albannachxcuileag

I have enough trouble with small stuff as it is! What about metallic threads?

bigbadbrent - Nowt wrong with Marabou!

Trout will get very specific in feeding sometimes as we all know and will ignore most alternatives to what they are actually eating and I have found this out to my cost on many an occasion. These little fellows represent a couple of the major food items across here at this time of year and can be quite productive when single minded trout are on the go. I would never have thought that the fluorescent green midge would take fish but it does and to the exception of all other small flies on occasion. I am indebted to Tupps for the sample of Savage Hair that he sent me, I find this a lot easier to use for winging that the poly wing material as the splay is much better on the wings. The use of the micro crystal hair is to emulate the iridescence found on a lot of wings The Fantastic Four. L-R - poly wing, savage hair wing, micro crystal hair wing, savage hair wing All tied on Partridge, The Dry Hook, size 18s Black Midge with micro pearl crystal hair wing and hackle Poly winged green midge Savage Hair winged green midge Savage Hair black midge

The worst line burn I had was caused when the fish took me out to the backing and as I use micro backing this just cut through like a knife! I have always hand lined fish but now I am tending to get more onto the reel instead, hand lining has the great advantage of being able to feel all the nuances of the fight but the disadvantage of this is loads of slack that can create tangles and lost fish as has happened in the past. Just as well I managed to land the fish or it would have been a case of all pain and no gain!

Tango's take on the Damsel prompted me to dig into my box of stuff and unearth the peacock swords. Most of us have these and limit their usage to Alexandras and Salmon flies but if you have a complete sword there is a part on it that we ignore completely and is useful when tying miniature herl buzzers. On the back of the 'blade', if it is not pre-stripped, you will find a few very fine herl like fibres, there are only about 10 to the average retail sword, more on collected ones. This is ideal to tie small buzzers with providing you varnish the hook shank before wrapping as it is extremely fragile. Any buzzer method can be used, bead, wing cased, dubbed thorax, whatever and you will have a.......... Sword Back Buzzer - tyed on size 16 Kamasan B100s Not a new 'pattern' but a pattern using a material that is largely ignored Foot Note - It is not apparent in the photographs but the sun came out later this morning and the body of the buzzer started to glow an iridescent green, an added attraction to the fly.

I know exactly what you mean! I was trying to make a true emerger, and still am! This was the prototype and it took half an hour to get it as scabby as this!

and if you bought it at a dress shop, the price will be a fraction of that charged by tackle shops. Maybe I will bump into you at the chiffon section next time!

Writer1, I have no idea what colour or shade it is marketed under as I bought it from a dress making accessory shop where I get a lot of stuff that fly tying suppliers don't have. They have 20 shades of marabou, stuff like 1mm pearl mylar, Kreinik thread, seed beads, flat coloured metallic wire, ostrich herl and loads of nifty little tools that can all be adapted to fly tying, the best being the snag needle which is excellent for tying knots in pheasant tail fibres to form daddy and hopper legs - this is a miniature latch hook that has loads of uses for fly tyers. I should have added some crystal hair to enhance the subtlety of the fly! Knotlikely, I have just had a look at the SBS - he palmers from the eye back, I palmered from the bend up as I had no idea how it was made, luckily the marabou I was using has really flexible stems. The hook I used was a Kamasan size 8 B830 - the biggest I own, a miniature compared to those in the original tying.

Saw this method using palmered marabou and having nothing like it in this country thought I would give it a go. This attempt is called a Heather Head.

Writer1, try this knot, it was devised for competition fishing in the UK for fast fly changes by Davie Wotton. For added security you can repeat the last step and get even more hold on the hook - wet well before drawing tight! Davy Knot For those of you having trouble knotting different materials in step down leaders, try using tippet rings, this is the only way to ensure that you can get good knot stability with mixed leaders.

I only have one ceramic and I use that for Benecchi 12/0 only, the rest are SS and the preferred shape is the bullet as I can spin this to work the thread as opposed to the button type. 95% of my thread is UTC 140/70 Denier as I do not like UNI. Danville was my preferred thread but getting the type I like is hard these days but UTC is great for splitting.

Nowt! Just trying out a more realistic tying as Damsels have taken more fish for me than anything else this year. Even the little size 14 Headlamp does the business as well as the size 10 Goldhead but I want to get them a bit more real if you know what I mean.

Getting away from Marabou and to a more realistic appearance gave rise to this effort using generic olive hackles that someone gave to me in a Branston Pickle Jar!

I came across an American site that showed various Caddis Pupae designs and this caught my imagination. The tying required Z-Lon or S-Lon, having no idea what these are I had a think as to what could make the halo part of the fly. Impulse buying often forms part of my materials shopping and I found an unopened packet of micro crystal hair and decided that would do the trick. The original tying called for a size 6/8 hook - a bit excessive if you ask me! Tying - Thread - Olive UTC 140 Hook - Kamasan Sedge size 10 Body - Caddis Green Spectrablend Halo - Micro Pearl Crystal Hair Head - Petrol Seed bead or Olive Hackle All in all it is a pretty looking Pupa if you can use that term and I am sure with a little more experimentation there will be a few more ideas develop from this. Hind sight is a great thing and looking at these as I post, a rib would have been a good idea before jumping in with both feet.

