Well, I thought I was getting the hang of Spey style wings after watching some David McPhail videos on YouTube. Not so it seems. I picked up some Partridge hooks (size 1) and tied these up. Not following any particular pattern, just winging it (ooo, bad pun). Anyway, the Spey style wing is something I find difficult to get neat. These will fish fine though (he says with an undue sense of confidence! ha!).
If anyone has some tips on how to get the wings to lay flat, that would be much appreciated. I suspect mostly practice, but I’m hoping not to practice any really bad habits.
Orange body, black body, red & Yellow hackle
Pink Body, white palmer, guinnea fowl hackle
I must say, tying on these large hooks is sure different from size 16 spiders!
The fish won’t care, but a little more comfidence in your fly always helps. To get the wing to lay flat on top of the hook, I first straighten out/ marry all the fibers in place. Then, I hold them in my left hand in the shape of a tent, and hold them in place on top of the hook. Then, I carefully wrap around 2 wraps of thread very close to where i am holding the wings. Be sure not to let any fibers on the wing slip or move. If all goes well, You can then make the head. I hope this helped. Also, practice makes perfect.
Not being an expert or anything, I use a fairly soft body hackle such as blue eared or white eared pheasant feathers dyed to whatever color I need. Once they are wrapped on the body I preen them down to the underside of the hook. Those fibers that are stubborn, fall prey to the tweezers that plucks them out. I try to make sure the thread bed I’m tying the wings in on is as flat as possible
I select the left and right feathers to cip the wings from and make sure they curve properly. Clip the wing slips from the feathers, then even the tips and hold them over the hook like a tent. Do one soft wrap and set the wings in place with a pull up on the thread. Pulling down or to the side will cause the wings to roll on the hook shank.
Good morning Jeff.
May way, and it could be right or wrong.
Is to wrap the section of wing three times around ‘fairly’ loosely and THEN one tight wrap as close to the eye of the hook as possible, (over the end of the wing).
Thanks. As REE pointed out, I think trying to get the wings on a “palmered” body makes it really hard. Where’s my Pukeko? That has good feathers for this type of thing. And, some of the wing tie in tips should help. In the end, I think it will just be practice too. I should be able to get a smooth wing, but I think it will just have to cant upwards a bit until I get some long soft fibre hackles.
avoid thread twisting and lay a smoothe even thread
for flat wings cut the base sections at an angel, lay the sections butts on top one another or slightly overlaping… acording to which way ya want the wings to sit… if you want flat wings use the first option…
wrap the thread just enough to hold the wings on the fly, 3 or 4 wraps then holding the base of the wings, snug those wraps and then add more wraps as needed…
Nice fly. Are the wings and tail slip from a magpie tail? Nice greenish sheen to them.
Jeff, is this almost what your trying to get? Notice how the body hackle is preened down to the bottom of the hook. The hackle is natural blue eared pheasant. Really nice sub for heron.
And REE, that’s a great looking fly. VEE really does a nice tie. I’m not quite going for that version though (if I had brough my pukeko I would as that’s a good feather for smaller spey). David McPhail posts a YouTube video where he ties a red body, black palmered body hackle, a collar of teal duck, then the wings along the top. He called it a spey fly, so I figured this “palmered body” etc construction is another style of Spey flies.
I do like those tied in the manner of the one you posted though. Must see if I have anything I could use for an emergency hackle.
Thanks Bugman. I’ll have to tie up a few of those wingless patterns. I’ll rumage through my hackles to see what I can do. Unfortunatley, I won’t have a chance to do any of this until late June (heading overseas for work until then; no room for the tying equipment).
Jeff, I think it’s the “Marrying of the Wings” that your having problems with. Use two feathers for the wings. Tie them loosly, slightly off to the sides and when you cinch them down, they come together. I think that was what bugman was describing. Very nice patterns guys!
Also, I like using schlappen, instead of the spey hackle. It’s much softer and has more action.
I was taught to leave the feather slips on the main stem of the feather until the slip is well secured. All the better if the slips come from opposite sides of the same feather… Which is not always possible. But even then clip the slip after the fact.
I am showing many more people how to tie these days and that seems to help considerably.
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