Bullet Heads
Most of the instructions I've seen for bullet-head flies start with the body and work towards the front. I've always had problems attaching the hair for the head and getting it to spin properly with the stub ends of the body and wing getting in the way, so I decided to reverse the process and tie the hair for head in first, letting it protrude out over the front of the fly while I tie in the rest:
a little thread to get things started (UTC 140 works great)
a good hunk of hair (I like elk for the head but deer's fine, too) about shank length; you really want to use more hair than you think you need, which is somewhat counter-intuitive
trim the butts, a couple soft loops and then pull firmly, letting the hair spin around the shank
like so
trim the butts (optional, but makes for a neater fly)
The hair doesn't get in my way and I find it provides a nice base to attach the body and wing.
a drop of Crazy Glue helps secure everything here
add underwing (landscape fabric)
add overwing
push the head hair back over the fly; a finger works fine (guess those bullet-head tools would, too). Cinch it all down with a few firm wraps, add legs, a little Sally Hansen, trim out the bottom and Bob's your uncle
They're a little putzy at first (mostly proportions, amounts and thread tension), but not hard and I got the hang of it after a few flies. Cool thing about the extended foam bodies is they're simple, you can make a bunch up ahead of time, bag them up and use as needed.
Regards,
Scott
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