LS, in the case of the 18, run your thread, catch in the rib, run the thread back and then the rib and tie in the hackle, couple of turns and whip finish. For the 20, run the thread down then up and then catch in the hackle, 2 turns and whip finish with 3 turns. If you have fine enough wire, I do but was too lazy to use it, you can form a rib. As Tupps, suggests, you can half tie even these to make your fly even smaller or go to 24/26s if you can see them!

This is an advance on the demo fly for colour match in the Trout/Grayling section, looks like it will have some potential. The name, Rusty Nail, just came to me as I was posting this effort, matches the colour I suppose! Materials - Hook - Partridge Captain Hamilton International size 10 Thread - UTC Dark Brown 140 Denier Tail - American Speckled Hen Back Fibres - Crawfish Orange Rib - UTC Hot Yellow Brassie Wire Body - Fiery Brown Seal's Fur from Artifly Highland Range Hackle - American Speckled Hen Back - Crawfish Orange (half hackle method) Thread up your hook of choice and attach the ribbing wire Next tie in a small bunch of fibres from a feather with longer hackles Form your dubbing rope And wind on to the body clockwise up to behind the head Next, wind on your ribbing wire anti-clockwise to lock the body fibres Prepare the head hackle by stripping away one side and pull back the fibres to leave a small tip Wind in the hackle and give about 4 to 5 turns Cut off the stalk and pull the fibres back before whipping the head Add a couple of drops of varnish and fly is complete.

After Tupps excellent little midges, here is a slightly different take on them using Marabou, something I saw featured in a magazine a little while ago. Single Marabou fibre Partridge size 18 dry hook with mono ribbing Size 20 VMC dry Using a single black marabou fibre as a hackle on these flies it is easy to get the size down, only requirement needed is a gentle touch as it breaks as soon as you look at it when winding on the hackle. Notice that the hook sizing has nothing to do with reality! The 20 looks to be half the size of the 18 photographed at the same distance from the vice.

You folks might have seen these in the mags and on the net, it is one of the deadlier patterns used for still water Rainbows on this side of the pond. Fished on either floating or sunk lines it has always been a good taker, especially when the fish are fry bashing at the back end. I stuck a thorax hackle and headlamp eyes on it instead of the usual silver chain bead eyes (rod smashers!). Matuka-ing the wing was a bitch but turned out not too bad when I worked out an easier method of doing it.

I got to the name for my Rusty Nail the same way, sat looking at the hook in the vice for ages before deciding that I wanted a fly that had the same colour all the way through and the only colours I had that would match up were Fiery Brown Seal's Fur and American Speckled Hen Back dyed Crawfish Orange that I had bought on a whim. The end result proved itself as this fly has taken a good many fish now at my local place including a 14lb prime rainbow! Searching out the name can be a bit harder than you think as I originally called it the Rusty Nailer only to be corrected that a fly of the name, Nailer, already existed so drop the 'er' part and the Rusty Nail was born. It falls into a Classic Wet design and makes a good nymph imitator even though it is tied as a wet. Hopefully others will try it and prove that the effort was worthwhile. Good luck with your Steely fishing and your new tying.

Damn! That vice looks good!

Now I know where my cat disappeared to! You guys like your flies long! I have never seen flies like these, even the SWF guys use shorter ones. Nice work though, I appreciate the craftsmanship involved.

Er, not boobies but chain eyed lures! Most famous of these was the Cat's Whisker, white marabou tail, chartreuse green chenille body, silver mylar rib, white marabou wing and chain eyes on the head - a deadly rainbow lure in the UK and Ireland.

Bassarisk is right about the washing line method not being restricted to a floating line but it is the line that I prefer using as most of my fishing is done either on the surface or sub-surface when using boobies, not that I use them much, maybe two or three times a year! I do not like taking the risk of gut hooking a fish at depth as this is what happens in a lot of cases with anglers who do not control the retrieve correctly and has led to some fisheries introducing bans on boobies and egg flies, another gut hooking item when not fished in the proper manner. No, I am not a snob when it comes to methods of fishing but I prefer my fish hooked in the mouth.

A book that I constantly refer to since buying is. Matching the Hatch by Pat O'Reilly. as this simplifies fly choice and describes alternatives to use at any time. Next on the menu is the purchase of the Fly Tyers Benchside Reference.

Ouch! I got a freebie from Peak with my vice, the Ritt Pick'n'Brush, handy little thing as it beats the ass off of velcro bands! My 'new' dubbing needle is a home made effort as a lot of my tools are, made from a sewing machine needle and a slim handle from an old threading tool, I don't see the point in paying out loads of money for something you can knock up from scrap, ie my bobbin threader tool - made from an old guitar string and an offcut of brass tubing and some epoxy - does the job nicely! One thing I do not skimp on are scissors, they have to be good quality and I am currently using Tiemco ones after a few other substitutes such as cuticle scissors and embroidery scissors which served the pupose but are now superceded. Knowing Tupps, he has the elite tooling for his fly tying and uses it to great advantage as well demonstrated by his SBSs, mind you as things improve at my bench, he had better watch out!