First Crack at an Ibis & White [PEACH]

[Cold]

Take a look and let me know what you think. Suggestions and tips wanted!

First One:




Second One:

[popperfly]

Sporting the Detroit Red Wings colors GO WINGS!!!! , looks really good it shows you put some time in tying that fly.

[kbproctor]

Those are good looking flies!

Notice how the tips of your red and white slips flow in the tail? The wing should flow like that, too. Other than that nitpicky bit, the flies are great.

[JeffHamm]

Hi,

Those look really good, especially for first attempts! I really like your mixture of the red and white hackle, nice balance (often the red will overpower the white). I think the gold tag could be shorter, maybe half it's current length? The oval rib looks to be better sized than the flat tinsel in the 2nd one. Uni makes flat tinsel in a number of sizes, 16 being the smallest, which I find suits wets up to size 12. And, as mentioned, work on getting the wing tips to marry; you've got them tied in so nicely it's a shame not to have the join go all the way. That being said, when you fish them, after a few fish the wings usually get beat up anyway. I've tied a very similar pattern, with the wing being 3 strips, white/red/white, the tail is just mixed red/white fibres, and the rib is silver. I've caught a few nice rainbows on it, and my grandfather used to use it on brookies all the time and it was one of his go to patterns (along with the parmachene belle).

Anyway, keep at it. Those are both very fish catching ties there. Nice job.

- Jeff

[dryfly2010]

:O speechless. from an ignorant-to-this-style standpoint, those look really good. i do like the oval tinsel in the first one better though. just a little more elegant.

nice ties!

Jordan

[Flyfish4troutguy]

Make ur tail not as long the thinner tinsel looks much better, even try silver/gold wire for the ribbing. Head a little thick to keep the sleek look.

If you really want to see some good spey flies go to www.speypages.com and check out what those guys tie up.
They offer really good advice too.

I forgot to mention as well tie in your wing before you do you hackle(that will help for a smaller head as well), a tip they gave to me also was to strip one side of the feather so that the hackle is more sparse.

Also they mention to start you tag at the hook point, makes for proper proportions. I am no expert at all since I just started but just passing along info I have received.

Other than that for your first time, looks great.

[Cold]

Thanks for all the kind words and very helpful suggestions!

I too thought the flat tinsel rib looked like a bit much. Its always nice when your gut feeling is steering you in the right direction.

As far as the wing...are there any tips on how to get the edges of the slips to line up? They looked great till I tied em in.

Also, when I positioned the wings, they were leaning back a bit more (more parallel to the body), and as I tightened my loose wraps, they popped up. Any way to minimize this?

Tag is definitely something I can work on. Any proportional rule of thumb? I just went 5 wraps because that's what the tutorial I was using suggested...but my tinsel was wider than what was used, so it makes sense it'd be a bit big.

I also notice now that my 2nd attempt has a bit of thread peeping out at the start of the bend, but its no problem to fix that.

Hows the floss work look? I thought it turned out pretty good, but not perfect.

Again, I'd like to thank everyone for the replies so far, and look forward to even more! Probably more than any other single source, the internet and the great people who critique my ties are most responsible for improvements I make.

[chris from canada]

Very nice flies!

The brook trout arround here would be all over those flies.

Take care,
chris

[mr. blur]

nice work. I'd go just a bit longer w/ the wing - so the up sweep starts above the bend.

[Daniel J]

Awesome first and second attempts. Dat Boy Got Talent!
You have inspired me to do some married wing wets this weekend.


For porportions on the tag usually start it above the barb and make it as long as half the distance from the barb to the hook point-whatever that distance is.

For teeny-tiny heads I think about the purpose for each wrap of thread when I get to the head and concentrate more on making sure the wraps are as firm as possible and placed exactly where I want them. (0n more functional flies I don't pay as much attention to the wraps, but with married wing wets it makes a difference)

BTW, patterns like that also deserve a cool old-timey box of some sort, dontchathink.