Dallasblues

I’d absolutely be willing to pay for such a class. In person instruction would be invaluable I would think. I’ll keep an eye out for it in my area for sure. Until then I’ll just keep practicing over and over. My box of junk flies keeps on growing but the experience is likely worth it. Thanks!

Hey all! I’ve posted a few times recently about my journey into tying winged wet flies. After a few years of dries, nymphs and streamers I thought I’d work on these for a while. From a purely aesthetic point of view winged wets are the prettiest patterns in my opinion. So far I’ve been focusing on two specific flies… a Leadwing Coachman and a Royal Coachman. Tying the bodies is easy enough. Hackle is fairly straightforward unless it’s a throat. That gives me fits. But my main question is about the wings. I have several duck and turkey quills I’m using. Sometimes I get them cut and lined up fairly evenly. Sometimes they’re a little bit off. But what’s really frustrating me is tying them in correctly. I’ve watched dozens of videos where it’s done and think I’m following it fairly well. Once I have them in my fingers at the length I want I use a loose pinch wrap and then pull upwards on the thread binding the feathers to the shank. It does just that. However both feathers almost always end up on one side of the shank or the other… never directly on top. I honestly don’t know what I’m doing differently from the videos I watch. Theirs always look great and uniform and tidy. Mine look okay if you’re looking at it from one side but looks weird from the other. Oh! And some guys online appear to have one feather on each side of the shank when tying them in? For the life of my I can’t figure out how they do that. Anyway… I had to step away for a bit. Almost threw my vice in the dumpster. Ha! I kid. How did you guys learn to do this properly? I must’ve tied 30 Coachmans these past couple of days and maybe only two are acceptable.

Great video! Very helpful. Thank you!

Thanks for the tip! I steamed a few quills this afternoon and that definitely makes a difference.

I’m really focusing on tying one pattern right now… the Leadwing Coachman. So far I’ve ordered several duck quills from an online fly tying retailer. To be honest, they all look mangled and misshapen to me. Where can I get good quality wing material? Thanks!

Oh man! That’s great. I kinda thought it must be simpler than I was making it. Thank you so much for that. Much appreciated!

Hey all. I’ve been tying lots of winged wets lately. Most have been hackled by wrapping partridge around the shank just like I do with soft hackle/spiders. Then I add the wing on top. This looks just fine when I do it. However I see many beautiful wet fly patterns where a throat is tied in on the underside of the shank rather than wrapped around the post. For the life of me I can’t figure out how this is done. I’ve tried rotating my vise so the fly is upside down then tying hackle fibers at the throat. I’ve had mixed success at best and almost always impale a finger or two on the hook point in the process. I’ve tried loosely tying fibers on top and rotating them below before tightening. They just become a haggard mess and look nothing like the beautiful pics I see. I’ve tried wrapping the post and then pulling them down and giving a few wraps to hold them there. Same result… haggard mess. Not sure what to do here. How do you guys/gals tie in those beautiful throats? Any tips, ideas, pictures or video links would be helpful. Thanks

I was in a similar position when tying my first flies. I only had one size or two of hackle and they were almost always too long for what I needed to tie. Since then I did just what has been suggested here. I bought the Whiting dry fly hackle starter packs. I’m pretty sure I still have plenty. It goes a long way. Since then I’ve bought a rooster hen cape or two. I now mostly tie wet flies and soft hackles. They’re a little less specific to hackle length but I still try to get it close to where it needs to be. Getting a couple hen capes has given me just about every hackle size I need.

Well said!

I tie ugly Woolly Buggers. I’ve caught some nice trout and bass on these homely things though. But when I compare mine to the kind I see at a fly shop I notice one major difference. The hackle that’s wrapped around the professional buggers look nice, proportional, and fairly uniform going from eye to the bend of the hook. Using the basic saddle hackle I find online at fly shops, mine don’t look anything at all like that. The biggest difference is the size of fibers of the feather. The fibers are so much longer! Are these nice, pro-grade, buggers being tied with something different? Or are they trimming the fibers shorter after wrapping them? Does any of this make sense? I’m just curious. I catch fish on my ugly ones but I’d sure like to tie a pretty one someday.

That’s good to know! All I have is a bag of loose Hungarian Partridge feathers... most of which aren’t very good. I kinda have to dig around to find something close to usable. Once I’m more confident in my tying skills I’d like to get a good partridge skin. I’m sure better hackle could be taken from that.

I tried this a couple nights ago and it seemed to work fairly well!

I’ll try to get some better pics of it tonight after work!

Hey folks. I tied this one up last night after seeing a nice YouTube tutorial of a Peacock & Partridge soft hackle. Any criticism... constructive or belligerent... is welcome. 😂

Hey I’m all for it! I knew it was pretty screwball when I posted it. Ha ha!