbing divan” is appealing. A couple of shades purring contentedly close to hand, allowing the tyer to wrench a handful whenever it’s needed.

No drifting dustbunnies to aggravate family allergies, no mess other than an occasional coughed-up furball, and your source is mobile allowing you to change colors at a whim.

Philoplumes and the shaft after

Lead gray skies offered little hope so I swung by the Little Stinking to see what a week’s changes had wrought. The water was clear enough to fish but still much too high to wade – many tons of gravel have changed the entire streambed and scoured every vestige of weed and bank foliage.

With the vegetation gone the creek looks like a construction site. Barring another downpour it’ll be fishable next week.

I took advantage and banged out all my lingering chores; removing lock plates swollen by the wet and removing enough metal so the bolts once again lined up with door jambs.

The water table is being replenished, which makes the entire Central Valley rise nearly four feet. Naturally you hope your slab foundation rises with it, and every year some small thing winds up needing coaxing.

philoplume With all the pressing chores finished I started working on the Caddis flies. I’d been sidetracked by an “old school” reference to Polly Rosborough – whose fur collared flies reminded me of Jack Gartside’s Sparrow nymph, which suggested Cal Bird’s woven bodies, and the drone of Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns hummed in the background while I rediscovered my attraction to Philoplumes.

Philoplumes (aftershaft feathers) are the little marabou feather attached to each pheasant body feather. They’re largely overlooked but Jack Gartside made great use of them on a lot of his flies, and were popular on the Gimp Nymph back in the 80’s.

 Jack Gartside's Sparrow Nymph (minus the tail)

The Gartside Sparrow uses the philoplume as the collar at the fly’s head. It’s quite delicate but offers considerable movement, and the fly is a tremendous caddis imitation. Tied in a variety of colors, using a similar shade of pheasant body as the hackle.

The original Sparrow has a tail of grizzly marabou which I omit on all but the largest sizes.

I thought I’d finished with the stoneflies, but the “Philo-urge” had me fiddling with a combination of Cal Bird’s techniques. Cal used a copper wire tail support on his steelhead flies which also added breadth to the body for woven materials.

I grabbed a hair collar from Polly, a philoplume from Gartside, and Cal’s tail and woven body to come up with flies destined for my box; it’s “tier’s prerogative” – untested intricate flies that only the creator gets to fish.

 Should we call it a Cal Poly?

It’s not that they’ll catch more fish than anything else – they’re twice as much work as the rest of the box, so in-laws and relatives can just keep their grabby mitts off…

That was when I realized I hadn’t tied any of the patented-death stonefly nymphs that actually work. The orange and black variegated chenille monsters, complete with black rubberlegs. It’s the pattern you pass over enroute to the sexy woven body flies – thinking “if I was a fish, I’d eat those multi-colored sumbitches first.”

Huge mistake.

 The Orange and Black Death

In the fly shop they look like Bluegill flies – when wet the orange turns brown and you’ve got mottled death on your hands.

I sure hope there’s a lot of stonefly activity this Spring, I’ve got an entire box full of shapes and colors and would be sorely put out if the fish wanted to eat the itty-bitty stuff instead.

I’m sure Carp would eat them too, so I’ll find something other than a tree branch to hang these on.

Despite the cost of hackle, dry fly purism might be on the rise

You want light or lead meat? Illinois is about to follow Wisconsin in adoption of the Lead Sinker Act (SB1269). Having seen little mention of the proceedings in angling print, I’m wondering whether folks have read the detail.

Ingestion of lead pellets from hunting first surfaced the issue many years ago, most states have some form of restriction on their use around wetlands.

The Lead Sinker Act bans the use of lead sinkers and lead head jigs in all freshwater impoundments. It’s the definition of “jig” and “sinker” that neatly covers flies as well:

“Lead jig” means any lead weighted fishing hook that
measures less than 1.5 inches along its longest axis and that
contains one ounce of lead or less.

“Lead sinker” means any device that is designed to be
attached to fishing line for the purpose of sinking the line,
and that contains one ounce of lead or less.

Nymphs weighted with lead wire fall into both categories. Despite that giant black stonefly being greater than 1.5″ it’s still attached for the purpose of sinking your line.

Or is it?

A sinking line is attached to your reel for the purpose of sinking anything attached. If the fly’s weighted too – is this a “Chicken and Egg” issue?

Unfortunately the legal profession is not to be trusted as they’ve bigger fish to fry, evidenced by the discussion on the copyright infringement suit of the lighted fishing rod. The vendor sued another manufacturer who dared illuminate the tip of his rod, and while all the lawyers had to weigh in on the real meaning, it’s obvious few, if any, were fishermen.

The “pole” blatantly includes anything that could be called a “pole” and is certainly different from the “rod”. Just like you saying the pole includes the reel shows off the fact that the pole includes the ENTIRE fishing pole, including reel, and handle, and any other little attachments (see light bulb).

