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stabgnid

Wings Or No Wings

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When tying Dry Flies size 14 and smaller how important are the wings ???

Steve-stabgnid

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Probably not super important on 14 and smaller. It is important on down wing caddis though, as that presents the delta shape. What can be important though is to put in hot colored upright posts or fibers that could represent wings but more for the fisherman to spot on the water ! Especially with aging eyes like mine. Some people say that high channel feeding trout can spot upright mayfly wings at a little distance as the fly approaches. How they know that is actually beyond my personal experience level but what isn't is that I can say don't bother fishing the flies without tails.

 

Actually my son came up with a BWO variant where he uses a sparse few fibers of either deer hair or elk for the tailing ( long time ago) and the tails would get broken. The fly caught fish like crazy till the tails broke, then not a looker. I can't recall if those flies had wings or not but my inclination is to say no.

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I think the importance depends on what the fish want at the time you are fishing them.It may depend on what hatch is on the water or the time of day and how the fish see the fly.I have fished with and without wings and had sucess with both.

 

Your personal preference.If you don.t want to fool with wings then don't.

 

I think the wings help present an image that triggers bites.Helps balance the fly.Creates more surface area so the fly is less likely to break the surface tension and will float longer.

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...

What can be important though is to put in hot colored upright posts or fibers that could represent wings but more for the fisherman to spot on the water ! Especially with aging eyes like mine. Some people say that high channel feeding trout can spot upright mayfly wings at a little distance as the fly approaches. How they know that is actually beyond my personal experience level but what isn't is that I can say don't bother fishing the flies without tails.

 

Yes! Hi vis wings for the fisherman. I love them.

 

People built slant tanks to get a trout eye view of flies. Here's a whole series on FAOL that describes the setup and the conclusions.

 

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Summary - the tops of the wings are the first things visible in a trout's visible window because of refraction.

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Another factor is the type of stream you are fishing. If you are fishing fairly fast riffle water where the trout don't have much time to make a decision about your fly, then wings are probably less important. But if you are fishing a relatively slow moving, crystal clear spring creek or clear-water lake where the trout have a lot of time to examine your fly, wings may more important. I can remember fishing Armstrong Spring Creek fishing a #20 Adams in a slow moving stretch of water that had a small surface riffle; Twice in a row I had a fish come from the depths, examine my fly literally eyeball-to-eyeball and then reject the fly. I was relatively new to flyfishing and that's when I realized that fish in spring creeks can be a lot more selective than those in freestone streams.

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When tying size 16 mayflies sometimes I will put on wings, other times not. I stopped putting wings on 18 and smaller unless I am in the mood for a challenge. I have tied an Adams down to size 24 with wings but lost the damn thing in the carpet. Think I still have the 22.

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I believe the wing is important. For example, try tying and fishing a size 22 Trico pattern without wings. How is it going to float and how is it going be effective when the wing is a major part of the silhouette? This holds for all spinner patterns.

 

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Similarly the palmered hackle on a dry fly provides both floatation and a wing silhouette, so eliminating the separate wing really is not eliminating the shape of the wing. I think a wing as a part of forming the shape of the fly is important.

 

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If the wing were not important, then why not use the same pattern for all flies mayflies and caddis under the size of 14? What is the major difference between the sparkle dun and X-caddis if it is not the wing?

 

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When I was actively going to UFT meetings in the late 80s/early 90s there was a guy that loved to show his fully dressed size #32 royal coachman. It was in one of those little plastic boxes with the magnifying sides. To me the cut off point for wings is an #18. Remember we are on theflytyingforum where flies should catch fish and look fishy at the same time. Tight wraps.

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I have read articles that make me agree with the suggestions Bruce makes that trout can see a flies wings approaching before anything else. I have been told I make my wings too high for the hackle but I could never figure out the reason to put in the extra work on a fly to put wings in there and then bury them in hackle the same length. I also have played with a lot of small flies but as a general rule once you go smaller than a 20 I don't put the wings in there.

 

At the same time I do enjoy taking advantage of the times my hands are steady and tie small flies with wings just for fun as much as anything else. I've sent some to people who said they'd never seen a size 26 with wings just so they'd see it can be done. Last night I tied a mosquito with grizzly hackle tail, stripped grizzly quill wrapped on for body, grizzly tip wings and grizzly hackle on one of my few remaining #30 Tiemcos. I just completed a swap for midges on 24s with black hackle tail, black dun body, cree hackle and NO wings. Since it took me over an hour to do the #30 with wings I just don't have that much time to invest in swap flies.

 

Anything bigger than 16 should have wings and they should stand above the hackle outline. My opinion, YMMV.

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The wings may be the first part of the fly ABOVE THE WATER, that the fish sees, but they can see the part that is in the water a lot further away. Don't over think this. Yes, wings help the overall appearance, but size and shape are what the fish sees first, then color and last the details. The more picky the fish, the more important the details become.

 

No fly works all the time, most flies work some of the time. That's why we have so many different patterns.

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Posting a pic of flies like that is not an easy chore when you only have an elderly point and shoot. I've thought about a quality camera outfit but can't justify it when this does everything we need short of really small macro. I took several pics of just the fly and they absolutely couldn't get them to work. I have some group shots here of the flies I did for the swap and some extras I tied for the SM and myself and by request of another member. If you look at the first pic this is a pile of little guys for the swap and others. I have a line to the 30 with wings. There is are also #20 Renegades and a 16 H&L Variant for comparison.

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This next picture I have drawn a line connecting a 30 gnat and a 30 mosquito. It is next to a 20 Renegade and the H&L is on a penny for comparison. I could not get the individual pics to come out and gave up. The mosquito body is stripped quill from a size 18 grizzly hackle.

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At the same time I do enjoy taking advantage of the times my hands are steady and tie small flies with wings just for fun as much as anything else. I've sent some to people who said they'd never seen a size 26 with wings just so they'd see it can be done. Last night I tied a mosquito with grizzly hackle tail, stripped grizzly quill wrapped on for body, grizzly tip wings and grizzly hackle on one of my few remaining #30 Tiemcos. I just completed a swap for midges on 24s with black hackle tail, black dun body, cree hackle and NO wings. Since it took me over an hour to do the #30 with wings I just don't have that much time to invest in swap flies.

 

Anything bigger than 16 should have wings and they should stand above the hackle outline. My opinion, YMMV.

 

 

i think we'd all like to see that size 30 you tied

 

 

 

flytire's right ! I'd like to see this fly that you write about all the time too ! Let's see what it looks like.

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The importance of a wing depends on a lot of factors. You need to be much more specific on the kind of dry fly you are talking about. There are a lot of different things a wing helps you with.

Visibility. A wing can help you see the fly on the water.

Silhouette. A wing can be vital in providing the right silhouette to represent the natural,

Presentation. Wings affect the way the fly lands on the water.

Flotation. (That is not the right word, dry flies don't float, they stand on the meniscus. Floating means displacing a volume of water greater in weight than the object, traditional dry flies do not do that.) Wings can be used as part of what keeps the fly on the surface.

 

However, there are downsides.

They can be a pain to tie,

They can cause the fly to topple over on the water..

 

There is only one occasion I have fund wings to be absolutely essential. On the R. Eden with the sun low one evening. If your fly did not have a shadow from the wings on the water the fish didn't take it.

 

Cheers,

C.

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