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Fly Tying - What Pattern this Week?


tie flyer

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Just checking in to see where people are at with their winter fly tying/stockpiling. Are you done with steelhead flies (all those illustrious eggs and egg-sucking critters)? Have you moved past the early spring caddis/bwo/stones? Anybody tying hoppers and hex already?

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I think my next session at the vise is going to involve the production of some winter stonefly adults. The fly is pretty much a caddis imitation tied with a black body, sparse black elkhair wing and a dun hackle. I also add a single turn of yellow/chartreuse dubbing or vernille at the bend to represent an egg sack.

That's my plan, but I may revert to tying stonefly nymphs for steelhead fishing.

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Howdy, tie flyer! cool.gif

I've got a good batch of the basic nymphs tied up, but I still need to tie up bwo's and caddis for the early season. I tied up some Royal Wulffs a couple nights ago to get in the hang of tying dry fly hackle. It's not as bad as I thought, but a bit tricky (for me) to get a good finishing knot and not mess up the hackle. I'm still pretty new at the vise...

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Forgive me if this advice is a little too basic, but if you use your thumb, index and middle fingers of your materials hand to surround the hackle and hold it back out of the way while you take a few turns of thread with the bobbin, you can begin to "train" the hackle. Also, I've found that a Matarelli-style whip finishing tool can help you manipulate the thread more carefully than any other style of finisher.

The oldest and perhaps best advice is this, though: Practice makes perfect. A Royal Coachman is a good practice fly, too - lots of commonly used dry fly techniques in that one. It's also an excellent attractor fly.

Good luck at the vice.

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Lately I've been tying up some caddis patterns. Mainly fluttering caddis. I need some brown elk hair though, as last year I was caught on the stream with no brown patterns, but saw them skipping across the water in good number with trout splashing after 'em. Seems to be the case quite often not having the match the hatch fly. tongue.gif I'm also looking forward to tying some caddis using grouse feather for the wing.

Other than that, a marabou leech pattern (mentioned in Ross Mueller's books) has proved useful this winter season, so been stocking up on those. Midge patterns. Need to tie more BWO also. Then been thinking about getting some big deer hair popper style flies put together for largemouth when their up in the shallows in the spring.

Too much fly fishing going through my head in the middle of winter. Makes me wish for open water!!

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Just got started. I blew a disc in my back last October and couldn't sit and surf the net much less tie. Have just started visiting some old forums I used to read. There was a swap that I missed (hope them guys can forgive me) but not being able to situp and drugs making me stupid (I'll just blame the drugs) I was a no show.

So 2 weekends ago I started on scuds, now I am on stoneflies and midges. I'll get there, I don't need many with my impeccable casting. tongue.gifconfused.gif

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This might sound weird, but here goes....

Anybody use cat hair for dubbing? crazy.gif I have a brown tabby, and her underfur looks like it would make some great dubbing material; I think it would be put to better use on a fly than on my clothes. I've read about people using dog fur before, just wondering if anybody had any thoughts on kitty cat dubbing...

Right now, I'm tying up a bunch of streamers for smallies and a few bucktails as well. I need to get my stockpile of crawdad imitations going.... Anybody have a good snail pattern? I saw a few around, but was wondering if you've seen one that works well. The trout I've been catching this winter have had their stomachs full of these snails.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

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