Anybody know a good way to tie a pellet fly without spinning deer hair? I can’t tie flies very well and I’m having a terrible time spinning deer hair. 
thanks in advance,
hNt
Get some cork and glue them on the hook.
Tan foam cylinders.
Regards,
Scott
Use panty hose. Tie it like you would a glow ball. Cut 2 pieces approx. 1" wide by the width of the hose. Fold one piece over its self lenghtwise making it approx 1/4" wide. Tie it on the top, fold the other piece the same, tie it on the bottom of jig head or hook. Grab the top piece you tied in and pull it up high causing it to stretch and cut at approximately 1/4" from hook. Rotate your vice and do the same for the bottom piece. Take the fly out of your vice and roll between your hands. Makes a very nice pellet fly.
Panty hose is the key!!
That very question was posed a couple of days ago by a friend. We looked at pictures of pellets via Google & decided to tie some simple “pellet Flies” using nothing more than some ostrich. Hope they work.
Tim
I found brown pom-poms at the craft store. never used them though
While I have never tied any pellet flies, I think that Gorilla glue would be the absolutely easiest way to “tie” a pellet fly. Start by mixing a drop of fast drying Gorilla glue with a drop of water and goop it onto the hook shank. Rotate it as it dries to give a nice cylndrical shape. Remember, this stuff really expands so you won’t need very much. Once it has set to where it has formed a skin but it is still soft, you can roll it between your fingers to get whatever shape you want. You can even cut the ends square if you really want a pellet shape, but I’m sure the fish won’t care. Then, simply color it with the appropriate color marker and you’re all set. It will float nicely and is almost indestructable. Just a thought…
Jim Smith
I experimented with pellet flies over several seasons. What I found is that the fish look for the fly to sink at “just the right rate”. In other words those I tied from pom-poms, foam, cork didn’t work well at all. The fish would respond to the plop and come up and then follow the fly backwards waiting for it to sink. When it didn’t - refusal.
This wasn’t a one-time observation, because I followed this up with some tests by throwing fish pellets and watching how the fish reacted. Once the pellets sank about 2 inches they would gobble them with abandon.
Now the trick was to find a fly that mimicked this behavior - not the appearance. I settled on a fly with a small bead head (black) covered in brown dubbing. I then sat with a sink full of water and wound dubbing until I matched the sink rate of the actual pellet.
It works - not all the time, but often enough to break up an afternoon by catching stockers.
OH and it’s great fun to give to a kid trying to catch stocked trout - tell them to plop it on the water, let it drift downstream and hang on - usually works!
Try half of a coffee bean.
White McFly foam and a brown marker works good at the Missouri trout parks.
man, I bet those fish fight a lot harder and get more air time!!
Try wool. Just get some yarn of the appropriate colour, pull it apart into dubbing or, untwist a bit and wrap like floss.
- Jeff
Hare’s ear nymph. Looks and acts enough like a pellet to fool stockers, but can also look like a nymph to wild fish(and other flyfishers).
One day after tying up a big pile of pheasant tail nymphs and some gold ribbed hare’s ears I looked in the bottom of my waste bag thought that I might find a use for all the pheasant tail fiber, turkey feather fiber, and duck feather fiber trimmings. After thinking about it for a while I put a hook in the vise, created a dubbing loop, applied a good amount of tacky wax, then started putting the trimmings into the loop. I wound it on the hook, added a pale yellow dubbing head and tied of the thread. I then trimmed the fibers I had wrapped on the hook to a cylindrical shape and declared it to be a cased caddis immitation. I then made a couple of dozen. That fly has been very successful for me.
If I leave of the dubbed head it looks a lot like a pellet.
Please use barbless hooks. My lips are sensitive…
Ed
SonOFMartin:
Your fish have been spoiled by eating chocolate, which doesn’t float! I have yet to see fish of any kind that have been fed fish chow (pellets) that don’t, and won’t, take them on the surface. This includes catfish, largemouth bass, grass carp, bluegills, and white bass/striped bass hybrids (wipers),to name a few. I have VERY succesfully used the 7mm diameter brown pompoms available in the craft stores, as well as balsa wood, foam, and half coffee beans epoxied to a hook. I use the #8 Eagle Claw bait hooks available at wally world. The have a single barb on the shank for holding the bait. I work the point of the hook through a pompom and slide it up the bend, put a touch of CA glue on the shank barb and slide the pompom forward to it. Voila’, I have a PFC fly (Purina Fish Chow). Many folks who fish chow-fed fish like to chum them up by throwing pellets onto the water. A waste of time. Simply dap the PFC fly on the surface of the water as fast as you can for a dozen or so times and you have just “chummed” them up! I made believers out of about 30 members of our club while fishing private waters that had been stocked with wipers that were in the 3-4 pond class, and were fed pellets daily. With coffee beans, I gently scrape out the loose material in the groove on the bottom of the bean. I use a standard cotton sewing thread to wrap a single layer thread base on the hook shank, coat the thread with CA glue and places the bean half on the thread. Keep the hook shank horizontal until the glue sets. I come by the beans by cleaning up areound the coffee grinding machine in my neighborhood supermarket. (Someone is always spilling beans when attempting to grind them.)
Cheers,
Frank
Thanks guys, this has helped alot. We’re headed down to Florence Marnina GA this Thursday, there is something like 63 boat slips and 2 boat ramps and I am sure there just has to be a place to buy pellets for the kids to feed the fish. I’ve noticed that lots of times there are carp hanging around those things and I’m hopeing my little boy can chum them up and I can catch a big old carp on a pellet fly. 
I’ve never caught a carp on a fly rod, I’ll bet that is fun, and my 5 year old’s eyes will be bigger around than my toons if I can catch a big carp. I’m sure he has never seen a fish that big except on tv.
thanks alot guys,
hNt
PS I suspect my eyes will be pretty big too if I can catch a carp on a fly.