schlappen hackle, spey style

[flytyinfreak 0]

is there any clear instruction on tying spey style hackle where it all lays down along the the hook similiar to the pic of the beautiful fly below? :wallbash:

[willowhead 0]

Spey Flies and Dee Flies by John Shewey.........amoung many others. Gotta run. mark

[flytyinfreak 0]

anybody here got any insight? Please?

[willowhead 0]

Very often it helps if you "Fold" your hackle before you tye it in and wrap it..........there are many ways to do this and i will tell you how i do it, most often. First of all i'm semi-ambidexturious.....so i do some things right handed and some left and some either way. I fold left handed and i fold down. many tyers fold hackle up. It makes no difference whatsoever as long as you get the job done.

Take your feather and hold it (by the tip), in your less dominate hand and with your thumb and forfinger of your dominate hand, pull the fibers/barbs down the opposite way from which they grow on the Rachis, (stem).....start that process at the tye in point.....no need to fold that which you will not use. Next, take your hackle pliers and attche them to the butt of the stem, where it is strong enough not to break while your "folding" but close enough to the fibers where you'll be able to comfortably reach to the tye in point to begin folding. Start at the tye in point and fold the hackle down and back........putting memory in the fibers. Force them to go in the direction you will want them to go when you wrap the hackle, (feather).....think of it as Pre-Production. Your training the fibers to do what you want them to do........(Second MOST important thing in all of fly tying.............knowing your materials and making them do what YOU want them to do as opposed to them being in control and frustrating you).........it's like training your hair again after a haircut. YOUR the boss....... Just press the fibers against the stem and pull down and back..........do it hard enough for it to break the membrane that holds all the fibers to the stem so that you'll "know" how hard is to hard.........only way for you to learn that is to break it, so you can "Feel" how much pressure will do that and when to ease back. If you were here i could show you many different things to do after that in terms of "ways" to tye it in...........and wrap, etc., etc. But i'm busy as hell right now. I hope this helps. Give it a try and i'll get back to you here at this thread when i can. One thing, i usually tye the feather in at the same angle i would a dry fly hackle for a classic stlye Catskill Dry. You may also want to clip off a few of the fibers on the far side of the feather, (side away from you when "at" the tye in point....) so as to get that first wrap started "Clean."

When i wrap hackle for a plamered body or a collar, i always have the handle of a very fine needled Bodkin in my mouth to grab and use as i wrap.....keeping the fibers as seperated from sticking to eachother as possible as i go. And to keep any traped fibers from staying traped. I pull them out and stroke them back as i go if they do get traped. Naturally the whole idea is not to let them get traped in the first place.....but always be prepared for that. Keep your "wraps" as close together as you can without ever putting one right on top of the previous one. Sometimes just a very tiny gap between "turns" is ok....but VERY tiny. Keep the fibers goin' in the direction you want them to go at all times and don't let the fibers get trapped by the Rachis. Take your time and be as neat and carefull as possible.

Once your finished wraping, take your Bodkin and seperate any fibers that seem to be stuck to eachother.....alllllllllll the way around. One by one by one by one if you have to.......now for your Spey fly and others where you only want the body hackle "Underneath".....take your bodkin and stick it (from front to back) right down the middle of the hackle on top of the shank and divide the hackle down the middle. Then take your thumb and forfinger and press the hackle down and against the body of the fly, to force the fibers to stay "Below" the shank/body. Put some added memory in the fibers and you should be set to go. Remember, for these types of flies it pays to ordinarily use a soft hackle.....Pheasent, Hen, Heron, and while Schllapen is rooster tail, it's plenty soft enough. Good luck. mark..... sorry for any punctuation and or spellin' errors..........

