Last night was the first chance that I’ve had to experiment with the Weenie Balls/Koosh Balls that I bought over a week ago. I tried some designs that are a little different than the now classic “Hairy Weenie.” I believe that the classic weenie design wastes this material’s best attribute which is a wonderful flexibility that becomes almost alive in the water. Instead of using the weenie spikes to wrap the body, I tried to leave the spikes free to work in the water as they descend in the water column. What I ended up with were several “flies” with between four and six worm-like appendages sticking out from the hook shank. The flies look like a glob of small worms threaded on a hook. Because of the soft nature of the weenie ball material, I believe that fish will hold the fly for a much longer period of time. Those spikes are really soft and pliable. We may actually have the equivalent of the plastic worm here when it comes to a life-like feel.
The bad news about the weenie ball spikes is that they are absolute h*ll to tie down securely on the hook shank. Even with several preliminary soft wraps, they torque almost completely around the shank. The spikes might as well be greased and the hook shank might as well be Teflon coated. It’s the fly tying equivalent of a greased pole climb. Anyway, I spent five bucks on these things and I’m not quitting . I’ll try my creations out in the next couple of days. 8T
How about actually hooking the stuff on the hook like you would with real bait, then adding a drop of super glue on the end? If that isn’t secure enough, maybe use some bait hooks? I like the Idea of using this material, although its expensive. please post more pictures of the flies you tie with it. Bass and trout will love it.
Right on, E.T.! I also had troubles with the “tying it to the hook” part. I tried a drop of some type of glue I had (probably Flexament), and the rubber started to deteriorate, so I didn’t try that again.
I haven’t tried to use it as “legs” yet, or using more than one on the hook. All I’ve tried so far is just threading a single “leg” on the hook, so about a 1/4" sticks out beyond the hook bend, and the rest of the hook shank between the eye and bend is covered smoothly. Its surprisingly durable material!!
I am looking forward to getting some of these balls when I can find them. My town is very small and this area is in the sticks so hard to find some things.
I’m really pleased to see that there is still interest in the Weenie Balls. I really believe that this material has great potential for non-traditional flies. It has great movement and flexibility coupled with a wonderful, life-like feel.
Duckster
Your comments demonstrate that great minds think alike. The first thing that I did when I started tying was to lay down a good thread base from the hook eye to the hook bend. This was the only body material that I used on the fly. I haven’t used glue because the spikes stay firmly attached to the hook shank once they’re tied down. I soft-wrap a pair of spikes at the hook bend using three thread wraps and then tighten, letting the spikes spin. You can’t prevent the spin anyway, so I let them roll. I then lift the front-pointing end of the spikes and lay in five or six wraps of thread right against the tie-in point to lock the spikes in just the way you do with the hair on an EHC. The problem isn’t keeping the spikes on the hook, it’s controlling where they end up. The spikes on the large weenie balls are about an inch long, so I tie them in with 3/4 of an inch facing backward and 1/4 of an inch of the fat end facing the eye.
Ken
I haven’t tried threading the spikes on the hook but I may try a combination of threading and tying thread on my next tying sessions. BTW, the balls are very cheap. Only a dollar at Dollar Tree and similar stores. You get close to half a million spikes on each ball. I agree that this stuff should drive the fish crazy. I might even think about adding a little scent like garlic.
FishinDave
I feel your pain. It is a real challenge to get the spikes on the hook. See my comments to Duckster. It can be done and I really think the leg/wing/appendage thing is the way to use this material.
Skip
The Weenie Balls can be found in most Dollar stores. I got mine at the Dollar Tree for one hundred pennies each. They had a great selection of colors. You can also squeeze the balls to relieve tension when your thread breaks, you knock over your hook hotel or your bodkin rolls off your table and sticks in your foot.
Let me experiment a little bit more before I consider photos. I am a bit photo challenged when it comes to posting pictures on FAOL. I’ve got a pretty good camera but I don’t really understand the whole process of uploading pictures.
Everyone:
We have a really good thing going with the Weenie Balls. If we can control the problem of torquing/rolling, we might even get some pretty decent looking flies. 8T
You all keep this up and I will have to go out and get some material to try for my self! Just a thought…what happens if you take the material and come up under the hook shank and bring the ends up on each side and tie one overhand knot in it on top of the hook shank? Will that help with holding it in place until you can tie it down with tying thread?
