large fly guy trying my hand at nymphs need critique!

[SilverCreek 0]

Flytire is correct silvercreek it is a stonefly imitation maybe a re critique based on that knowledge? Thank you

 

Sorry that I missed the 20 incher reference in your original post. With that in mind, the hook you used looks to be a 2XL and stonefly patterns have relatively long body so the hook is important since it is the skeleton on which the fly is built. The pattern calls for a 3XL hook.

The reason I mistook your fly for a mayfly pattern was that it looked to me more like a mayfly nymph than a stonefly nymph. With that in mind, I believe the critique that I originally wrote still holds. For the length of the fly, I believe the thorax and abdomen are too bulky for a stonefly. There is very little taper to the fly until the very end of the body which ends rather abruptly.

If I am to be brutally honest, although the fly is tied as a stonefly pattern, I think that the morphology of the fly best matches a clinging mayfly rather than a stonefly nymph. Fish don't know what the pattern is supposed to imitate. They take it when the fly matches the natural in their waters. So I would fish it in fast mayfly waters where I believe there will be naturals that best match that fly.

You can judge whether fly best matches the clinging mayfly nymph vs the stonefly nymph below.

Epeorus mayfly

Pteronarcys stonefly

[josephcsylvia 0]

Silver I see what you mean about proportions I am trying to work on that its something I didnt have to think about to much saltwater tying, tonight I tried my hand at a elk hair caddis on a #16 hook I know its not perfect and Id like critique it helps alot. I noticed in the photo i trapped a little hackle with the fine wire i couldnt see that on the hook! also the hook eye is not covered its the angle of the photo sorry!

[PJ2 0]

Joe:

first off as a fellow salt bum i feel your pain.I too have gone from tying larger salt flies and now Im trying to tie small nymphs and scuds. just putting a bead on an #18 seems like punishment!.Oddly enough I'm participating in the "skills" swap and the nymph i choose was a pheasant tail nymph. I looked at a lot of vids and they all seem to say the same thing : proportion, proportion, proportion. I find my stubby fingers get in the way as well ( dont know if its inexperience or just i suck) but practice makes perfect.

 

I agree the tails seem a bit long on the pheasant and as for the Caddis i think it looks pretty good (maybe the stack is a bit too long). but by no way am I an expert.

 

Keep tying

Joe( PJ2)

[josephcsylvia 0]

Pj2 thank you. Tell me about it lol I can bust out a tarpon toad without thinking about it but with the little stuff I feel like im going to break everything lol I thought about making it slightly shorter but couldn't tell where it was in my fingers and I didnt have a small enough hair stacker so I stacked it in the hole in a spool of thread!

[rstaight 0]

Nice first attempts, I'd fish both of them. They will catch fish.

 

The tails on the nymph, make them the length of the hook shank. On the caddis, try starting a little further back on the hook to keep from crowding the eye, but not to much your pretty close. The head on an elk hair will come over the eye a bit.

 

These flies are on the larger end for me, it's rare I tie larger than a size 10. Keep tying these smaller sizes, it will help with your larger saltwater flies.

 

Again, nice work. If you don't want them send them my way.

[josephcsylvia 0]

Thanks Rstraight, man a 16 is on the large size! I dont even know if I can get a tippet through the eye with my sausage fingers lol. I will keep tying these little guys because the control you learn will help and ill fish them to, we have lots of gills and specs that will eat them up not to mention our retention pond bass that will only eat insects.

I was casting every baitfish pattern I had at these bass a couple weeks ago and they didnt even look at them, they were eating young dragonflies off the water. I beet they would have destroyed this caddis

[flyguy613 0]

20 incher is a great pattern, definitely can imitate a stonefly or mayfly nymph.

 

Change a few things and it is a great isonychia (slate drake) nymph fly as well.

 

Keep working at it, mainly proportions. Smaller thread will help out alot

[PJ2 0]

So true. Either way as long as the fish eat it im not too worried,,, bought some #22 barbless to tie a mosquito, haven't been successful yet. I can tie a #18 mosquito though. ( by the way Im pretty good at stabbing myself with the hooks ( got that down pat))

[SilverCreek 0]

Silver I see what you mean about proportions I am trying to work on that its something I didnt have to think about to much saltwater tying, tonight I tried my hand at a elk hair caddis on a #16 hook I know its not perfect and Id like critique it helps alot. I noticed in the photo i trapped a little hackle with the fine wire i couldnt see that on the hook! also the hook eye is not covered its the angle of the photo sorry!

 

• 

 

Joseph,

My main critique of the EHC is not your fault since is tied with the wrong type of deer/elk hair.

Allow me to digress before I get to the reason for the main problem with the fly.

For trout dry flies, the profile of the fly is very important. By profile, I mean shape and we can separate the main aquatic insect adults into insects with “up” wings and insects with “down” wings. A mayfly is obviously and “up” wing and a caddis is a “down” wing pattern that has its wings folded over the body in a “tent” or triangular configuration. Stonefly adults and terrestrials like grass hoppers and crickets are also “down” wing patterns. The wing on the fly you tied has an “up’ wing profile.

The reason is that it is tied with hollow hair that flairs when tied down.

One needs to look at the history of the EHC to understand what the inventor, Al Troth, intended as the profile of his fly. He intended it as a down wing pattern and when he first described the pattern he stated that it was to be tied with non flaring more solid hair from the elk. In modern times this has been completely ignored by most fly tiers. Although Al Troth specified that his fly should be tied with hair that did not flair, this type of hair is difficult to find especially for smaller patterns; and now virtually every EHC now is tied with a prominent flared wing.

