Daddies

All about flies Fly Tying
1

Daddies have produced a lot of big fish for me, on rivers and still waters, and I often use them now. I have produced a few patterns which may be of interest

The above is a medium sized crane fly. ( from the Tipulidae). Also commonly known as ?Daddy Long Legs? , ?Harry Long Legs? and various other names. Although mainly terrestrial, these often fall on water, and may be taken eagerly by the fish. There are some aquatic versions it seems, but they are little known. The larvae are known as ?leatherjackets?, and are usually found in damp earth. The adults either sip nectar, or don?t feed at all. There is a large variety of these insects extant, in various sizes and colours. Often the target of ?realistic? fly-dressers.

A large sparsely hackled fly in the appropriate colour usually works well. When viewed from below, or the side, and especially when back-lit, segmentation and various colour patterns may be clearly seen on the body. Often regular yellow blotches and similar. But this varies massively. Flies dressed with definite segmentation and markings do seem to work better. The females have thicker abdomens than the males, ( eggs inside) and also a pointed ovipositor which looks like a stinger, but the flies are completely harmless. When drowned, or caught in the surface film, the legs usually trail backwards. Various ?hoppers? and similar fly patterns can be very successful indeed. These flies may fall on to water in very large numbers, and can cause a general rise. The body of the fly in the picture is exactly 2cm from head to tail. The wingspan is 3cm. Of interest are the ?halteres? ?balancers? or ?poisers? visible below the wings. These look like antennae with knobs.

QUOTE Halteres are homologous to, and evolved from, insect wings. The ancestral insect species had two pairs of wings (like most flying insect species today). In the Strepsiptera the forewings changed into halteres, while in the Diptera (flies, mosquitoes and gnats) the hindwings evolved into halteres. Halteres operate as vibrating structure gyroscopes: the vibrating halteres tend to maintain their plane of vibration, and if the body of the insect turns or changes direction in flight, a bending strain develops which the animal detects with sensory organs known as campaniform sensilla located at the base of the halteres. Halteres thus act as a balancing and guidance system, helping flies to perform their fast aerial acrobatics. They play an important role in stabilising the gaze of these insects during flight and also provide rapid feedback to wing-steering muscles to stabilise aerodynamic force moments. They are the equivalent of an aircraft’s attitude indicator UNQUOTE ( Wikipedia)…


The above are side and bottom views of the same insect shown above. Taken at slightly different angles and using separate light sources. Yellow and light orange bodied artificials are often very successful, dark brown bodies less so, and this illustrates why. Before attempting to imitate such insects, one should always try and look at them from various angles, and also against the light. This also applies to duns and other insects. Orange, amber, and yellow hoppers of dubbed fur with black ribbing are often successful, as are bodies of yellow or orange vernille, sometimes even white, green, or light grey, with black LONGITUDINAL stripes, as in the natural. These can be easily applied with a fine pointed marker.This can make a big difference in terms of fish caught

This is now one of my stand by patterns for various waters in summer. On some rivers, such flies will also cause large fish to rise, which often ignore anything else. The original reason for my discovering the colour factor was a bit silly really. I went to a still water with a friend, and when I got there I realised I had the wrong fly-boxes in my jacket. The odd thing was, he had one of my dark daddy flies in his box. He was using this, and getting one or two swirls, and the occasional fish, while I could do nothing at all with the beetle I was using because I really had nothing much else suitable. All I had was a box of river mayflies, and a few nymphs and beetles. There were quite a few various terrestrials on the water, but the fish were only taking the daddies. It was quite windy, and a steady stream of them was landing on the water where we were fishing, from the woods and fields behind us.

Finally, more or less in desperation, I tore the wings off a bright yellow extended body mayfly with a red game collar hackle, because it was the only fly I had in the right size, trimmed the hackle below the hook,and not holding out much hope, I gave it a try. I started getting a fish a chuck!

After having some fun for a while, I gave the fly to my mate, which proceeded to do the business for him as well, also at more or less a fish a chuck, and I wandered off with my bug net attached to the butt of my rod to catch a few flies, and try to discover why the fish were so mad for a yellow fly when all the daddies I could see looked dark brown!

