favorite dubbing

[Poil&Plume 0]

Dyed Seal for nymphs and streamers, SLF for dries and Scintilla for wet, emergant and soft hackle.

[Old Hat 0]

I'm a bit old school. I like to make my own dubbing from natural hairs, furs and other natural materials. It's not just about the tying the fly to me but about exploring the natural world more closely. I know, I know, it sounds a bit sappy. I'll shave or cut furs to different lengths to get underfur or guard hair mixes. My favorites for nymphs: Hare's Mask, Mohair, Squirrel and Opposum. For dry flies: Beaver, muskrat and pure silk.

 

Lots of synthetics = Litter :whistle:

[whatfly 0]

Start with the hare's ear dubbings which are used primarily for wets but can also be used for dries. If you need dry fly dubbing, try either beaver, muskrat or Superfine.

 

Worry about the endless plethora of synthetic dubbings out there later, after you've developed your skill a bit.

[tyrite 0]

I am favorful of superfine dry fly dubbing For most dry flies. now for nymphs, stone, wet and most aqua insects. I like wapsi: crawdub, Kaufmann & I make my own dubbing with some Rabbit and angora goat dubbing.

 

tyrite

[briang 0]

It seems that the naturals are making a come back, but Ice Dub is still in the lead!

 

I noticed people spoke of Dave Wittlock SLF and Davy Wotton SLF. So I guess the SLF label is not restricted to one manufacture.

 

Or is it just restricted to Daves

 

[iso18 0]

synthetics,for starting out,i would get the super fine in the 12 compartment dubbing box,the one that holds the dubbing in rolls for dry flies and some nymphs.Lots of color variation and easy to attach to thread.plus lasts a long time.For nymphs,rabbit fur,squeirrll fur ,beaver,angora goat,pheasant tail,i konw its not a dubbing, i use pheasant tail in 85% of my nymphs.my 2 cents

shane wv

heading to randolph in 2 hours cant wait just waiting on my son,be on the river in the morning,owe crap i need to tie a few more ants gotta go.

[DHise 0]

New dubbing- Haree Ice Dub is AWESOME

[peregrines 0]

Brian-

 

For someone just starting out, I would get a Hare's Mask for about $3. Pick one that has a lot of different shades of creams, tans, grays medium and dark browns and pick fro it to get the colors you want. This would be good for buggy looking bodies on nymphs and soft hackled wet flies like Flymphs.

 

For dries I would get an assortment of dubbing, SLF 12 compartment goes for about $12. It’s synthetic and permanently waterproofed. They are sold in 2 different groups of dubbing. Pick the one with the colors you want to start, and you can add the other one down the road if you want.

 

Group 1 colors

 

Blue Dun

Mahogany

Brown

Olive

Brown Olive

Light Cahill

Black

Amber

Adams Gray

Pale Evening Dun

Blue Wing Olive

Hendrickson Pink

 

Group 2 colors

 

Pale Yellow

Dark Tan

Tan

Rusty Brown

Gray Olive

Brown Olive

Cinnamon Caddis

Sulfur Orange

Pale Morning Dun

Golden Olive

Blue Wing Olive

Fl. Chartreuse

 

Another way to go, if you’re really interested in “matching the hatch” is to get a Caucci Spectrumized dubbing kit. It’s an assortment of 16 packs of dubbing made from rabbit fur (with most of the guard hairs picked out). The idea is that naturals are not one color, but actually many different colors. The dubbing blends are made up of various amounts of blue, red. yellow (primary colors) and white. The packages of dubbing are labeled to indicate the scientific and common names of mayflies, and the stage (nymph, emerger, dun, spinner) in their life cycle that the colors are designed to imitate when wet. These will cover you for most of the hatches in the US. This dubbing kit goes for around $35 retail, but you can often find it for around $27 if you shop around. If you go this route, it would be about the same as the Hare’s Mask + both groups of Superfine. I like it a lot. If you use a hatch chart for your local waters, you can tie up a bunch of stuff (nymphs, emergers, duns and spinners) to imitate your hatches.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

[Guest]

If I was starting out and needed to learn flies and how they act, I mean really LEARN them, I'd start with Hare's Mask and Beaver, and build from there after I'd explored their uses for a while. Superfine is nice, seal is very good as well.

[Dart 0]

It depends on the application, of course. I've recently been using Wapsi natural fox squirrel dubbing in place of hare's ear dubbing. I like how it's a bit more spikey.

 

I have one small package of Ice Dub and it's super cool stuff.

 

I recently picked up some camel hair for a buck from my local store and I've been dying to use it... I just don't know what it's suitable for.