There are times when torque is your friend - distributing deer/elk/pick-your-favorite-ungulate hair for wings/bodies, hackle fibers for tails/legs/beards, driving down the highway. When tying with foam, not so much; few things are more frustrating than watching the stuff spin around the hook, no matter how much thread you use (more just makes a bad situation worse), how hard you lean on the bobbin (you’ll either cut the foam or pop the thread), or how much glue you use after the fact (Super Glue isn’t much help if you’ve established a poor foundation).
Jay “Fishy” Fullum showed me (actually me and about 50 other folks at one of the Fly Shows) an easy way to anchor the foam (and save the spinning for deer hair) that adds maybe 5 seconds to the tying process; I can live with that.
cover the part of the shank where the foam’s going with thread (bare shank bad)
taper foam strip to allow for neater tie-in
tie foam down at hook bend
pull foam up and brush a little Super Glue on shank
with foam still pulled back, advanced thread forward a bit
now take a wrap over the foam onto the shank
repeat 2 previous steps as far up the shank as needed
then return to bend, covering the foam with thread wraps and you’re in business
It really helps to repeat this process when you’re tying the business end off, as well.
Regards,
Scott