I caught quite a few in various sizes, and proceeded to inspect them. Viewed from above they all looked a more or less uniform dark brown or dark greyish colour. But lo and behold, when I held them up to the light, they all without a single exception had light coloured bodies, mostly yellow, but some more of a cream colour.

Now I must be honest here, and admit that I never knew this before! I had simply committed the cardinal sin of accepting what the various pattern books had to say. They all said the daddies had light to dark brown bodies! Many patterns use pheasant tail and similar stuff for the bodies.

Up to now, I have caught several hundred of them, in a range of sizes, ( I don?t know the exact species, there are loads of them) even the ones that were flying around my house ( No idea how the buggers get in! ), and I have not found a single one with a light or dark brown underbody. They are ALL light coloured, with a predominance of yellow, often a very bright yellow, and all have stripes!

That evening I dressed a few using the yellow vernille as an extended body with stripes from a dark brown marker, and a few using white vernille, also with stripes. Both myself and a couple of others have now tried these on a fair number of occasions, and we could do no wrong!

I have viewed and photographed a huge number of these things in the meantime, and I still can?t believe I could be stupid enough to take something like the colour of a fly on faith! Indeed, it was only after this incident that I realised I had never actually looked really closely at these insects before! The problem here is that these insects are “very well known”, ask anybody what colour they are, and they will tell you they are light to dark brown. So it would also appear, unless you take the trouble to look at the sides and bottom! But it is simply not the case!

Indeed, this has also taught me something else, which is related, but the reason only became apparent after I discovered all this. One of my “tricks”, which works very very often in summer and at the back end, when I can?t get a fish with some other tactics, I have used a large yellow mayfly, and got good fish. I am now convinced that this is because the fish take it for a daddy!

Not only that, it also explains why a pattern a very old friend of mine used with very considerable success, even when the flies it purports to imitate were not in evidence, or had been for quite some time, or were hardly very plentiful either! Indeed, I have caught fish on this pattern on streams where there are no mayflies! This will explain that;

Frank?s Mayfly

The two flies shown above are ?Frank?s Specials?, which he used when Mayflies ( E.Danica etc) were hatching. They will also work as drowned dun imitations. The unusual thing about these patterns, is that they also work when nothing at all is hatching! I have had these flies now for nearly forty years. Of course I dress and use copies of them.

The first one is dressed as follows;
Hook: Size 12 long shank
Tail: Cock pheasant centre tail fibres 6 to 8.
Body: Pale cream wool
Rib: Gold wire.
Hackle 1 : Pale ginger furnace cock ( often now referred to as ?Greenwell?)
Hackle 2: Mallard breast feather dyed yellow with picric acid.

The second is dressed on a shorter shank hook.
Tail: Cock Pheasant centre tail fibres 6 to 8
Body: Primrose floss silk
Rib: Gold wire
Body hackle: Red game cock
Front hackle: Mallard breast feather dyed yellow in picric acid.
Head: peacock herl.

2

They are very good imitations of daddies! Even to the long trailing tails, which look like trailing daddy legs! These apparently unrelated items have suddenly gelled.

The yellow vernille daddies I have made up have been extremely successful on the local rivers as well. Now I am not saying this is a universal thing. There may well be some daddies with dark brown bodies, but of all the species I have examined there has not yet been a single one. I would be most interested in hearing from people in other localities about this, because I suspect it is indeed universal, and people are dressing these flies the wrong colour! All the pattern books I have checked specify light to dark brown, which is an absolutely lousy imitation!

Anyway, make of it what you will. It is too late for you to check it out this season, but bear it in mind for next!

It also actually confirms something that happened a long time ago now, but I never gave it much thought. A fly-dressing firm brought out some yellow plastic extended bodies, and quite a number of people used these for dressing daddies. The patterns were largely sniffed at by the cognoscenti as being far too light in colour, and the wrong colour as well. But the point is, the flies caught a lot of fish, and nobody could explain why! I am convinced that this explains it!

It would not surprise me at all to discover that quite a few of the Irish straddlebugs and similar stuff are also taken for daddies!

By the way, this is the first time I have mentioned this anywhere, and I don?t usually publish anything unless it has actually worked for quite a while and consistently, but these flies passed the hundred fish mark easily in the first week, and the other reasoning all fits with the available facts.

