All Natural Material Flys

[dontheo 0]

I was just wondering. I have gotten rid of all my synthetic materials and have gone back to tying flys using only natural materials. Why, because I am excessive compulsive and I can

 

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else does? Yes, that includes the thread (nice try). I am not a tree hugger or anything like that. Just an old man who thinks it's cool, like Bamboo rods. I have a hate for foam for some reason. I just don't think it belongs in the water unless you are floating on it. Yes, the avatar is the USS Indianapolis and that won't happen again.

 

don Theodoro Augustino

 

aka: Dontheo

[rockworm 0]

dontheo

 

I, too, prefer to use natural materials like silk, furs and feathers. But let's face it- silk sucks when you're spinning deer hair.

[tidewaterfly 0]

Steel is a man made material.

 

To each his own I guess. :cheers:

 

I don't have that much conviction to only use natural materials. Both have there uses. :thumbup:

 

I use a lot of natural materials, but have not shunned synthetics. I stayed away from synthetic hairs for a long time, the one's I tried many years ago didn't have anything close to the same movement as natural materials & they tangled easily. In the last 10 years I've experimented with most of the different synthetic hairs that have come along, but there are only a few I like.

 

With all the negative attention that oil is getting recently, and most synthetics being derived from petroleum, I've often wondered how folks would decide, if it came down to a choice of one or the other.

 

When I started tying there were not a lot of synthetic materials available like there are today, so if I had to choose, I would have no real issue with using just natural materials.

 

But, for now, I'll keep using a mix.

[Dustin Guyette 0]

i use mostly natural materials, but sometimes i use synthetics.

 

one of the things that i do that most people don't is using pine tree sap instead of wax.

[DevinKaradeema 0]

i tried that once while i was camping... i used the rib bones from a tigermusky my silk and just feathers from the birds i could pick off with my wifes BB gun

 

short story shorter hooked into a smally, bone broke at the eye no more natural flys for me. plus i like the shiny stuff :eek:

[Flytyer14 0]

i tried that once while i was camping... i used the rib bones from a tigermusky my silk and just feathers from the birds i could pick off with my wifes BB gun

 

short story shorter hooked into a smally, bone broke at the eye no more natural flys for me. plus i like the shiny stuff :eek:

 

lol

[riffleriversteelheadslayer 0]

I tie with whatever I decide to tie with at that moment be it natural or man made but as for fishing I like to go back to the beginning and fish with clubs and stones

[atroutbum2 0]

when im tying, i prefer to use materials that came off of an animal when i can. but im not a pureist by any means, i still have the synthetics and i do use them

[JSzymczyk 0]

go back to the beginning and fish with clubs and stones

 

 

When my son was 5, he "caught" a 16" grayling with a stone.... Long story short, he chucked a softball sized rock into a muddy, spring-thaw creek and the grayling came flying out onto the bank. We don't know who was more surprized, us or the fish. I wish I had that on video.

 

As for tying, I use whatever material I need to get the effects I want. There are no natural alternatives for Ice-Dub or Krystal Flash, and there are no synthetic equals to good bucktail and good hackle (of all types). As someone already pointed out, our steel hooks are not natural nor were the bronze hooks before that, so the use of synthetic materials goes back nearly as far as the earliest known history of fly tying.

 

I imagine the quantity of petrochemicals used in the entire manufacturing of fly tying materials makes about as much difference as a fart in a tornado.

[beadhead 0]

dontheo

I'm glad to see another sailor aboard this forum

 

Avatar is USS Lake Champlain CVS39

[salmonid 0]

When I began tying, 1963, there weren't a lot of synthetics available. Many, if not most tyers I knew held the new materials in disdain. One reasoning against the synthetics was that the ends of synthetic fibers did not taper to a natural point as natural fibers do and therefore would be inferior in all cases to natural materials. Mind you, many of the writings at the time were authors either English or of English persuasion and the fish they tied for and wrote of were brown trout, from shallow waters and feeding selectively in hard-fished streams with famous names. Our US fly tying has it's roots in the UK, after all. Tyers of that time knew intimately the properties of natural materials; which hairs were translucent, which were naturally buoyant and which weren't. Thus, we find the almost voodoo-like recipes for some of the old patterns; "....vaginal hairs, tinged just the right shade of red, from a vixen having gone through several heats". Dry fly hackle was never trimmed to hook size once wound onto a hook; (trimming would blunt the fiber ends, after all and thus would not be accepted by the fish) the result being no need for small hooks in say, sizes 18 or under as there was no hackle generally available which would tie down to this size. These small hooks only grew in demand once "genetic" hackle became generally available and which would tie naturally, without being trimmed, down to sizes 18 and under.

I stayed away from the synthetics for a long, long time but incorporated nylon thread and eventually beads into my tying somewhere along the line. And while I also have many synthetics in my bins, I reach for natural materials if I can make them work for the pattern being tied. So while I very much prefer to use natural materials whenever I can do so, it falls somewhat short of religion for me.

And while it is indeed a fact there is no natural material substitute for krystal flash, it is equally a fact that the fish never find krystal flash naturally a part of their diet. I take it from that, that we as fly fishers ought to be able to take fish using natural materials without the need for items such as krystal flash. That is my preference. I care not the least what materials the next guy uses. But I too, fish bamboo, silk lines and old English reels with small spool hubs, narrow drums and the simplest of drags. I might well catch more fish using krystal flash but that long ago ceased being the point for me.

[riffleriversteelheadslayer 0]

I'm not thinking vaginal hairs, tinged just the right shade of red, from a vixen having gone through several heats is in a fishes diet either

[Fred H. 0]

Excelent replies all. dontheo you have set yourself on a path in which you hold yourself to a strict standard . It can be very gratifying when you can limit your options to tie with only natural materials and still suceed in catching fish. It is akin to bowhunting for deer instead of using a high powered rifle in some respects. I like using all natural materials on some patterns for the chalenges it presents .

Fred

[flytire 0]

i tie flies with whatever material that pleases ME, not OTHER PEOPLE.

[flytire 0]

I'm not thinking vaginal hairs, tinged just the right shade of red, from a vixen having gone through several heats is in a fishes diet either

 

i agree

 

or natural animal hair/fur, chicken hackles, polypropelene yarns, silk thread etc etc etc :dunno: