Mattpreat

Alright, thanks for the tips everyone. Have not gotten much time since last night, but I followed your advice on the stimulator and it floats good now. Just about to experiment with the other flies now and let you guys know how it goes. Now that floatant is mentioned, I am wondering if something like this would help as I have not been using any on these flys, but this seems like a good method. http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/tyingtips/part49.php

Ill try and tie up a few more tonight following those instructions. The flys float for maybe 10 seconds if im lucky, and then sink. Ill take a couple more pics of the flys afterwards and try and post them again. The thing that gets me is in the area people talk about using a hopper dropper combo with the stimulators and heavy nymphs below it, where I cannot even get the flys on there own to float. Hopefully these tips help and get them floating properly though.

I cannot seem to get the images up on here so I am going to just send you the links to them through imgur, as that is the simplest way for me. They arent my best flys as I just quickly made them to test out, but here you go! A fly tied with macrame yarn that is supposed to float extremely well, yet does not for me. http://imgur.com/c0XyNmh Adams: http://imgur.com/TWFAupq Stimulator: http://imgur.com/oCcKvvc

The hooks are Mustad R50-94840 STD hooks. For the stimulators I use long curved mustad hooks. On the package for the hackle it says #2 Saddle brown natural and if I am not using that I have a grizzly cape if I need it. Body on the Adams is Dragonfly Hareline dubbing in Adams gray and I am using antron wound tight on the stimulators. Hope that gives the information you need, I just cannot figure out what is going on.

Lately I have been in a dry fly mood and I just cannot seem to figure out why my flys will not float when I put them in a glass of water. Whether it is a stimulator packed with deer hair and hackle, an adams, or really any other dry fly they will not float. I am using 8/0 thread, Metz #2 hackle, and trying to pack the materials tight so that the fly does not absorb water. Is there any tips to make these flys float? I just cannot figure out what I am doing wrong.

Often times I will use the marabou as a tail, then use the remaining as a body. If done right it makes for some good and easy to tie wooly buggers or leeches which work awesome on the stocked trout lakes around here.

Alright I will order that in and post on this thread if there is any problems, although there shouldn't be. Thanks for all the help everybody!

Will remember that although I will have to see, don't really think I want to go that route. But thanks for the tip, will remember that. Would this work if I just buy a natural male and female skin? http://flymart.ca/default.aspx?ctl=ctl_ec_product&category_id=223&product_id=534

I was thinking of doing that but the only problem is the shop closest to me is pretty small so its hard to get some things. Ill look around for a whole skin though and see what I can find since it will probably be a smart thing to do in the long run

Nice flys, definitely better then what I did when I started! Also for the part about the way you wrap the wire around the hook, I've found it works better to wrap it in the same direction you wrap your thread. It just tends to work out better for me and the material stays on the hook nicer. But like it has been said on this thread, do what you find works the best!

Ohh okay that makes a bit more sense, now I am assuming I bought the wrong thing. I got some pheasant rump feathers strung together instead of an actual patch so I figure that that's why this isn't working to well for me. Thanks for the help!

Ive gotten a couple ideas in my head and thought it would work awesome if I could just manage to use my pheasant rump feathers like they do in the pictures I see. I found a couple flys I thought I would like to make and it said to use pheasant rump for the tail and body so I went and bought some but it just dont work for me. Is there any trick to getting it to go properly on the hook? The pheasant rump patch I got does not go anything like in the pictures and isnt as fluffy so am I doing something wrong or did I just get a bad batch of feathers? Heres an idea of the fly im talking about: http://www.flycraftangling.com/index.asp?p=145&szArticleButtonCommand=view&nArticleID=19