Animal hair that sinks?

[Saltybum 0]

Will be fishing western NC creeks. Don't want to buy a bunch of bead heads I'll never use, so trying to decided which dead animal ( already ) in my boxes to use for a natural looking but quicker sink for deeper pools etc.

Smallest hooks I have are #10 with 6 the next up.

Fortunately I have a load of tiny stuff I acquired from more than a decade ago for 6-8" fish. But want to tie a couple of my own, which I have.

Let me tell you I have nothing but admiration for people who tie the 14-22 stuff now. I'm more at home with #4-1/0 salt flies.

 

Maybe....maybe I'll post em.

Maybe I'll wait till after the trip in case no fish get caught on em.

[Fisherboy0301 0]

Lead wire will be your friend, or if in doubt some tiny splitshot can help. Others have covered the hair thing but I figured Id add in since you said you didnt wanna buy beadheads. Im sure you have dumbbell eyes and beadchain eyes too.

[zip 0]

Lead wire will be your friend, or if in doubt some tiny splitshot can help. Others have covered the hair thing but I figured Id add in since you said you didnt wanna buy beadheads. Im sure you have dumbbell eyes and beadchain eyes too.

+1 On the lead and bead chain!

[mikechell 0]

... trying to decided which dead animal ( already ) in my boxes to use for a natural looking but quicker sink for deeper pools etc.

 

Maybe....maybe I'll post em.

Maybe I'll wait till after the trip in case no fish get caught on em.

As stated before, animal fur is neutral buoyancy once wet. NO hair sinks quicker than any other, since none of them truly sink.

So the only thing to consider, really, is how thick it is. The finer the hair, the quicker (generally) it will be soaked through.

 

Please ... you know how much we like pictures on this site !!! Both the flies (fish or no) and the fish (these flies or not) !!!

[Capt Bob LeMay 0]

Here's the best answer I've found for hair that sinks... Simply use wool instead of spun and clipped deerhair and your bug will sink just fine... I generally use for baitfish patterns - the one shown is a finger mullet pattern ( I call it a Woolhead). You can't spin the stuff into position you just cut a clump of wool then slide it into posiition already evenly distributed around the hook shank - and it doesn't flare out under thread pressure so you have to help it along manually...

[SilverCreek 0]

Silver ... doesn't the deer hair hollow cavities provide "air bubbles" beneath the surface, to support the fly and float it?

 

MIke,

 

Since hollow deer hair has a specific gravity that is less than water, when it is submerged it does help support the fly BUT the fly will not float unless the average specific gravity of the entire fly is less than water. So what matters is the AVERAGE density of the fly. If the specific gravity of the fly is greater than water, the fly will sink even if there is hollow deer hair as a part of the fly.

 

What floats many dry flies is actually surface tension and not the fact that they are "lighter" than water.

 

 

Take a heavily hackled dry fly for example. The hackle tips spreads the mass of the fly over a large area and the attraction of water molecules for each other is what supports the fly,

 

 

But once the fly gets wet, the fly will sink. Surface tension cannot support a wet fly because water on the bottom of the fly becomes part of the water surface. So what the water soaked into a fly does is to remove the support of surface tension. Once the meniscus is broken by a wet fly, the fly will sink to the level of its average specific gravity. If the fly's specific gravity is less than water, the fly will float by displacement just like a boat floats by displacement.

[mikechell 0]

Got it ... thanks.

[Peterjay 0]

Like Bob, I use a lot of wool, for wings as well as heads; just be aware of its properties. It stretches when wet, and "puffs" out a bit as well. You can't beat it for action, which is akin to marabou. A tail support will keep fouling to a minimum. I usually use rabbit or something similar for bellies, throat, and whatnot, to keep the material clear of the hook point. For smaller deceivers, etc., I use calf tail; it isn't hollow like bucktail, and will get down quicker. I don't know anything about the science involved; it's just been my experience.

[SilverCreek 0]

Royce Dam,The Buz Buszek Award is the highest fly tying award the FFF gives out. Royce Dam won it in 1994 and he is the foremost fly tier that uses wool for flies.

Get his book, The Practical Fly Tier.

http://www.fedflyfishers.org/Portals/0/FlyTyingGroup/FTGDocuments/Buszek/1994_RoyceDam.pdf

http://www.theflyfishingforum.com/forums/general-fly-tying-discussions/242462-wool-bodied-flies.html

Royce is no ordinary fly tier. He ties full dress salmon flies, salt water patterns, packed hair bass bugs. Here are some of his shadow box flies that I have displayed in my tying room.

img]https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4253/35594962941_d752deeecc_z.jpg[/img]

 

[BobHRAH 0]

Sad news: Royce Dam passed on 3/4/18 at age 92. His video is ok, but his book is excellent.

 

Thanks, Bob H