shmish

Hi One thing that I'm not good at (amongst many things) is tying off hackle when using a bead head. For example, I was making some Popsicle like flies with a bead. In order to tie off the marabou, I get the feeling that I should wrap forward on the stem by a couple of mm. But this then leaves a gap between where the marabou ends and the bead head. Any advice on what to do in this situation? thanks

Hi, Looking at pictures of fly patterns, I've seen polar bear, bucktail and arctic fox all used for wings. With photos, they all look kind of similar to me. What are the main differences between these materials and do they generally make decent substitutes for each other? I have some different dyed bucktail which I bought for clousers and it would be nice (ie cost effective) if I could also use them for flies like a coho candy. Basically for coho and steelhead flies... Would something like Neer hair or Flash n Slinky be okay substitute for polar bear? thanks

That's exactly what I was wondering...

For those that tie BWO, what color hackle do you use? Patterns I've read about say to use light or med blue dun. Having sprung quite a few dollars for some genetic hackle (grizzly and medium dun) the thought of buying small packages of blue dun doesn't appeal. Oh well, I don't mind too much but thought I'd see what other people do.

Okay, I found the hatches tv, thanks. When I was dubbing with the Antron, when I twisted the dubbing it just spun around the thread. So it's like I was created a twisted yarn of dubbing that wasn't really attached to the thread, the thread didn't grab it at all. I've also used some rabbit dubbing for a wet fly and it seemed to work out ok. cheers

the dubbing is synthetic, I believe it is antron olive sparkle. I'll look into some naturals, thanks. I don't even know what "antron" is. I should maybe get something like this cheers

Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean by Hatches tv... is this a hatches tying video? where would I might find it? I checked out their website and looked at back issues articles but didn't see much on dubbing. cheers

Thanks guys. My biggest hurdle right now is learning to whip finish by hand and then translate this to the horizontal position. Working with dubbing is also quite difficult. I sort of can spin a sparse amount of dubbing onto the thread but by the time I starting wrapping, the dubbing is coming off and clumping up. I don' think I'm getting the dubbing onto the thread correctly.

I tried my first dry flies today. Previously I've had some modest success with wet flies such as wooly buggers, clouser minnow, etc. So I tried to do a parachute paradun. Tricky bits were: spreading three microfibres for the tail (and keeping them spread as I dubbed close to it dubbing in general! lol and then the biggie... tying off the hackle that was wound around the parachute post I was following an Oliver Edward video where he carefully knocks off a few hand whip finishes around the post. BTW, I think this winding around the post isn't that unusual? Especially for parachutes, klinkhammers, etc? Man, that is really hard to do. I kind of gave up on that and tied off the hackle along the body/thorax. But it really left an obvious non-natural feature, with the somewhat darker hackle being brought alongside the lighter coloured body. I have no idea on how durable my flies will be, I think they might only last a few casts. Anyways, I don't know if there are any real tips to help with this other than advising to practice more. The hand whip on the post seems sort of hopeless at this point though. I had to write this just to vent I think! s.

I've contacted Howard's Hackle. They are in Canada and offer the two colour I would use the most I think, grizzle and blue dun. It looks like I might be able to get 2 1/2 necks, they're checking their stock. I was told that their grade 3 neck hackle ties from 12 to 18/20. The higher grades go down to 24 I think they said (don't quote me on this, but you get the idea). s

I'm still looking into getting my first hackle , and probably will get 1/2 grizzly and 1/2 dun. I was thinking about getting saddle hackle, but have a question about tying smaller flies. Is there any reason why I couldn't use size 16 hackle for smaller flies, and then trim the length of hackle after tying it on? I did this with a palmered hackle on a woolly bugger that I tied, it didn't seem like a big problem. thanks

I've only tried to apply dubbing a couple of times and I find it to be quite tricky. I would think that dubbing wax would help quite a bit. However, my bank account is taking a hit from every $2 and $4 purchase I'm making for fly tying. It all adds up in the end. Is there any substitute for dubbing wax? Does it really help very much? thanks

I'm in Vancouver and the stream I was on is the Skagit River. All the local information (angling websites, shops, fishermen) calls this hatch a western green drake hatch, which starts in late August. Other predominant hatches at this time of year are blue winged olives and october caddis. There were some larger mayflies in the air than the guy I showed in the picture, but maybe there were a couple of different drake hatches at the same time? Of maybe it's just not a very good picture! edit: maybe it's a blo?

While fishing yesterday there was a pretty good green drake hatch. I knew it was a green drake hatch because it's common local knowledge. If I didn't know, it would be difficult to determine. Without a butterfly net or something it's quite hard to catch them in the air. And trying to spot one on the water is kind of tricky too, especially if not a lot of water can be covered by wading. Do a lot fly fishermen take nets with them to catch mayflies? BTW, i think there was another hatch at the same time but I had no idea what it was. I did catch one green drake in my hand by dashing around, but that's tricky to do without squishing the buggers.

I tied a few flies last week. these included clouser minnows, a gurgler (my own blue bastardized version of a purple gurgler), woolly bugger, and killer bug. The deer hair caddis was the most difficult. I had two takes with that fly yesterday and lost one to a trout. I also caught a pink salmon with a blue clouser. The flies can be seen here: http://www.zooomr.com/z/photos/zoom/3432263/size-32/ The killer bugs didn't have the right color to them I don't think. As well, I'm not sure the hook was right for them. I used a nymph hook but I don't think there was enough room between the shank and the tip of the barb. s