Fly swimming upside down?

[flytire 0]

You can take the man out of the submarine, but you can't take submarine out of the man...

Never been in a submarine in my life

[flytire 0]

Flytire,

Looking at the picture, you'd snip off the lead on the left side of the fly about mid-hookshank. Then you'd make 1/2 turn more on the right side of the fly and snip it off about mid-hookshank. Both ends of the lead would be pointed up. If you count the number of turns on the top half of the fly, there would be 15. If you counted the number of turns on the bottom half of the fly, it would be 16. Thus, the bottom half of the fly is weighted slightly more than the top half of the fly.

And then what happens. The fly is more heavily weighted on one ene than the other? And makes the hook eye point downward?

 

How much does 1/2 turn of lead weigh?

[flytire 0]

As a wise man once said, "Fly tyers sure do have a way at making things complicated."

 

 

Yes he did! More than once

[chugbug27 0]

 

You can take the man out of the submarine, but you can't take submarine out of the man...

Never been in a submarine in my life

But didn't you say you were a submarine engineer?

[FIN-ITE 34 0]

Since the op used bead instead of wraps, that is not likely to be his problem.

 

What I see in the picture is the combo of down eye and bead have created a jig that has more bead above the eye than below the eye and when the leader turns the eye upwards the bead rolls the hook over.

 

 

 

 

 

Looking back at the photo, I think tjm makes a very good point/observation.

[spiralspey 0]

When you use a long shanked hook and add a bead, the shank is the heaviest part of the fly, so naturally it rides "upside down". Knowing this I tie my buggers with beads and a few turns of lead wire with the intention that they ride hook up. My flies snag less often tied this way, but even better most fish will be hooked in the upper jaw or corner of the mouth and I land more fish.

[redietz 0]

 

Another question I had was regarding wet flies. Is there a big difference between tying with silk vs UTC 70? I have been tying up some partridge and orange/olive as well as a few poachers and haven't had much luck with them compared to streamers.

This should probably be in a topic of its own, but the difference between a Partridge and Orange tied with silk and one tied with UTC 70 will mostly be the color of the body when wet. The silk will turn a rusty brown, the UTC will stay orange. It depends on how much faith you put in color as a factor whether this makes a difference to you.

 

FWIW, there's a reason my avatar here is a P&O: I've caught more trout on them in the last twenty years than on all other flies combined.

[dogfacedoc 0]

tend to agree with both mikemac and flicted. However I'm not understanding the "wooly bugger with a marabou wing on top"; aren't woolly buggers wingless?

I'm not sure the name of it but I have one I bought at the fly shop in jax fl that is black with a marabou wing, I've had good success with it on smallmouth.