I've had great luck with flies from the book "Effective Lake Flies -- A float tubing guide to productive patterns" by Andreasen and Ryther. But they often call for 'spectrumized' dubbing, made of many different colors, and I never had the time or patience to make my own blends in the coffee grinder.

Our local fly shop just started carrying 'Canadian series mohair', already spectrumized and spun on thin yarn. I tied some mohair leeches with their 'Canada Blood' color -- a sort of maroon, made of tons of different colors of mohair.

This spectrumized idea works in my opinion, whether you make your own or buy it! In the last month, I've brought in big fish when my float tubing buddies got skunked....and they have years of experience on me. On three different high-altitude colorado lakes now! I'm NOT a great fisherman. It's got to be the fly. I'm guessing that the blend of colors makes the leech look 'slimy' underwater -- anyone else tried spectrumized colors or have an opinion?

Anyway, I just bought a new coffee grinder today for blending dubbing (I'm going to MAKE the time now for doing this!), and I'll keep buying the pre-spun spectrumized mohair too.

The fat 16 inch brown trout below has one of my spectrumized canada blood leeches in its mouth. He made my ancient Berkeley 530 reel scream when he hit it! Sorry for the gratuitous fish porn, couldn't resist bragging.

Just wondering how common spectrumized, blended colors are with FAOL tiers, if there's another name for it, and how many folks use the idea. I feel like a real fisherman after yesterday's trip when I took that pic -- my buddy got skunked after trying a dozen different flies and numerous techniques, and he's got 15 years experience on me and we fished the same spots at the same times. And I also pulled in another 15 inch brown plus a 14 inch cutthroat yesterday. It was Hohnholtz Lake #3, in N Colorado.

DAN

PS -- the fly is EASY to tie....*I* was able to do it!