Many years back I tied a hellgramite pattern that used biots for its legs. I lost the last fly, recipe and tying instructions. Did anyone ever hear of this tye.
Fishngene, the flyfisher formerly known as Mr Falling Springs created a simple hellgrammite with biots for the tail & antennae. Best I can recall: tied with the hook inverted, tie in a thin strip of swiss straw for the back, (& a short piece of fine gold wire to overwrap ) & the tail biots. Dub the thread with dubbing & wind to just behind the hook eye so a couple sparse turns of pheasant form more legs & then tie in the swiss straw. Overwrap with the wire & tie in the antenna biots. Fold the swiss straw back to form the head. Hook can be weighted with some lead wraps before tying. Can also use hackle for more legs. Caught plenty of smallies & trout. Anymore biots just complicated the tying, but over the years I’ve seen a few of the more realistic versions with lots of biot legs; which seemed to be sticking out of swannadaze wraps.
The one with the biot legs and wrapped with swannandaz is the fly. I was going to use glass beads but I think it’ll make it too hard.
Sounds very interesting. Anyone have a pic?
Thought there was a picture in The Art of the Trout Fly, but the closest was Blackstones’ stonefly nymph. Try http://www.flytyingforum.com/ in warmwater &/or realistics for the more complicated ties.
http://ffotw.com/?p=240 theres a great patern on here i use at times… look near the bottom
something like this?
I use biots on my hellgramites. This is what I have been using.
Hook: 6x long, size 2 to 10
Thread: Olive 8/0
Dubbing: Dk. Olive, Dk. Brown, Black. 90% natural 10% syn. blend
Wingcase (overbody): Tyvek, colored with waterproof markers
Legs, Tail, Pinchers: Dk. Olive biots
Underbody: Lead, 2 pcs. tied flat on hook shank
Eyes: 2 small beads. Held by mono
That’s a great fly, beautiful workmanship, way to nice to fish. I’ll tye up and send pics.
Tony,
THat is the best looking helgrammite I’ve ever seen. Wow! Thanks for sharing.
Tony, there probably aren’t any 25" + bass in the Potomac nor Shenandoah Rivers anymore to even consider fishing one of those ties; but might have to tie a few up to put under glass, since the last 20" + bass up there was a dozen years ago & the ones out of these southern lakes & canals don’t have any to feed on:cool:
Tony, that’s one great looking helgy!
Coughlin
that is the best looking hellgramite I have ever seen too…wow
I bet that takes a while to tie!
I’d take a wippin before I fished that fly.
Probably take me a very long session to tie one.
I have seen simpler Hgms that would probably be much less labor intensive to my ( advanced beginner-intermidiate ) skill level.
Were’nt there recipies/patterns for them in the archives here ?
not a hard tie… the first one i tied took about 15min but now i can tie one in bout 5min… ive got 4 tied but aint gonna tie no more till i testem out & see do them catch some fish here… if they do good then ill tie some again…