[bobfly 0]

Tie in by the tip and they will lay back without too many hassles

Cheers

[willowhead 0]

DON'T THAT GO WITHOUT SAYIN'.............. :hyst: ...........AFTER ALL, THIS AINT NO ONE SIDE STRIPPED OFF, OLE' FASHION TURN AND A HALF WET FLY. :lol2:

[nwstreamer 0]

Think of it as tying in the rachii on the side so as the hackle lays down it is a backwards L if you pull on those fibers towards the rear as you wrap you'll be able to orient them the correct way.

 

Another "production" method, tye the tip of the feather in, run the back of your scissors down the rachii and it will fold them over then start your wrap.

 

Practice

 

[willowhead 0]

as your doing your wraps/turns of hackle.........always stroke the fibers to the rear as you go as well...........and don't forget to keep your bodkin handy, for doin' what i said above. mark.....

[James Daly2 0]

Hey Freak!

Here's a little step by step that was very poorly and very quickly photographed. It will give you a general idea on how to tie a "Traditional" spey.

 

1. Rooster Side tails or Coque is about as close to traditional "Spey" hackle that you will find. Spey hackles original came from the spey cock, found along the spey river, obviously. Coque is pretty much the same thing. Colors you will need are grey, black and red. This is cheap and not hard to find. Notice there is almost no taper from a little down the tip, all the way to the base of the feather.

2. For a size 3 Alec Jackson hook (What I've used here) I cleaned off a bunch and left about 3" of useable hackle. You will tie the hackle in by the BASE, not the tip. Spey flies had a very shrimpy/crustaceany look to them. Some thought they induced strikes because of their resemblence to prawn found in the Atlantic ocean.

3. Sorry for the horrible pic. I tried to give an idea of tie in points for the various materials. Here I've used Berlin Wool (Purple), Silver Oval Tinsel (Medium) and the Black Coque hackle tied in by the base of the feather. Tinsel tied in on the far side of the shanks, hackle and wool tied in on the bottom. Wind the wool up the shank first and leave a little room behind the eye. Spey flies were noted for their very small heads. The mark of a decent spey is the tiny head, much like Dee flies.

4. Traditionally, most but not all, spey hackles were counter wrapped and then had the tinsel wrapped through and over the stems. This served to protect the stems from the salmon teeth. So, you will wrap the hackle (that has been tied in on the bottom of the hook shank) under the hook, away from you and back over, towards you. If that makes sense. Make 4 or 5 wraps of hackle and add another wrap at the head area.

5. Wrap the tinsel as normal, starting towards you, over and through the hackle, around the hook and back towards you. If you were looking down the hook shank from the eye of the hook to the back, the hackle would be wrapped counter clockwise and the tinsel would wrap clockwise. Stroke the fibers back towards the hook point a little. This will give you that sweeping look, but note that the hackles need to lay properly to begin with. You can either fold the hackle prior to tying in or stroke the fibers back as you wrap the hackle. Personally, I use both methods, each have their own merits. Add your two strips of mallard for the wings and you're done. Don't worry about the hackles if some are peaking through the mallard wings, that just adds to the motion. These flies slay. Good luck!

 

BTW here's a link to a really cool, old tutorial by Brown of Aberdeen. If you want to see some brilliant work, check out Long's flies. He's an absolute talent. http://www.longsclassic.com/test/?p=130

[halcyon 0]

James,

Since Coque as shown has no taper in the used portion of the feather is there a reason you prefer tying in by the butt other than producing a bit less bulk at the front of the fly? Thanks in advance.

Bruce

[James Daly2 0]

other than producing a bit less bulk at the front of the fly?

 

Bruce, you nailed it! Good call.

[nwstreamer 0]

Excellent jamesdaly2.

Bringing the classic spey to life ! :headbang:

[willowhead 0]

While it is true that the original Spey flies had the hackle tyed in by the butt........i much prefere a taper to the hackle.....getting longer as it goes forward. But Jamie's demo there is the correct way, in terms of the tradition of a TRUE Spey. Very nice of you to put that up Jamie. Ya done good. mark