( No longer true, this is in fact an old article of mine, first published quite some time ago).

TL
MC

3

I am obliged to digress somewhat before describing the daddy pattern, in order to first explain how the extended bodies are made.

These flies generated quite a lot of interest at a couple of demos I did. They are very easy and quick to make, extremely robust, and good fish takers. Some of you may find them useful.

The stuff used here is “Polychenille”, also known as vernille, or ultra-chenille, suede chenille, and a few other names. In smaller sizes it will retain the bend one gives it to some extent. For curved bodies etc. It is soft and flexible, so does not prevent hook-ups, but it is also very very tough, especially if treated as described below.

I use mainly white vernille ( Actual name is “Samtfaden”, which translates to “Velvet thread”), which I found in a craft shop, and one may colour it with Pantone pens. But it comes in a range of colours. I got a couple of hanks which were fifteen meters long for a dollar apiece. In short pieces, one can “bend” it to a certain curve. Some of the colours can be used “out of the box”, like brown, olive, etc, mostly I colour the white stuff.

It is not very water absorbent. So it does not easily get wet, but one may also pre-treat it with things like “water-shed” etc. to make it float for a very long time!

The flies I dress with it work perfectly. I am not really a big fan of extended bodies on a lot of small flies though, so I do not dress many, I really only use it a lot for mayflies ( British usage E.danica), and crane flies.

The “wrapped” bodies of dubbing and glue were never any good as far as I could determine, usually disintegrating rapidly. I have used “Copydex” for this instead, but it is a mess on. The suede chenille is easy and quick to use, and makes robust bodies with very little preparation, need of tools etc.

For the majority of things, ( and unless there is no alternative), I invariably prefer the simplest and most robust solution I can find.

This stuff is NOT AT ALL LIKE ORDINARY CHENILLE as used on woolly buggers etc.

The stuff I have is 2mm, but suede chenille is also available down to 1mm, you can find some here;

http://www.lakelandflytying.com/1657/products/Extra_fine_Vernille_Suede_Chenille.aspx

( There are quite a few suppliers who stock the material, I chose this one merely as an example. One may also find the material in handcraft stores where it is offered for use with various things, and also as decorative cord).

There are also a couple of tricks I discovered when playing with this material, which may be of interest.

If one holds a lighter flame below a length of the material, it softens, and takes on a double taper automatically.

One may then fix this length in the vice, and tie in tails etc. if required. When done, just cut it behind where you tied the tail in.

This gives a a very natural looking body. one may also use ribbing etc etc to add realism, segmentation etc. And of course one may use a pantone pen to colour light coloured material.

With a fine pen, one may also add spots, ribs etc. This is good for mayflies.

Here is a scan of some material, ( I didn?t bother with tails or colouring here), in order to show you;

I just did this quickly and roughly, in order to show somebody how to do it. If you don?t want any traces of “burning” or discolouration on the stuff, hold the lighter further away from it! You can also affect what occurs by tapering the warm stuff with your fingers. This also seals the body. This is very quick and easy, and makes robust and realistic flies. You can make a few dozen bodies with tails and all in a very short time.

This is really great stuff for crane fly bodies etc.

Here is a scan of the piece from the previous scan tied in as a fly body ( merely quick and rough to give you an idea. I am engaged in something else right now, and did not want to clutter my working area up with other stuff).

You MUST !!! use a butane gas lighter by the way. Other flame sources will discolour the stuff badly. To bend, form and otherwise compress it, you can use a heat controlled soldering iron or similar, ( a cautery will also work).

One can also use the stuff for other things of course, like thorax covers etc.


If you look at the single piece of red material above, you will see it has a longer “Stub” at the tail end. This stub is quite hard, as a result of being melted, and may also be easily gripped in the vice. I have done this here, tied some tails in, snipped the butt off, and scanned the result. Of course normally I would have coloured the thread ( or used the right colour to start with!), and varnished it, after tying the fibres in, but I used a different colour here so you can see details. The fibres are cock pheasant ( ring-neck) centre tail, but of course one may use moose mane, hare?s whiskers, fibbets, etc etc etc.

I have also purposely left a couple of “open” wraps and used a light coloured thread, so you can see that one can in fact tie on this stub quite easily. Normally of course one would use close tight wraps. Also I have not snipped off the butts of the tails too closely.

