If you only had 5 materials...

[Hellgrammite 0]

Pheasant tail

BWO hare's ear dubbing

Poly yarn, white

Copper wire, fine

Grizzly or dun hackle

 

8/0 or 70 d UTC in brown

 

Std wire, 1x length hook, size 14 or 16

 

Huh. Made me think, "what can I do with just 5 materials"

 

Amanda

 

I like stuff like this. Fun mental exercises. So, with the above mats, what can I do?

 

Well, BWO dries in standard (Thanks Crackaig!) and parachute, RS2 nymph/emerger, PT nymph with copper thorax, and thread-bodied spinner.

 

 

Well, all life cycles of BWOs. Or, I can use thread for the body, and match brown ones. Or, even strip a hackle stem and have a third color that way. So hey, 3 colors (4 if I count a PT fiber for a body!) and can rib or not.

 

Tip of the iceberg.

 

I could tie 1/2 pheasant tail emergers, in the aforementioned colors, or maybe parachute emergers. How about some caddis larva, cased and free living, or a poly wing caddis in a few colors? Midge pupa, midge adults, in a few colors? Diving caddis, with the webby part of a hackle feather, ribbed with the wire for some flash to look like bubbles? Caddis emergers with a trailing shuck of poly? Copper johns? Small olive nymphs? Shellbacked nymphs? SCUDS? Oh, yeah.

 

Yeah. I'm pretty sure I'd want more than one size hook, but this would definitely be easily workable. Interesting, too, how close everyone's lists are. The stuff that works just works, I guess. If I could add ONE more mat, it would be partridge hackle.

 

And yeah, my parachute is darker green... I have one of those "assortments" of dubbing and dubbed on the wrong color body. Whoops.

[planettrout 0]

Peacock Herl

Pheasant Tail

SM Gold Wire

Lead or Lead Sub. .015

Partridge Skin

 

Veevus 16/0, Black

 

TMC 5262, #16

 

 

PT/TB

[djmyers 0]

Dun hackle

Coastal Deer Hair

Hares Mask

Peacock Herl

Partridge

 

#14 dry fly hook

 

Brown thread

 

Grizzly hackle would provide for dry flies for parachutes, catskill, griffith gnats and other midges, and caddis flies. The deer hair could be used for caddis, posts for parachutes, comparaduns, beetles, and more. Hares mask would give you dubbing and tailing material. Peacock would give you darker body or stripped for a different look. Partridge would provide for wet flies or some small makeshift wooly buggers.

[riffleriversteelheadslayer 0]

#12 dry fly hook mustad

ring neck pheasant skin complete

hackle cree

peacock herl

gold beads

deer hair

thread 6/0 white

[Piker20 0]

All these folk and their whole skins. I'll revise my list then please and have a Whole pheasant, whole peacock and a whole partridge and you can keep the saddle hackles.

[mridenour 0]

I refuse to choose between streamers and nymphs so I won't make a list but I am intrigued by the variety in everyone else's list.

[riffleriversteelheadslayer 0]

I only have whole ring neck skins as I hunt and clean my own pheasant I havent bought a ringneck feather in 20 years so I listed it as if I was taking the stuff from my own material box

[Piker20 0]

Yeah I stick with my revised list.

[Wavey1988 0]

All these folk and their whole skins. I'll revise my list then please and have a Whole pheasant, whole peacock and a whole partridge and you can keep the saddle hackles.

 

 

I only picked hackles. Didn't know we were allowed whole skins. I'll revise my list the same as pikers

[Christopher K 0]

thread: 8/0 uni white

hook: mustad dry #14

Materials:

-brown dry hackle in size 12-14

-peacock herl

-calf tail

-rabbit skin

-poly yarn

[mikechell 0]

Flip flop foam

silver tinsel

synthetic hair

rubber leg material

superglue

[djonesii 0]

I've been pretty impressed with FlyTyersDungeon stuff .....

 

some of their legs .... chartreuse and black

2 bags of the Dragon Dubbing one olive, the other orange

2 bunches of congo hair one variety of white/silver, the other bait fish green....

1 h20 flash in pearl

 

( I know it's 7 things ... , but this is a desert island kit after all, still only 4 "items")

 

Bet that comes in at under 10 bucks, and there are at least 50 flies in there if not 75.

 

3/0 black thread

 

#2 streamer hooks. .....

[utyer 0]

Since others have stretched these lists a little bit with whole skins, I will do something similar:

 

Hook 14 1xl nymph.

 

Thread Veevus 10/0 white.

 

Yarn, synthetic soft acrylic in a blended set of colors (multiple colors in one skein.)

Yarn, baby yarn again in a blended skein of multiple colors

Fine deer hair

Copper wire

Opal tinsel:

 

By shredding and blending the yarns, I can create dubbing in many many colors. I can make tails and legs from combed out yarn fibers. Copper wire for ribs, on nymphs. I can *and do) make lots of different color nymphs and drys by blending my own dubbing from just these two types of yarn.

 

For dry mayfly patterns, I can make duns, emergers and cripples with just the yarn dubbing, and deer hair. I usually use Pheasant tail for the abdomens on emergers and cripples, but I can live with yarn dubbing.

 

For caddis patterns, I can make an X Caddis with a yarn shuck, opal tinsel, and deer hair. Its my go to Caddis pattern. Dubbed body Deer hair caddis can also be made from just the blended yarns and deer hair, no hackle required. I rarely use hackle on dry flies, I much prefer to use Compara-duns and my own compara-emerger and compara-cripple patterns, all tied without hackle.

[McRad 0]

Would want to be able to do some dries and nymphs so i would go with the following, had to sacrifice beads.

 

Hook:

 

Dai-Riki #135 Size 14 scud/pupa, 1x short/strong. Good all around hook, nymphs, dries.

 

Thread:

 

8/0 Tan Waxed Uni-Thread. I find you can tie anything with this thread.

 

Materials:

 

Pheasant tail, Small gold wire, hare/squirrel dubbing mix, red medium holo tinsel, tan sheet foam 2mm.