And last, these are some simple glue stick eggs with arctic fox veiling the egg. The Nor-Vise makes this job MUCH easier. Start with chunks of glue stick cut from the stick and ready at hand. Heat the hook shank with a heat gun and stick the glue chunk to it when it is hot enough. Keep the glue well back from the eye. Michael's (or other craft store) sells glue sticks in various colors with glitter and that is what I used for most of this. As the ball formed up I added chips of color and tried to not overheat the glue so it would stay in place.. The core and most of the eggs are red and there is quite a bit of white pearlescent to keep the eggs from lookng too dark.
If it starts to be a problem drop the hook with bead in cold water to set it up. The biggest challenge is getting the egg to get round and keep the colors in splotches. Sometimes I have to resort to using a notched tool to shove the egg back away from the eye.
All of them have most of the same colors, but look very different from every angle. I wrapped the Sulkie Blue Prismatic thread on the hook shanks here also. The small bunch of arctic fox fur is wrapped thinly around the shank. It does not need to extend beyond the bend at all.
And I just realized the picture I really wnated to show did not get uploaded... will take me a minute to get it going.
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I am moving this over from page 2 to reduce the expanded pages...
Bringing up the rear is the official fly of the Alaska Fly Fishers... and still a very good pattern for a lot of different uses. I tie them in sizes from 10 to 5/0.
It is just a bit of red hackle fiber for a tail, a cream or white floss body with silver rib, a sparse polar bear wing with an optional jungle cock nail for eyes. I will often add a little arctic fox on top of the wing to add motion. On small alevin-sized versions a little red at the throat works better.
If polar bear is too hard to find white bucktail, calftail, or better, white "Poly Bear" works fine.
Several different versions:
Some I tied today:
I hope the wide screen is not too annoying... it should allow you to see the flies better, no?
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