The rest of the material stub is of course snipped off after the tails are tied in. This is once again the same piece of material from the first scan;

Cont’d ->

4

Just to make that perfectly clear, the stub is held in the vice as shown in the photo above.Here is a close up:

Here is a “quick and dirty” mayfly, ( The term Mayfly in this case means the large British mayfly such as E-Danica), using the yellow stuff, and a black thread rib;

This fly takes less than a minute to dress, is a good hooker, and robust.

Of course one can dress a range of sizes using the same stuff. Just cut it shorter and taper it more with the lighter. One may also use the same coloured thread as the body of course, and just tie the rib in with the tails. Here I have just left a piece of black thread hanging after whip finishing the tail wraps. The thorax on this fly is a pinch of light hare body fur, and the hackle is a red game hackle. The hook is a size 12 Mustad. 3904a sproat.

I have had plenty of good fish on these flies, often half a dozen fish or more on the same fly, and none of them were destroyed. I have had this stuff ( the vernille ) for about twenty years, and have dressed quite a few flies with it, but mostly mayflies and crane flies.

Here a scan of the same fly, ( easier than using the camera one handed!);


Here are nine bodies I just made from the yellow vernille, it took one minute and twenty seconds. Just hold the lighter under the end and turn the material so that it tapers evenly, ( this happens automatically). Cut the body you have made off, and do the same again. As you can see, I melted some more than others. “melting” is also too strong a word really, the material “shrinks”, although it will melt and also burn if you get it hot enough, as it is basically special nylon monofilament which has been treated to raise a “nap” from the basic fibre. This is also what makes it so strong, the core and the “nap” are all the same piece of material:

One may use this stuff for a whole host of first class flies, extended bodies, posts, hopper bodies, etc etc.

Cont’d

5

This is a much smaller emerger, tied on a 14 hook, with the same yellow vernille body, hare thorax, and hare hackle.;


As I wrote though, one can basically tie them in any size, and although I don?t have any of the 1mm vernille I have no doubt that would work as well, allowing one to go a lot smaller.

Here is a size 16 olive, using the dark olive vernille, and an olive grizzly hackle;

Here is a “set” showing size differences etc, ( but all dressed with the same original 2mm material);


( The thorax and hackle on most is merely mixed hare body fur).

Not too long ago, while looking around for some material, I found a couple of other people who were also experimenting with this stuff;

http://www.flyfishersrepublic.com/tying/palomino-body/

http://www.thetroutbum.com/polychenille/haletrader.html

http://www.thetroutbum.com/polychenille/index.html

http://www.thetroutbum.com/polychenille/vulgata_emerger.html

http://www.flycraftangling.com/flies_arc.html?a=20

Hope you enjoy trying some of them!

TL
MC

6

So having explained the material used, and some techniques for using it, here is the daddy pattern;

Hook is a standard #12. I use heavier wire hooks for these flies, as one tends to get larger fish on them. The body is the white vernille, tapered with a lighter as described, and then coloured with a tan, yellow and black marker. The colouring should reflect the flies on your water. If you really want to be precise, then carry a few white ones and some markers, and colour them to suit the flies you see. Very many of these flies are a light tan in colour, but this does vary considerably. I have seen various shades of brown and yellow, up to almost black. I generally still use the pattern shown, the exact colour is not usually critical as long as the underside is a pale colour. A simple yellow body often works perfectly well.

The “wings” are a bunch of hare body fur tied in pointing over the hook eye, and then split. The thorax is light hare body fur. The legs are cock pheasant centre tail fibre. I don’t knot them as many people do, I just crimp them a little over my thumbnail. Knotting them can be a trial, even with a knotting tool! It also makes them break more easily, and does not make a blind bit of difference to the fish anyway!

The tying sequence is quite straightforward. Tie in the body, ( I make these up beforehand and colour them etc). Tie in four or five fibres of pheasant tail at each side, after crimping them on your thumbnail, just to give them a bit of a bend. Trim the butts.

Tie in a good bunch of hare body fur with the tips pointing over the hook eye, after selecting it, cutting the bunch off close to the skin, and removing the underfur ( just hold the tip of the bunch in your left hand, and pull out the loose fur with your right thumb and forefinger). Tie in firmly, and trim the butts.

