Whats wrong? Twisted tippet.

Hi guys, I?m new to this forum and new to the sport. Been fly fishing for about 2 years, and started tying a few flies last fall. I guess I owe a debit to A.C. that I will never get to repay, sorry to learn of his passing.
I started tying a few simple nymphs and woolly buggers with little problem, but last fall, when I found this site, I followed Al?s instruction for some Adams dry flies. I thought they looked OK, about a ? dozen in sizes 16-20. I took them for a dunk at a local lake one evening and started throwing them at the risers from my float tube. After about 6 -8 casts, without a nibble or glance, I brought the rig in to find my tippet (6x) twisted up (not wind knots). I?ve got a feeling this was self induced, as I have not seen this before with the (expensive) store bought flies. What did I do wrong? Any suggestions on how I could at least ?proof? the flies I have tied before taking them out to the lake/river? TIA for your responses.

SAJ

Hi SAJ,

Usually a twisted tippet is indicative of a dry fly with fairly stiff wings causing the fly to "propeller" during the casting process. Propellering causes your tippet to twist; sometimes really bad. What did you construct your wings from? Do the wings have a stiff stem down their center? Are the wings the same length? These are just a few questions that may hold the answer to your concern. I'm sure other members of this group with have some ideas as well. Take care & ...

Tight Lines - Al Beatty
www.btsflyfishing.com

Your tippit may have been to light for the fly also.

I agree completely with Al that the problem is proably with the wings, either too tall or too stiff. This will really cause the fly to spin with a hard long cast or false casting to dry the fly. With a twisted leader the fly will sit and spin after it hits the water also. I am no kind of authority on tying but what works for me is to not use wings on small #18 to #22. I always have a terrible time with wings this small and I also think that they become almost invisible after the hackle is added. I asked on here a couple years ago if people thought that wings were need on most of the smaller flies that had them in the pattern and as I recall the replies were about evenly split yes and no. People basicly said to do what ever suited me so I left them off small Adams and BWOs and PMDs and still caught some fish and they were much much easier for me to tie. If you like the looks of them put them in if not then don't bother but I will bet your twisting problems go away with out them.

I suspect it was wings, and as two of you mentioned, they probably were too stiff and/or not sized properly. I?m going to take the advice of bowmaker and just leave them off the small flies. I also spoke to a fly shop worker bee today and he mentioned the tippet to fly weight problem. So much to learn! Thanks again.

Any easy way to figure it out is to bring a pair of scissors with you while you fish/ cast and start cutting off pieces of the fly that you think are the problem. Make a couple casts with your existing fly. If it spins cut out the wings then try a few more casts if it still spins cut off something else. It is a good way to find out exactly what the problem is, off course fixing it is something else. Just making assumptions of what may or may not be the problem will take longer to figure out the problem.

I cut pieces out of flies and modify all the time while I am on the water to try and correct problems.

I had the same problem years ago and my fly-fishing mentor told me it was my cast, not letting the rear-ward loop lay out enough (starting my foreward cast too soon). Of course, we tried a lot of different things that day and the problem disappeared.

I'm not saying that it isn't the fly. I've had that happen frequently with grasshopper patterns. But I wanted to see if anyone else thought it might be the casting motion.