I’m glad we got that straight, because based on the patent attorney’s claim above, fly poles are different than fly rods, and that fly must be an addition to the pole, therefore it’s purpose is to sink the rod, not the line, so they’re legal?

They might convince me to sign up for the inevitable class action suit, but I won’t be initiating it.

Now that we’re all horribly confused, it’s time to stock up on tungsten beads and solder. “Lead free” solder retails around $50 per pound, and  is available in comparable sizes; 0.015″ (around 1 AMP), 0.020″ (2 AMP) and larger.

Just a sign of the times, you can bet similar legislation is enroute to your state soon. While angling vendors have replaced split shot with tin and other compounds, both proportions and structural integrity of flies will be resistant to materials that are sized differently, not to mention the poor fly vendors that’ll have to market the antimony variant to the states with special regulations.

If you’re ordering your flies online, caveat emptor – the penalty is up to six months license suspension, and $1000 per day fine.

… and don’t get too attached to tungsten. We’ve a similar issue with ingested Tungsten, although most of the studies to date were delivered intravenously. Heavy metal is just that, they’re all bad.

Acute tungsten intoxication results in death from respiratory paralysis , preceded by nervous prostration , diarrhea, and coma. The most frequently observed sign of chronic intoxication is poor growth …

The fish get smaller, then they die. Just what we’re looking for …

Tore it from his daughter’s fingers no less

Reading between the lines suggested somebody was still paying for the crime. Singlebarbed reader RDT sent me a traditional gauntlet, a double-dawg-dare-you note describing his wrenching the yarn from an unsuspecting innocent..

I was finishing up the Golden Mutt post while staring at it and scratching my head. It’s a ribbon yarn in “clownshoe” colors, sturdy and about 1/2″ wide.

Six or seven things leapt to mind, but I had the stonefly materials at hand and whomped together something…

I'd call it a Scarab from the Mummy's Tomb

It’s one continuous strip of ribbon laid over the back and folded three times to make the wingcases – Lord knows it’s a garish looking scarab  monster, just ugly enough for a steelhead to take exception to its presence.

I’ll give it more thought, I just wanted RDT to know he was going to have to dig deeper to get me to blanch.

After 20 years of enforced servitude tying little drab things by the gross for fly shops, this is dessert. It’s in my fly box for the next outing, once the rain lets up we’ll see what carnage ensues.

The yarn is called “Incredible” from Lion Yarn Co., and both the “Autumn Leaves” and “Copper Penny” colors look enticing. Thanks much, RDT – we’ll fiddle with it and see what else we can make.

Mutt Stonefly detail – no need to fear a little color

Per the request to see a close up of these colorful oddities, I’ve included the top and bottom view.

The bottom shows the color gradient the yarn induces, and the top view shows the different colors of Bernat Boa wingcases added. Most used Brown, Black, or Olive – but I used golden brown on the Golden Mutt.

 The top of the Mutt's

Both Bernat Boa and Moonlight Mohair change colors every couple of inches – which is the entire point to using them. Naturals have a multitude of colors or striations, only not as radical as what the yarn does.

The underbelly, showing the yarn color gradient 

None of this matters, add the six or seven shades darker the fly will be when wet, and how water depth filters color – in shallow water red is still red, but below 8 feet, red is no longer red. The fly will appear different than seen in normal light – that’s for certain.

The resolution of the above does not show the sparkle dubbing component I blended for each fly and used under the wingcases.

Leaden skies brings out the surrealist

I got a bunch of flies tied this holiday weekend, only I’m not entirely sure what it is I tied … perhaps I was rebelling against the sorely needed monsoon we experienced – with the out-of-doors gray, leaden, and dripping water.

Up to 7 feet of snow had fallen in the Sierra Nevada over the past week, and more was expected by early Tuesday.

… and that’s the good news, as it was the first major storm of the year, closing interstates and even prompting the Trout Underground to abandon the snow blower in favor of me delivering his groceries.

“Could be stunning Blue Wing Olive weather, you should come up – and while you’re at it, bring the following dry goods and victuals…”

I knew better, I’d fallen for the “..when you get to the driveway send up a green star-cluster, we’ll send Wally down with Rum and a toboggan.”

Even the Little Stinking is showing the effects of a sustained downpour, with gauge at Rumsey registering an additional 6″ of water, and a doubling of the stream flow.

 Purple Stonefly-type substance

I got into the swing of things thinking there might be some runoff this year, so I continued piling on extra lead and beads until I’d worked through the Purple stonefly-type things, and was well into a couple dozen Rainbow oddball-not-sure-what-this-is flies.

 All the colors in the rainbow, which usually follows a storm

By the time the big hooks came out I wasn’t quite sure what I was making other than a big splash when it hit, and a concussive wave following.

I’m gearing up in earnest, figuring all the fishing will be early this year. The storm may have added to the snowpack but it’s still quite away’s from normal – perhaps another couple of weeks of steady downpour and I’ll think about some dry flies, as it is now – it’s snow melt followed by should’ve been here last week.