Use the underfur you just pulled out to dub about an inch of the thread tightly. Wind this in over the butts up to the tie in point of the hare fur wings. Now split the hare bunch with the thread, hold the wings back with left thumb and forefinger. Whip finish.

These flies are extremely robust, and very good fish catchers. They are also very cheap to make, no expensive hackles required!

Tight lines! ~ Mike Connor

7

Mike

Great idea. Are venille and polychenille the same stuff? Poly has a specific gravity less than water so it floats. People make San Juan worms out of vernille which sinks. Do you use any special floatant?

8

According to my information, that is all the same stuff, just with different names. Polychenille, suede-chenille, micro-chenille, Ultra-chenille, Velvet-Chenille, Vernille, Samt-Faden, etc, are all the same stuff, and are made by a special process which raises a nap from a nylon monofilament.

The stuff will sink eventually if it gets thoroughly wet, but the fine nap tends to keep it floating on the film for quite a while. The nap is like hundreds of tiny hairs which give the stuff a high surface/support area and support it on the film. If you treat it with watershed, https://steelheadbum.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=2522&IDCategory=396 it will float more or less forever.

It is not however buoyant, and will not float up again if it is sunk. It has to be dried, ( couple of false casts) and then it floats again.

The only really common synthetic fibre with a lesser specific gravity than water and also intrinsically waterproof is polypropylene, with an SG of ~ 0.9 ( which makes it positively buoyant) all others either have a higher specific gravity, ( Nylon has ~ 1.01 to 1.05 depending on type), or can absorb water.

Polymer types do vary though, and their properties differ widely. For general info on polymer properties;

http://www.plasticsusa.com/specgrav2.html

Using Watershed on Nylon waterproofs it. But the Nylon needs to soak in it for a little while, and the Watershed will then penetrate it.

To waterproof the Vernille body flies, I just dip the flies in the Watershed and let them dry overnight at least. I have never had a problem keeping them floating.

Untreated Nylon left in water will soak up water, and this also weakens the nylon ( Wet breaking strain is less than dry breaking strain), This can get quite complex and confusing, especially with all the various trade names for various things.

Miscellaneous info;

http://singlebarbed.com/2008/10/17/stalking-the-elusive-ultra-chenille-its-vernille-in-the-wild/

http://www.epinions.com/review/Ultra_Chenille_Dry_Fly/content_339882577540

http://www.flyfishusa.com/fly-tying/chenille.htm

TL
MC

9

Sorry about all the extra info, which might seem confusing. As long as you get the right stuff and treat it correctly it works perfectly.

As some may have gathered, I am something of a material fetishist! :slight_smile: But mainly because I want my flies to look and behave as perfectly as possible. As a result, I often do a lot of research into various materials so I know exactly how to use them, and what properties they may have.

Once a pattern is finished and optimised, or various material properties are known, this basic research is no longer necessary in order to actually dress the flies.

There are many problems facing modern fly-dressers which simply did not exist at one time, the massive range of materials now available can be extremely confusing, and this is without taking “non-standard” materials into account. When I started dressing, fifty years ago now, I had a few reels of silk, and a few wild bird feathers. ( I have a bit more now! :slight_smile: )

This is why I also try to explain why I use certain materials on certain flies, or in certain ways. Usually I also try to give sources for unusual materials, and various names as well, if that applies.

Unfortunately, if you get the wrong material, either fur, feather, synthetics, or whatever, many flies wont work, or not very well, so you really NEED to know what that material is. If you want to develop or design flies, you also need to know the material properties.

There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of artificial flies now extant, and with quite a few it is difficult to get them right, because various techniques, and material names are not known. One tends to suspect that some people dress flies with some materials in order to corner the market on either the flies or materials themselves, or in some cases even the techniques used.

Personally, I feel that good flies, materials, and techniques, ( or sources) should be shared with other anglers, but then I don’t sell anything either! :slight_smile:

So I usually try to explain as much as I can about my patterns and the materials and techniques used, why I use them, and how they behave, and usually some info on how to fish them as well. I want people to catch lots of nice fish with them, and the more they know about a fly, and how and why it works, the more likely they are to do so.

TL
MC