I’m unashamed at an unnatural fascination for Claret; mostly I’ll blame Andre Puyans – many of my tying references were black and white and seeing him with a handful of Claret was the same eye-opening experience as finding out that Fruit-Of-The-Loom made something other than tidy whities..

I recognize it’s a weakness, some deep seated fascination with red – which has no obvious parallel in Nature, is bled out by the water column posthaste, and yet some rebellious gene has me throwing a pinch in when it’s least warranted.

Michael’s and eBay take turns catering to my obsession, but it was the claret floss that played to my base nature, sending me lurching for the counter dribbling little bundles of metallic thread in “nickel” bags.

Call it a six-strand, floss-cored, mylar-wrapped, tinsel sold in the floss aisle. Each strand is multicolored, tough as nails, and can be unwrapped from the other five with a twist.

Mouline DMC of France is the maker, offering “Jewel Effects” and “Metal Effects” the two types shown above. It’s available in pearlescent and glow in the dark – neither of which were available for me to paw over.

Shad are at the mouth of the American, just minutes down the road – and when they’re available the Brown water looks dingy and lonesome, as I’m crunching big water gravel intent on silver torpedoes.

It was the Claret that done it, each fiber about as thick as a strand of Moose hair; ribbing for trout flies, sparkle for the dirty water, and irresistible metallic gleam for the voracious maw of the American River Lesser Tarpon.

This time of year is an embarrassment of riches, and I’ll shove aside the earth tones and pastels and crack out fluorescence; limes, reds, pinks, and yellows.

Last year it was the “Peppermint Kestrel” that took all my fish, this year it’ll be reborn with an accumulation of brightly colored tidbits purchased just to make it more so. I’ll pile on the Angelina and hot pink Bernat Boa I purchased, wrap a flashy mutt yarn around what’s left and introduce it as the “Vomit Comet”…

… making it easy to tell last year’s lies fish stories this year – changing just enough so it sounds different.

In the meantime, a little sparkle on a trout fly shouldn’t offend our sensibilities too terrible much.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.