I’ve been messing around with this material for about a year now and find it to be somewhat fragile when trying to attach it to the hook. Thread cuts it very easily and as someone mentioned, super glue or similar products dissolve the rubber materal immediately. I’ve tried floss to tie it down, but it still cuts it. I’ve had some success with using a thin yarn but it doesn’t give me the look I’m after, especially for a San Juan worm. I now have some very small shrink wrap tubes that I will try this weekend. I figure that I can put a good layer of thread on the hook, place the rubber material on the top of the shank and slide the shrink wrap tube over the rubber material. Once I apply gentle heat, the shrink wrap should shrink enough to hold the rubber material in place. I can then add some thread to the outside of the shrink wrap to add some extra strength. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Thanks, but we have 2 dollar stored in Hemphill and neither has any. I got my daughter-in-law to pick up a couple yesterday in a town she works in and should be able to get me a few more today. However I am not so lucky as to the price, but not really bad.
The reason tying the material in place is so difficult, is because it is so COMPRESSIBLE. A hard material can be tied in place with very little difficulty at all, but this soft stuff compresses and then MOVES under your thread wraps!
Hm…I wonder if you put down a layer of small diameter antron chenille or regular-type chenille…maybe even marabou?..THEN tied
the Weenie to this? It’ll change the look a bit, but that isn’t necessarily bad. I’ll have to try that soon, been pretty busy fishing this week!
I have an idea that different people may be talking about different materials. The actual Kush balls are made of small diameter rubber similar to rubber leg material and it is pretty tough and fairly easy to tie in. The material I’m referring to is very soft and squishy and is about the same diameter as a piece of cooked spaghetti. Thread cuts it very easily and it can be a bit of a pain to tie in place.
DDRRedneck500,
Nope, I checked they’re just fine. Thanks for asking though:)
I had to finally try to tie some of this material after reading this…this is just a short quick trial but what I found was…
The stuff indeed is so compressible it just keeps turning…even if you get it in place with some wraps …if you apply more and tighter wraps it will move again…
I did not find cutting to be a problem…8/0 thread
I threaded some on a hook as a tail having coated the hook at the bend with Super Glue…it was Loctite Precision Super Glue …and had no trouble with dissolving…see the following photo…it is anchored solid and I can pull and stretch out the material at will…
I anticipate twisting on a body of Ice Dub…on a dubbing brush…haven’t decided yet if I want to get fancy with a head …or hackle.
I have thought after reading that thread on the Trout magnet or whatever it was called that some of this material tied/glued in as a double tail might duplicate it.
I just used a small hook I had lying on the table…not happy with the hook gape size
When I read this thread I had no idea what a weenie/koosh ball was. I did a Google & found the koosh ball. Interesting. I also found the Porcupine Ball which is susposed to be like a Koosh ball but glows in the dark. Here is a link:
Wow,
I go off to Yellowstone for 10 days and come back to see variants of the Hairy Weenie being tied.
As the “inventor” of the Hairy Weenie, I’m like a proud dad who’s watching his son graduate from college.
Long live the weenie.
Here’s a tip for tying them to the hook.
I lay down a base of thread.
Then I palmer some soft hackle from the hook eye back to the hook bend.
Take scissors and trim off the “hairs” from the top of the hook shank.
This creates a nice “bed” for the weenie to lay.
Now, lay the weenie on top of the hook shank and make a couple very loose wraps.
Lift the weenie and make a couple spirals toward the middle of the shank being careful to not create too much disturbance in the hackles below the shank.
lay the weenie back down and make a couple more loose wraps.
repeat for each weenie segment.
Hold the weenie while doing this to try to keep it as much in a straight line as possible.
The wraps do not need to be very tight to hold the weenie. In fact, some of my earliest weenies self destructed because the thread cut the soft weenie material when I wrapped it too tight. I guess the moral to this is it does not pay to have a tightly wrapped weenie. (couldn’t resist).
These things do catch fish.
If you’re going after bluegill, do not leave a very long tail to the weenie. They grab it and run without taking the full fly into their mouths. They will hold onto it very tight but they do not have the hook in their mouths. A shorter tail fixes that problem.
Bass and crappie don’t care, they just inhald the things.
I tried them on brook trout out in Yellowstone and got several hits but no serious takers. I was having so much fun with them on dry flies I didn’t stick with the hairy weenie more than 5 or 6 casts.
We really need to have a classification system for Koosh Balls so that we can clearly differentiate one from another. I have (2) Two-Tone Eye Puffer Balls which look to be about four and a half inches in diameter. I also have (2) Two-Tone Flashing Puffer Balls which are about three inches in diameter and flash multicolored lights when they are squeezed or otherwise abused. I have no Porcupine Balls. I believe that we need to clear up all this confusion by switching to Latin names. 8T
PS Weenie Balls was a term that was given to these toys (Koosh Balls) to designate them as the primary source of body material for the now classic fly, “The Hairy Weenie.”
BTW: I have now been forced to add the word “Koosh” to my spelling checker’s dictionary.
8T
Here’s what I’ve been using. Mainly because I found them in my son’s old toy bin. I do plan to experiment with different weenie balls in different colors. Right now, I have the orange in these pictures and I have a bright green.
