I am tying up some #12 royal Humpies in yellow and have a question about the recipe.
It calls for a white calftail wing. Does anybody tie this with other material for the wing? I often have trouble tying in calftail. Does this fly need a wing?
Thanks for any advice.
Northwoods.
No, it doesn’t “need”, a wing as far as it’s function goes, but without one, it’s obviously no longer a true “Humpy”, because the original pattern has been radically altered by omitting the wing.
If you have trouble with tying calf hair, try “Z-lon”. It’s more durable, dries a lot quicker and looks just as good as the calf hair.
What flybinder said, except I would use antron rather than z-lon, just as a personal preference for antron.
I was thinking just the other day about tying up some Royal Wullf’s substituting white antron ( instead of using calf-tail ) for the wings. Just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Maybe I’ll do Humpies instead ??
I use white antron yarn for my wings and I often use foam for the ‘hump’
Humpys are a summer staple for me .
It’s my all purpose terrestrial. Beetle, hopper, cricket, bee, you name it.
Glad to see folks excited about the Humpy.
IMO, this is one the best flies ever invented. As of today, I’ve caught brookies, browns, cutts, bows, cutt-bow hybrids, small mouth bass, bluegill, green gill, sunfish, redbreast sunfish and creek chubs on this pattern. I’ve always loved yellow, but have been very happy with red Humpies lately.
Today I fished a pond that I’ve been fishing steadily for the past month or so. I’ve found one area where HUGE blue gills have been “one the beds.” The fish chase just about everything, but actually eat almost nothing. I’ve caught a few smaller ones on hopper patterns, but today tossed out a red Humpy in size 14. I ended up catching the biggest gill of my life and definitely the biggest I’ve seen in this pond. From measuring it on my rod, then with a ruler later it came in at just shy of 10 inches and probably weighed 1+ pound. It was awesome to watch him sip it off the top just like a finicky trout!
Now, to put that little derailment back on track–Foam for the hump could be interesting. You could very easily make multi colored humpies that way. MMMM, I may just have to sit down at the old vice tonight!
I used to hate tying with calf tail, then someone shared a tip…
Spray the calf tail with ‘cling free’ or some other brand anti-static laundry spray. It will keep the fibers from sticking to each other and the calf tail is as easy to use as deer hair. Works wonders in the stacker.
No other material I have tried has quite the durability, long lasting float and high visibility as the natural calf tail. The synthetics are great, but they just don’t look as good to my eye. The fish could probaly care less.
Heck, I tie my Royal Wulffs with white Wonder Wings. AK Best had an article about using Turkey T-base for the wing and splitting it like wood duck on a cahill.
Honestly, what matter does it make?
Yep,
Z-Lon.
And there is no reason (or is there?) to get some practice in tying calf tail hair.
Yeah. I haven’t practiced either because well…somebody invented Z-Lon since I ever needed to tie one of those patterns too.
I use white calf body hair. It is of even length and straight. Much easier to work with than calf tail. As an alternative I use poly yarn. Even easier to work with.
Like Flybinder said, it’s no longer a true “humpy” but I seriously doubt if the fish are that critical of the pattern. I omit the wing on many of the dries I’ve tied over the past 8 months or so and the fish, so far, haven’t noticed the absence of wings on the bugs floating over their heads.
With that said, I have used calf tail for wings and for parachute posts and haven’t found it extremely difficult to work with. The antron and zlon are easier for darn sure and I find all of them easier to work with than tring to tie two matching feathers in and then splitting the feathers. It seems one needs three hands and a lot more patience than I have to do that.
Jeff
Poly yarn
Rocketfish