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Comparison of Dry Fly Dubbings

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Did a little head to head comparison of the dubbings I use to see which one made for the best floating dry fly. I think the results were interesting, if you have a dubbing that you think is better let me know!!

Thanks for watching- Gator

 

https://youtu.be/6al5Zo-qzNY

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Did a little head to head comparison of the dubbings I use to see which one made for the best floating dry fly. I think the results were interesting, if you have a dubbing that you think is better let me know!!

Thanks for watching- Gator

 

https://youtu.be/6al5Zo-qzNY

 

That's definitely something worth doing (and thanks for taking the effort) but here are a few thoughts about the methods you used:

 

They pretty much sank in the order that you placed them on the water. It looked like there was at least three seconds between placing the flies on the water, which was approximately the same amount of time between sinkings. Not as much difference as it would appear to be.

 

It's also not clear what effect adding successive flies had on the hang time of the previous; could there have been some swamping going on? Or disturbing the surface tension?

 

Maybe it would have been better to test each separately and time how long each floated.

 

Also, a better test would probably have been done with micro-fibbets for tails; that way you could put exactly the same number of tailing fibers on each and spread them out to the same degree (they did, after all, sink tail first.)

 

In practical use, however, it may boil down to which one soaks up floatant the best, in which case the results might be exactly the opposite.

 

I would have liked to see some natural dubbing tested (dyed isn't natural, for example, the beaver would have to have had all its oils removed to be dyed.)

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Thanks for the ideas! Didn't think about the effect of the dyes and possible disturbance of the surface water. I did however make sure to use the same number of fibers and length for the tails, and the same length and density of hackle fibers.

 

Might be worth a part two?

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You know most of the float of a dry fly is the hackle not breaking the surface tension of the water, right? The better the hackle, the easier a fly floats. That is why the standard for judging a well tied standard dry pattern is that the tail and the hackle support the fly off the surface. The hook doesn't touch the surface. In rough water dry flies are tied with more hackle, not dubbing.

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if you want to test dubbing, why not just use a hook with just dubbing?

 

wouldnt beaver lose its natural oils in the for processindyeing process?

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if you want to test dubbing, why not just use a hook with just dubbing?

 

wouldnt beaver lose its natural oils in the for processindyeing process?

 

Any fur that is processed, tanned or dyed has no oil left on it. So muskrat and beaver furs that are commercially available are all stripped of oil, The same is true of CDC feathers. I've read magazine articles that claimed that the oil from the preening gland caused dyes CDC to float. That is simply misguided. Some companies even market CDC oil for treating CDC fibers and dry flies.

 

https://www.detteflies.com/cdc_oil

http://www.petitjean.com/online/en/fishing-accessories/146-cdc-oil.html

 

I have a real problem with the design of the experiment on that video. Any "scientific experiment" must be performed so that it represents what we actually do. There is a presupposition in the video.

 

That assumption is that the dry fly with the non-treated dubbing that floats the longest will also float the longest when treated with a floatant. I believe most fly fishers would use a fly floatant to treat our dry flies. Therefore, I believe the test is really not applicable to what I do. I think which dubbing holds onto the floatant most effectively is also important and may be more important than which dubbing floats the longest without floatant. It may indeed be the superfine dubbing. But maybe not.

 

The issue is that natural fibers like rabbit fur or fine camel fur, unlike synthetics, are irregular and have scales. It is not out of the question that rabbit or camel fur fur seen in a scanning electron micrograph below would hold onto gel semisolid floatants better than a smooth synthetic fiber seen in the next micrograph. Additionally would natural fibers or synthetics hold on the powder fumed silica floatant longer?

 

 

 

Rabbit Fur

Z9380037-Rabbit_hair%2C_coloured_SEM-SPL

 

 

Camel Fur

Z9490010-Camel_hair,_coloured_SEM-SPL.jp4571.Jpg

 

 

 

Polyester Microfiber

 

electron-microscopic-image.jpg

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You know most of the float of a dry fly is the hackle not breaking the surface tension of the water, right? The better the hackle, the easier a fly floats. That is why the standard for judging a well tied standard dry pattern is that the tail and the hackle support the fly off the surface. The hook doesn't touch the surface. In rough water dry flies are tied with more hackle, not dubbing.

If you really believe a fly floats on the water on hackle and tail without the hook touching the water after you've cast it out there I've got a bridge to sell you. You might get one short drift with that wonderful idea working but that would be it.

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