three material-related questions

[AlbaSurf]

This is just in the interest of getting to know people a little better.
I want to know what is your favorite material to tie with? What material do you wish you had more experience using? And what is your least favorite? AND, have you found something to substitute for certain materials that you don't enjoy tying with?

My favorite material is probably feathers, since there are so many types, colors, etc. Or rabbit zonkers because their actions is superb.

I wish I had more experience in using brightly colored feathers for wet flies, like to make married wings but I haven't been able to find and good feathers for that sort of thing. So, anyone knows where I can get relatively cheap bright matched feather sets please let me know! I am not picky about type of feather, I just want different colors.

I don't like using mylar, because I am not any good at it, and substitute wrapping tinsel all along the shank of the hook.
I also get really irritated with rubber legs. But I haven't found any good substitute for those yet.

Your turn!

Karli-Rae

[Ron Eagle Elk]

Karli-Rae

As far as multicolored matched feather sets, John McLain has some of the best dyed goose shoulders I have seen. They marry well with most other feathers like pheasant and turkey and the cost won't break the bank. Check out http://www.feathersmc.com/products/D...ose%20Shoulder . For a peek into Atlantic Salmon Fly dressing take a wander around the rest of John's site.

I love working with various soft hackle materials, from the silk thread and fine dubbing materials to all the various feathers for the hackle. What intigues me just as much is the history behind these flies.

I hate spinning and stacking deer hair like for bass bugs and Goddard Caddis flies. I can do it, I just hate doing it. It's a good thing my wife really likes it because there really isn't a substitute for spun or stacked deer hair.

Where we are in our tying life, there isn't too much we really need, or even want at this point. We could supply a couple of small fly shops and still have enough left to tie for the rest of our lives. Now it's just replacing those things that we run out of like thread and maybe tinsel.

REE

[mickalo]

I'd have to say my favorite materials are the natural materials fur and pelts, possum, muskrat, woodchuck, etc. making my own dubbing from them. We don't have any trout streams in my neck of the woods so I mainly fish for panfish. Also working with soft hackle or "Flymphs"

I have been trying to get better at tying streamer bodies so they have a more uniform body instead of the "bumby, lumpy" bodies

probably my pet-pives are working with rubber legs too, what a real pain they can be but ya just can't beat the action for panfish flies.

Mike

[Cold]

I love floss bodies. I love the precision, and the attention to detail required to do a well-made floss body, and I love the look of a successfully tied floss body, where you can't even see the wraps and it looks almost like a solid colored tube of material as opposed to wraps. On the less-precise end of the spectrum, I love cross-cut zonker. It looks great wet and dry, catches fish, and is usually a joy to tie with. Any time I see a color I don't have I try to pick it up. I've been expanding my collection lately from solid colors to include tip-dyed as well.

I guess it'd also be worth mentioning that I'm an unashamed hook slut. I have a very hard time passing up any old, unique, obscure, or foreign irons, as well as any hook for salmon/steelhead streamer tying. I really probably have enough hooks to last me about 5 years, but I have no intention of passing up a sweet deal on some salmon fly hooks.

I wish I had more experience marrying feather fibers for slip wings. I can do it, but there's a difference between being able to do it, and being able to do it like it's second nature. Its just enough of a pain that I usually rationalize my way to a single colored slip-wing, and thus, don't improve much on the married fiber wings.

Alba, like you, I hate mylar tubing. (I'm assuming you're talking about tubing, because you also mentioned using lots of tinsel...which is usually mylar these days.) To get around it, I use diamond braid, dubbing, or nothing at all. About the only time I still use it is for big warmwater flies that I want to tie a glass rattle into. I also hate spinning/stacking deer hair, and to get around that, many many foam beasts die in the name of fly tying material.

[JohnScott]

... and I only fish simple flies.

While this has been a rather different year from years past when I tied and fished a number of different patterns, it may be the precedent for the coming years.

So my favorite tying materials are thread for thread midges; non lead weight, chenile and rubber legs for all manner of stonefly nymphs; and antron, foam, deer hair and rubber legs for skwala adults, salmonfly adults, golden stone adults, hoppers, and October caddis. Those s.e.d.g.e. ( simple, effective, durable, good enough ) flies got me through this year just fine.

Throw in some pine squirrel zonker for the occasional day fishing sculpin / baitfish streamers and I'm good to go.

Spinning deer hair would be my least favorite exercise, and one that I have avoided and will continue to avoid, period.

John

P.S. I do have quite an inventory of materials required to tie flies for a wide range of hatches through the Rocky Mountain States. On occasion, I will do a match the hatch thing, at which point I really like CDL and CDC as the basis for mayfly and caddis emerger and adult patterns.

[rainbowchaser]

My favorite material to fish with is peacock herl so it moves to the top of the tying list. I have to agree about the mylar tinsel. It's all right if I've been doing it a bit but the first few flies always look they were tied by a drunk with Parkinsons. Getting a very smooth base is the key. There is no such thing as good enough!

[Wes]

no favorite material or one i wish i had more experience with. i take em as they come and use material to suit the fly i'm tying or the fly i envision. i like the challenge of making each material work but not to the complicated and intricate detail of say a full dressed salmon fly. i tie flys for fishing and usually reasonably straight forward and simple flies and tend to find ways to make the tying procedure less strenuous.

[dudley]

Kinda strange I know, but my favorite material to tie with is trash. Things destined for the garbage.
Flotsam, roadkill, packing material, used Christmas wrappings, colorful potato chip bags. Pretty much any litter I pick up that looks interesting.

Of course that makes my least favorite materials the pricey ones.

[Bluegill222]

Karli-Rae

Interesting set of questions in that, for me at least, the answers are constantly changing, but let me give you the answers as of this moment.

Favorite material: Pine squirrel. I've been playing with this stuff all summer and have fallen in love with it in strips, as tailing material, dubbing, you name it.

I wish I had more experience with quill and slip wings. Never have been able to get the things to work right. I keep saying I'm going to sit down one winter and not do anything else until I get them right, but it never seems to happen.

I'm not sure I've run into a material I just plain hate, but my biggest frustration would be managing my somewhat enormous collection of synthetic streamer hair in the small space I have to work with. The problem is that there are so many kinds in so many colors it brings out the magpie in me and I can't keep myself from picking up whatever's new and shiny

[quivira kid]

Tim, your post made me literally laugh out loud! The magpie analogy is so dead on...

My favorite material to use is duck flank. Right now, my favorite is gadwall! I think it's like a black and white version of wood duck...
What I'd like to be able to tie better is quill wing wets. I've got the basics down and can make a fishable fly, but they aren't incredibly pleasing to look at.
Probably my least favorite thing to tie with is the combination of rubber legs and foam. I have an idea of what my bugs should look like, and it seems like foam/rubber never come together and look "just right" for me!