Did you know that the EHC is not in the Gary LaFontaine's "Caddisflies"? The reason is that the EHC, as it is most often tied, is not a very realistic caddis fly pattern. Modern EHC patterns are tied so the wing extends up over the body rather than down flat as a real caddis fly.

Gary Lafontaine makes the following observation about the dry fly patterns in his book, "There are some notable absences in the selections. There are no patterns with upright wings. This type generally recommended as an imitation of a fluttering caddisfly is not very effective when trout are feeding selectively, even if the adults are fluttering. When the natural begins unfolding its wings it usually flies off very quickly and such a transitory moment is not worth imitating. The tent wing fly is usually better because it imitates the insect at rest."

A tent wing is exaclty how Al Troth intended the EHC to be tied (see his actual tie below). Notice how the hair is wrapped around the sides of the fly to imitate the tent shape of a caddis wing.

The second caddis bible is Larry Solomon and Eric Leiser's "The Caddis and the Angler" published in 1977. "The Caddis and the Angler" has the elk hair caddis pattern on pg 200. You will notice that the hair on the pattern is tent like and does NOT flair much. See below for Al Troth's original EHC:

During an interview with Al Troth before his death, Al's son talks about his father's EHC. Go to 5:35 in the video below and you will see the EHC as it is meant to be tied. The photo below is from the Youtube video. Compare it and the Al Troth tied fly above from Solomon and Leiser to the real caddis fly.

My version tied with low flair hair.

Why then is the EHC so popular? Well it is a great fast water fly and a fluttering caddis fly, it is easily tied, it is a high floater, it is easy to see, and it is durable. But is is NOT IMHO the best fly for calm waters. It is not an all around fly. It can be a better fly for calm waters if you clip the bottom hackles off flat to the hook, and clip off some of flaired deer hair to give the wing a flatter profile.

I think it is even better if tied so that the wing flairs less. Here is a tying tip to make the wings flatter. If you dub the body so that it has a "reverse taper" so that it is thicker at the tail of the fly and then narrows at the head end of the fly, the wing will lie flatter on the body. Then there will be no "bump" at the front edge of the dubbing to lift the wing up as it does in your pattern.

Another way to tie the fly with a flat wing is to bend the front 1/3 of the hook up at a 30 degree angle. Then tie the hair on this bent section. The 30 degree up angle will angle the tied hair DOWN 30 degrees and it will lie flat over the back of the fly. Tie it in the manner that Gary Borger ties his Poly Caddis

http://www.garyborger.com/2011/06/08/poly-caddis/

If the above makes you examine how you tie the EHC and how the wing really should look, all the better.

[josephcsylvia 0]

Silver, that's very interesting. Ive always wondered why there were so many types of wings, now to lay the wing down a little and tent it could you trim off the hackle on top before putting on the elk hair and then wrap back up on the elk hair a couple wraps to tame it? That should also roll it around the hook a little?

 

I always thought the elk hair was flared like that to work like an indicator. Thank you for all the info it helps to know why your doing something to do it better.

[josephcsylvia 0]

Interesting also is he tied the elk hair a little past the hook were everyone now ties it short. I will tie another one tomorrow and post it.

[PJ2 0]

Silver that was a great post. Informative! I too will learn to ty this properly.

[RexW 0]

I've been there, making the transition from tying on hooks that end in "/0" to tying on hooks that are hard to see.

 

Someone mentioned it, but learning to use 70 denier thread really makes a big difference. Much, much easier to tie smaller flies using 70 than it is with 210. However, going down from 210 to 70 can be frustrating. I took it in steps and used 140 denier for a while before dropping down to 70.

 

Good luck!

.

[djtrout 0]

thanks for the post, Silver.

 

I tie my elk hair "caddis" with a flair and swiss straw shuck hanging off the back; been very successful with it. actually it may be a misnomer to even call it an ehc, but i'm too lazy to come up with then try to explain another name. i just prefer to call it an ehc and let folks take me to task ... :-)

 

Wonderful video, A. Troth. his son points out the most critical, IMHO, fundamental to understand: the relationship of the fly - in perspective - to the fishing experience. it is but one part, and we fishermen don't always understand fully what exactly about each fly, the precise defining characteristics, that cause a trout to view it as not only just food, but essential food that will elicit a strike. other parts include the all-important presentation, fisherman behavior (these two are under our control) and the whopper: the fish's environment, which is not under our control, but can be within our understanding. it is the environment that conditions the fish as to what is or is not food, and fish adjust their behavior to optimize their survival in their environment. In any stream/river/lake there are multiple foods available, and each environment has its stressors, such as non-fish predators, bigger fish predators, etc.

 

When fish take my "ehc" I personally do not believe they are thinking they are nailing a caddis fly (but who knows, maybe ...), but I have presented something that in their fish brains tell them looks like good food. the fast water helps because fish must decide quickly to take or refuse.

 

trout are after the most nutrition for the least amount of energy expended. I suspect this is the reason for the success of many poorly tied dry flies; they actually look like good food that is defective or injured and unable to get away easily! just a conjecture. I like to tie and throw flies on a lark - not too far off profile, but enough to be a little "out there", and when one works - I am amazed and begin to look around and think, why did this work? That drill reminds me there is so much to understand, and that juices me.

 

I love building my tying skills, but that's just one small part of the fishing existence. People like Troth understand that well. I love living in an age where videos are spun off so easily and widely available so we can absorb the wisdom of masters.

 

aint it great!

[josephcsylvia 0]

Ok guys heres todays ties, a elk hair caddis trying not to crowd the eye and to tent the wing a little more like silver suggested,

 

a peacock herl caddis

 

another attempt at the 20 incher on a longer hook. On this one I feel like i should have started the peacock slightly further back which would make the tail shorter. critiques for today?

 

oh yea I got some 140 denier to tie these with.