As payment for services rendered to a friend, I present a first, half-a.sed attempt at a woven Polish nymph; a ScottP always pays his debts. Lots of real good videos and SBS’s out there (heck of a lot better than this).
hook - Dai Riki 135 #10
weight - .025 lead-free
thread - Danville 6/0 brown
underbody - Uni Strech brown
body - embroidery floss brown & yellow
rib - copper wire small
thorax - hare’s ear/antron dubbing
head - 1/8" brass bead black
Part 1
Mash down barb and slide bead on shank
10 wraps of lead-free; jam it inside the bead
Unit stretch to create smooth underbody
tie in rib
dark matter on the far side
light on the near side
invert hook and grab both strands of floss (constant tension is key here; lack of is the reason this fly came out a bit shakey)
*note - some of the following pics are a bit out of focus; hard to hold 2 strands of floss and camera at the same time
cross light across the bottom (topside in the inverted world)
dark over light and then across the top (underside in the inverted world)
split thread (I like the effect better than just dubbing the thread)
insert dubbing
spin bobbin to trap dubbing
wet fingers and stroke dubbing back while wrapping
whip finish and brush with Sally
Kind of fun to try something different like this. Next time the floss is going to be spooled so I can use bobbins; much easier to maintain tension for a more uniform body.
Spooled the floss and used the bobbins on this one:
Probably doesn’t show up very well in the photo, but it was much easier to maintain tension and get a tighter weave. Hopefully, they’ll get better as we go along.
Well done, thats a very difficult technique to illustrate in a step by step.
If you want something interesting to try with this, weave white Unifloss (doubled strands) over UTC Fl. Fire Orange under body. Once tied wet it! First time I fished it, it took about 50 trout. It is the only fly I have had fish just swim over and pick up before I even made a cast. Just dropped my leader in the water while I sorted out my line. This hasn’t happened once but three times on different waters.
You are right it does take a lot of practise to get good consistent results. I’ve tried the bobbin method and found I prefer to use the method you showed. The weight of the bobbin tended to make the floss twist into a rope. The open ends in your method let the twist fall out of the threads.
