a Blue Winged Olive

[AlanB]

Am I seeing things or have you put an upward bend in the hook shank?

Cheers,
C.

[Byron haugh]

So observant!!!!!!!!!! These are "ultimate dry fly hooks" by Orvis. They DO have a slight upward bend. Only used that hook on the second PMD.

[herefishy]

Think I'm going to try that - ala Gary Borger's ideas about the thorax sitting up a little. We can't bend the butt up without using extended bodies but we can bend up the front. I like curved hooks for nymphs, and was tying a dry on one when Duh! I thought - you got to turn that hook over - kind of like a water wisp. Gotta try new stuff.

[kelkay]

Very nice and fishy, love them.

[Steven]

Looks like you're using natural dark deer hair for the wing on the BWO.

Why not use some dyed gray?

[Silver Creek]

Looks like you're using natural dark deer hair for the wing on the BWO.

Why not use some dyed gray?

It looks grey on my computer Steven. Maybe it's because the Pack lost.

[Steven]

You didn't want football interfering with your preparation for the season opener, anyway.

[Byron haugh]

The BWO's are tied with deer hair dyed dun color. The last fly is a PMD with natural hair color.
Byron

[Silver Creek]

There is a lesson in these flies about what narrows the hooking gap. These are small flies and traditional wisdom says to use an up eye hook, because a down eye hook will narrow the hooking gap. It does not.

If you look at the first flies tied with a down eye hook and the last tied with a straight eye hook, what narrows the hooking gap is the material tied on to the hook opposite of the hook point. The hooking gape does not change with the eye position.

Secondly, the hook is relatively short for the gap size, so I suspect these are 2XS 2XL hooks.

Nice flies Byron and a good choice of hooks.