The secret to tying these is to keep the hair sparse. You don't want to bulk up the fly too much, or it will be hard to cast.
Good Luck
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Here are two of my patterns. I used Polaris N.E.W. Fibers for these. It has one extra step, which involves 'cooking' the fibers with a heat gun for a few seconds to get a perfect sillouette.
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n45/suejoel/Shad.jpg
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...l/Bluegill.jpg
Fish4trout: This is definetly a technique that requires practice and with each attempt you use less and less material until you get it. The best advice I can offer is if you think you have enough material reduce it by half, eventually your "half" will be just enough!
Gigmaster: with the N.E.W. material, do you tie it any differently than "Puglisi" type material??
Wayneb
It is very similar. There is an extra step. You 'cook' the fly with a heat gun, and it gives it a permanent 'baitfish' shape. Check out the video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6rNBGe_Frk.
All of the Polaris flies are my very best producers. It must be the way the matierial reflects light, or something, because they outfish every other pattern I have ever tied. I have fished them side-by-side with traditional patterns, and the Polaris ones won, by a large margin. Given a choice, the fish (of all species I can fish for) always went for the Polaris flies. The Polaris Grasshopper/Cricket is especially deadly on panfish.
I modified the Polaris Shrimp slighty by adding claws to it, and it is the best Crawfish pattern I've got. It is irresistable to SM Bass.
Happy fishing....
I've been tying some large pike flies out of clown wig like this.
http://www.flowcircusstore.com/image.../clown_wig.gif The material is too curly as is, but with a little heat from a heat gun, you can straighten it out as much or as little as you please.
A 4/0 fly tied 'wavy' only takes 4-6 very small clumps.
Full bodied but very sparse and translucent
Gig...do you fish for trout?
Absolutely! I have a trout stream right behind the house (I live in the Cohutta Wilderness, on Grassy Mountain), and a lot more within walking distance, including a water fall.
They look like this:
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...acksFalls1.jpg
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...oel/Jacks2.jpg
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n...l/sp_conas.jpg
I also bass fish (both LM and SM), catfish, crappie fish, bluegill fish, carp fish, snakehead fish, striper and white bass fish, and even salt-water fish when I can. I run trot and jug lines for catfish.
Here is how to tie the best N. E. W. trout streamers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbv_sKvsGz4
And some dries: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt-Uag3zqZo
I now use this stuff about 75% of the time on flies I am actually going to fish with.
I get mine from Tim's site: http://1a-fly-fishing.com/. I think he is the originator of the material, and most of the patterns.