I was asked to tie up a few mickey finns for a friend of mine but I don’t have any oval tinsel handy which the pattern calls for. Is there a suitable substitute to use in place of the oval tinsel when tying mickey finns ??
thx’s
Mike
Mike,
I wouldn’t get to hung up on the lack of oval tinsel. I’m assuming you’re using it as a rib over the flat silver mylar or tinsel body? Use any substitute you have or leave it off entirely. Shouldn’t prove to be critical. I rib some and others I don’t. Never had a fish complain.
That’s what I was kind of planning on doing 
I was thinking of maybe some brassie wire or metallic thread for the ribbing. I guess I’ll experiment and see how it looks. I did have some oval tinsel at one time but forgot to reorder some more!
thx’s
Mike
Silver wire works. Basically, you just need something that is a little shiny, like the tinsel, but more durable, to protect from the trout teeth that will most assuredly be biting! Wire will probably do a better job than the oval tinsel, at the expense of being less pretty and a bit harder to work with…also will make the head of the fly a tiny, tiny bit bigger.
I was thinking I might take a run up to our local wally world tomorrow. recall seeing some small spools of silver craft wire in the crafts dept.
Mike
I have used ultra wire in black and copper.
I have also left off the over wrap and coated the flat tinsel wrap with clear Sally Hansen’s. I wrap the body, coat it then remove from vise to try before tying in the wing. I will do a half dozen, dozen, or whatever number of bodies this way, then go back and tie in the wings.
good idea using the SH to coat it. gonna try a few w/wire and a few w/o wire. I really don’t think the fish will mind too much … as alra195 mentioned 
Mike
you could tie in a length of flat tinsel at the bend of the hook and then twist the tinsel into a rope for the rib. spiral forward and tie off
@normand
good idea
heres the method and effect i mentioned above
I like the effect, great idea to try. Thanks for the tip
Mike