Anybody have a good, easy method for tying legs for deer hair frogs. I have used deer hair and rubber leg material but haven’t been able to get what I think are decent looking legs for frogs.
Thanks for the help.
Rick
Rick, Have you tried using appropriately sized long feathers to represent the legs. You can tie them on with the concave sides facing outward and get a fair set of legs.
Tried some on a foam Texas Bullfrog and they look pretty good and appear to be kicking when retrieved is 6-8" pulls or less.
Rodger
Rick,
I also just use feathers to ‘indicate’ the legs.
Unless you are in a tying contest where you want something that ‘looks’ like legs, the feathers work well (much beter than exact ‘replica’ legs). They move nicely in the water, don’t add unwanted extra weight, cast well, and come in a wide array of colors. They are also cheap…
If you ever try to cast one of those baits with the stiff hair legs-you’ve seen them wherethey bind the deer hair together and bend it to the shape of the legs- you will find that they tend to twist tippet prettty badly. Also very static in the water. I’ve made ‘rubber’ ones, from the stuff they make plastic worms frrom, but they twist too and aren’t a joy to cast. Ruin the action of the fly becasue they are too heavy. Look really neat, though. You can use round rubber-tear off a strip with three or four pieces in it and knot it to simulate the leg joints, but these don’t look as good in the water as the feathers and tend to tear up pretty quickly. Still twist a bit. I tried cutting a frog shaped leg from that ‘stake tape’ (that bright stuff they use to tie on the top of stakes in construction sites so you can see them). Looked promising, but they won’t sink, don’t move any water, and are like casting a whirlygig…sounds cool though.
Here’s a tip: Use a waterproffing solution on your deer hair BODIES, but leave the tails (‘legs’) untreated on frog imitations. The tails will absorb water and hang below the surface. This not only looks more realistic, but it adds some needed drag that makes the bait work better when you strip/twitch/pull on it.
Buddy
Roger and Buddy,
Thanks for the tip on feathers. Not sure why I didn’t think of it as I use feathers on other flies, e.g. Dahlberg divers, but sometimes I get tunnel vision when tying. I have used the bound deer hair legs, rubber hackle and a few other materials. You are right Buddy, they all cast horribly and result in twisted tippets and sometimes upside down flies.
Do you guys use specific hackle, e.g. salt water vs. other hackle? What type of feathers do you use.
Rick
Rick,
I use what ever I have.
Strung hackle, neck hackles, saddles, schallpen, bugger packs, whatever seems to fit as far as size/color goes.
When I tie frogs, I’m tying them for bass. It’s not really critical.
Buddy
Just a quick and simple tip, When tying in your feather’s for the leg’s. Advance each pair of feather just a bit forward as you tye in the “set’s”. This keeps them from bunching altogether and allows Much better kicker action in the water…I’m totally with Buddy on the feather range…they all work.
Bill,
Great tip, I’ll use it on the next one I tie. Just finished a frog using feathers and I have to say it looks great and it was really easy to tie in the feathers. It sure makes tying these deer hair frogs easier and quicker than trying to make deer hair legs or using rubber hackle.
Rick
I have had good luck making legs out of EP’s fibers. I just take enough to make a leg and tie a knot in it. It is a whole lot easier than trying to knot derr hair. The little tag left makes a great “foot”. Also, they come in a nice froggy green color. I suspect any soft synthetic would work.
Love those Texas Bullfrogs.