dmcMaine

Yep. I live in Bath (technically West Bath). I love Vermont. I take the family to the Smuggler's Notch area vacationing when we can get in there. Good times.

Thanks again. This was actually a slightly different pattern, not and EHC at all. It was called a CDC & Elk. There is no hackle, and no rib. Heck, there isn't even a dubbed body. A single CDC feather forms the body and wispy hackle. Then an elk wing on top. That's it. It looked a lot easier to tie than a traditional EHC so I picked it to start with, and to practice stacking that wing. I figured that was enough of a challenge.

Crackaig, thanks that describes it perfectly! And that is basically what I tried to do to fix it. I didn't think of using hackle pliers to secure the broken line, but otherwise tried to proceed as you just showed. Thanks for the help. Now to tie up a bunch of these to get the techniques down pat. A little less thread tension, and set the tie-in point just a little farther back to not block the eye.

Last night I started working with deer hair. - tying a CDC-Elk type caddis size 14. (something like this: http://www.intheriffle.com/fishing-videos/fly-tying/cdc-elk-hair-caddis/) When tightening the deer hair on top, I broke my thread off. First time this has happened. I guess I shouldn't tighten the wraps quite so much. I was focused on keeping the hair on top of the hook shank and not letting it spin. I wasn't sure what to do from there. I had the deer hair wing tied in with the but ends still untrimmed flaring around the hook eye. In the end, I tried to tie it off the best I could, trim the hair, and add some wraps of new thread, whip, and cement. But what should I have done at that point? Then end result of that first fly looked 'ok', but I seriously crowded the hook eye with the deer hair. Tying that in take quite a bit more space than I expected!

Hello from coastal Maine. I bought my first fly rod last fall (9ft #6). Started tying wooly buggers after Christmas. And am as yet fishless on it. It'll come eventually. An avid bass fisher growing up in Missouri, I'm still trying to get my bearing in Maine. Biggest challenge right now is finding fishing locations that are: 1) accessible by foot 2) without trespassing 3) hold fish and 4)have room to cast a fly. I'm glad I found this site. I'll be much more full of questions than answers for a while. This year's goals: Catch a flippin' fish! Look for an affordable canoe/kayak. Did I mention catch a danged fish?