what am I doing wrong?

[hugefish_80]

I have been having quite a bit of luck lately on my local urban pond with the stocker trouts on my 4wt. So far the best results have come on a flo. pink soft hackle that we'll call the partridge and pink just to make things simple so that we can all picture the same general fly. My question is how do I get this fly to last for more than about 6-7 fish before it is completely destroyed? the first thing to go seems to be the thread wraps that make up the body of the fly. I end up fishing with a long misshapen ball of pink thread and the fish don't seem to like it as well.


Any advice? Do i just have to live with only catching a few fish on each fly?

[Eric-WD]

perhaps painting the body with sally hansons. although with the speed of tying soft hackles and the amount of fish your catching per fly it is tough to feel sorry for you.

Eric

[Kerry Stratton]

What a terrible problem to have? It has been awhile since I had to change flies because the fish tore it up. Sorry but no sympathy coming from me, only apathy.

[Panman]

Assuming you are tying your own fly and me not knowing exactly what you mean by "thread" on for the body I envision your problem could be you ain't wrapping the body tight enough or the thread is not made for the purpose you want it to do. You might be able to solve that by making sure your body is tightly wrapped, adding a tight rib or switching the body material.

Tim

[WarrenP]

You might try coating the hook shank with Sally Hanson before doing the thread body.....

[Betty Hiner]

Oh, yah. I agree that that is one terrible problem to have!

If you are using regular thread, try waxing it to add strength (bees wax, tyers wax). Or if you're using silk ... wax it with tyers wax or cobblers wax. Or try using uni stretch for the body. I think it's a bit more durable than regular thread, or floss. There's also the standard trick of counter wrapping a fine (thin) wire over the body.

[rainbowchaser]

How thick are you making the body? Wrapping from the eye towards the bend and back again to the hackle tie in should be sufficient and not leave a lot of thread to pull loose. If you want some taper tie in the hackle first and let the stem make a shoulder underneath. When you get back to the tie in point wrap the hackle for a turn or two and weave the thread through it before tying off

[Silver Creek]

Post a photo of the fly. Then we can tell you more.

Possible solutions are changing the thread body to another material such a wire body or a liquid lace body, for example. Another solution would be to use a thicker 3-0 thread coated with Sally Hansons as suggested above.

http://www.wapsifly.com/utcwire.html

http://www.uniqueflyfishing.com/inde...age=liquidlace

http://www.edgeangling.com/Uni-Threa...ahill-206.html