Received several colors of punch yarn in today’s mail from REE.
Been thinking about doing a furled extended body midge larva and caddis larva, and it struck me that the olive and gray punch yarns might combine for an interesting concept fly.
( Sorry about the image quality - best I could do on this little fly which is about 1/3" long on a size 20 hook. )
The body consists of an approximate 1" length of each the olive and gray yarns furled together for a mixed or variegated effect. Simply clip each end of the combined yarns in an electrician’s clip and twist the clips in opposite directions until the yarns are ready to furl. Hold the clips in one hand and with the other, press a bodkin, or whatever, to the center of the twisted lengths. When you relax the two clips toward center, the yarn should furl at the point the bodkin was pressed. Remove the extended body from the clips and twist it by hand to tighten the furl.
I used a size 20 Dai-Riki 125 emerger hook for this concept fly. Start the thread and lay a thread base where the body will be tied down. Tie the extended body onto the hook securely and trim the excess. Dub the thorax area. I used a Nature’s Spirit superfine gray olive dubbing on this example.
Ron advised that the punch yarn will not sink. Tied on a heavier hook ( Dai-Riki 135 scud hook comes to mind ) and fished by itself, it might be effective drifting along on or close to the surface as an emerger. Or trailed behind a weighted lead nymph, it should have some good movement and might prove quite attractive to a hungry trout.
Like all concepts, undoubtedly a bunch of folks have already developed and proven, or disproven, the possibilities for this technique ?? Going to do a couple in embroidery floss also, and give both versions a go next time I’m out and see how they do.
Got to admit, that looks pretty good. As far as the thorax, couldn’t you just use the tag ends of the furled section wrapped around the hook? Just a thought and it would save dubbing.
Yep - other than the technique used to furl the extended body, it’s the same concept. The floss used on that fly has a much smoother texture than the punch yarn - more like the antron that I used on a Western Green Drake extended body dun last summer and the October Caddis that I planned to use at the Idaho Fish-In. Better for a midge larva - maybe not for the caddis ??
I was planning to tie some examples with peacock. Looks good on the Willy’s Pip. Will likely be a better fish catching fly than the dubbed thorax I used on my first example.
There are some advantages, to my experience, with furling the extended body off the hook, rather than on it. It’s easier. You can better control the size and length of the body. Less buildup of material. You can do a bunch of the extended bodies before you start tying - they hold their furl quite nicely. Not sure about this one, but it’s really easy to do multiple colors off the hook, but might make for some bulk done on the hook ??
Another thought I had toying around with this concept last night, was to hang a shuck off the end of the extended body, using the technique for my Plan B Western Green Drake last year. There’s a way to do it, I think, off the hook which would be very difficult doing the body on the hook ?? May give it a go this afternoon.
By the way, the “off the hook” technique was brought to my attention by someone else, can’t remember who, in a thread on this general subject ( furled extended bodies ) last summer.
Did some more experimenting this afternoon. Furled an extended body with a shuck using the punch yarn and antron yarn for the shuck but wasn’t too pleased with the effect.
Decided to try it with embroidery yarn instead. Not happy with the look of this particular fly, but this was more about process than result, and from that point of view, the experiment was successful. It is possible, with a little fiddling around, to incorporate the shuck material in the extended body in such away that it protrudes at the very end of the body.
( Photo quality is pretty poor - but it does show the “end” result )
Need to do some more work on it before I take if fishing.
