Fly Tying: A Brace of Wet Flies

A little experimentation with Flexi-Floss and heavier wire ribbing for a more pronounced segmentation effect. The wet flies were tied on a size 14 and a size 16 Mustad 3906 hook. Love this hook. The verdict is out on how the body material will impress fish. To the naked eye it looks ok and as usual to the macro it looks a bit troubled. I would normally use a finer copper ribbing but I thought I would see how the larger ribbing came across. For those that like a cleaner appearance, the patterns look a bit clunky. Yet, I bet they will fish just fine. A dubbed thorax separated the abdomen from the Starling wing. It a simple fly to tie; could even be simpler. Any number of combination exist for the simple wet fly, soft hackle, flymph….call it what you will in your fair corner of the earth.

I know...a bit weak in the bum.

Fly Tying: Snowshoe Parachute Emerger

Tim Barker at PlanetTrout recently tied a nice emerger pattern with white Snowshoe rabbit hair. I was impressed by the appearance and figured I would try to use the material. I have been on a CDC kick of late and Tim suggested the Snowshoe hair might be a better material compared to CDC.  So, I tried it. Lordy me! I struggled with it on a size 18 hook. So, I would suggest experimenting with the material on a bigger hook and getting use to the hairs.

The hook was a Gamakatsu C15-BV, size 18, vertical eye. The tail/shuck was a single strand of copper/black Krystal flash. The abdomen body was black and olive 14/o Sheer thread wrapped around each other and then wound onto the hook. The wing post is a clump of hairs from a tan Snowshoe Rabbit foot. I tied it in and elevated it with thread wraps around the base of the post. A very small Grizzly hackle was tied in and wrapped around the base of the post ala parachute style.

I fumbled with the rabbit hairs and tying off the hackle. I really could not see very well. The lighting was great, but frankly I just cannot cleanly tie the smaller flies, unless it is a simple nymph or pupa pattern. But, I will continue to muddle through because the reality is you do need some smaller patterns and I will continue to experiment until I find the simpler, cleaner patterns to tie.