A post made by Shaneroyce early this month peaked my interest.
Seems he had the dubbing come off of a fly, leaving only THREAD behind, and he caught lots of fish. His ‘question’ was whether anyone tied flies without dubbing, obviously meaning using only thread, NOT some other form of ‘body’.
One of the responses (from someone that actually read his post and didn’t just point out alternative body materials) noted that it’s normally the hackle/tail that ‘floats’ a dry fly.
I wondered ‘why’ we now used something other than thread EVER to tie dry fly bodies. Thread comes in loads of colors, you can treat it so that it doesn’t absorb water, wrap it into any ‘shape’ you desire, and basically eliminate a whole ‘step’ in the tying process.
Built up thread obviously ‘weighs’ more than dubbing, but not that much more and it won’t hold ‘slime’ as well. Thread won’t have the ‘air pockets’ that dubbing does, but how important is that to fly performance with the advent of really ‘permanent’ waterproofing solutions?
I decided to try this.
I wanted a fly ‘style’ that was quick to tie, floated well, didn’t require ANY body material other than thread, and was versatile enough to imitate a wide variety of insects.
For the ‘thread’ I wanted something that was not ‘waxed’, so that I could waterproof it BEFORE I tied the fly with it (waxed thread by definition won’t absorb things well). I had rod wrapping thread made from nylon (bouyant) in s3veral sizes and bought some polyester thread (also bouyant) and ended up with a credible range of colors. Soaked the whole spools in waterproofer.
I’m not a ‘natural material’ only guy, so I decided that poly yarn made a good choice for the tail/wings of my fly. Comes in wide array of colors. Bouyant. Cheap. Easy to use. Deer hair, carabou, elk would also work if you really wanted a ‘natural’ material here, and I tried it on a several of the flies. No reason that hackle fibers for the tails and hackle tips wouldn’t work for the wings if you like them, but I don’t use those for any of the flies I tie now.
You can lay a length of poly yarn on the hook with the proper lenght tail hanging behind the bend and then use the portion hanging over the eye for the wing(s), either as a parachute post style, divided, or ‘caddis’ style wings. Had to use two bunches of the natural hair, still pretty simple to do.
The thread only bodies look great. With a couple of colors, one in the bobbin and one as a rib, you can get some really accurate looking bodies without all that unnatural ‘fuzziness’ that adult mayflies/caddisflies/stoneflies don’t realy have.
High quality dry fly hackle completes the tying maerials of the fly, and I then dunked the finished product in waterproofer one more time and allowed them to dry.
So far, the parachutes, the more traditional collar hackle styles, and the ‘caddis’ styles, all tied with basically the same ‘ingredients’, are still ‘floating’ after 10 days in the ‘tank’ (not a really ‘true’ to use test, but I do tap each one under every time I pass by, and they all pop right back up so far).
My theory is that the synthetic ‘wing/tail’ and the waterproofed hackle will shed water easily on a backcast, the treated thread won’t hold any water, and the whole fly should shed fish slime with just a swish or two in the water.
In any event, I’m impressed with the ease of the procedure, it’s versatility, and the ‘look’ of the flies. I’ve tied a version of many ‘traditional’ dry fly from Adams to Wulffes in both parachutes and collared hackle styles, and palmered hackled caddisflies similar to the Troth style.
I won’t get a chance to put them before fish until the summer, but I can’t see any obvious reason why they won’t be effective.
This is so easy and simple that I’m getting the feeling that I’ve missed something really obvious here.
I’d appreciate anyone that has already tried this and/or CAN see what I cannot commenting on the idea (probably not a new one, I’m sure).
Thanks.
Buddy
