During my recent attempts to re-create a fly that my grandfather used to fish I had to tie a bunch of flies with married quill slips for wings. I really enjoyed this, and liked the results (after a bit of practice).
So, I thought I would tie up a Silver Doctor, simplified version. This is a trout fly version of the salmon fly pattern. The dressing is:
Tail : Golden Pheasant Crest overlaid with blue hackle fibres
Butt: red dubbing (seal’s fur, wool, or dyed red rabbit dubbing as here)
body: flat silver tinsel
rib : silver wire
Throat : teal and blue fibres (I used white mallard breast instead of the teal)
Wing : (bottom up) red, blue, yellow, hen pheasant wing, with the coloured section being about a 1/3 of the wing height.
The next two are just free-style patterns. The first is a black gnat type variation:
And this is just an olive and yellow type thing:
I’ve only started back on playing with married wings again, and I really encourage anyone who is thinking about giving it a go. There’s some tutorials here on FAOL that are really useful. Once you get the hang of tying in quill slip wings in the first place, building married wings really isn’t that hard to do. The final fly, however, just can’t help but have a classy look. And, many of these patterns are proven fish takers that are certainly worth having in the box.
Really nice slip wings, Jeff. You tie your wet fly wings curve down like me. I like curve down because to me they seem to swim better than curve up. Maybe curve up are more for cosmetic appeal than utility. You think or not?
Jeff - again fabulous flies! I like the black one – I have never seen a black one before. What feathers are used for the construction of these flies? I would really like to try to do one or two or three or… you have such a talent for these flies, I would like to learn from you the art of married wings.
Beautiful flies Jeff, maybe I’ll get brave enough to try some married wings. I’m gonna keep watching BB to see what feathers you used for the black.
Smile
Thanks everyone. As they say, practice makes perfect, well, with me, practice makes adequate! ha!
For those thinking about giving married wings a go, first, start with tying your basic quill slip type winged wet. It’s not that building the wings for wee wets is hard, especially since you’re usually just putting two or three bits together. Rather, the tying in of quill slip wings themselves is the part I found took the most time to learn to do. It’s more annoying (to me at least) to mangle a nicely married wing then to mangle a slip you quickly snipped off the feather.
The black and white one was inspired by a couple of flies I read about here on FAOL, in the Just old flies and stuff section (which everyone should check out if they haven’t already). One fly is called the Undertaker and the other is the Widow. Both are black and white flies, with married wings. The Undertaker has white wings with a black stripe down the middle and a white body, black hackle, and black and white tail. The Widow is a black wing with a white stripe down the middle, black hackle, and the body is black and white spiral (like a barbershop pole). I just looked these up again to verify the patterns, but had tied the above with them in mind. Makes it more of a “Widowed Undertaker” as it blends the two in some ways.
Anyway, for the wings I’ve used goose quills in the black and white one. Duck quills would work just as well, but I don’t have any black duck quill feathers. In the olive and yellow, the wing is white and yellow duck quills.
I thought I had the last two at least curve up? But you’re right, I usually do have them opposite to how the books show them. I think it might have to do with how I tie them in, and that the wing gets distorted slightly by the pressure of the thread wraps? It could make a difference, but possibly only for the first fish. After the flies been bitten and there’s been a tussle, I suspect many of our efforts for improved presentation get destroyed! Hmmm, a good reason to tie more flies so one can change after every fish!
Don’t forget the fly tying demo’s at Rod and Reel next weekend! I’m sure there will be opportunity to get a demonstration from someone. In the end, all you need are quill feathers from the same side of the bird (two lefts, and two rights).
Set all your feathers with the curved side down. If the feathers are flat, then just make sure you have all your feathers with the good (glossy) side up.
Cut a slip from one of the left feathers that is 3 or 4 fibres, then cut a slip from the other left feather that is also 3 or 4 fibres wide (take both from the same side of the feather, making sure you’re holding them both the same way; ie. curved side down, left of the stem, etc). Be careful to keep track of your slips so that you know which side of the slips are the up side! Line up the tips, with the good side up for both slips, and sit one slip on top of the other. Gently pinch the slips on the side, and run your fingers along them, just like a sandwhich bag that has a zip lock top. The fibres have tiny velcro like barbs that will bind the two slips together. This is why the slips themselves don’t fall apart. It sometimes takes a bit of adjusting to get the slips sitting properly because you’re sort of tying to get two pieces of paper to sit on top of each other edge on, but in the end, they should just join.
After doing one wing, then cut the slips and build the 2nd wing!
The tutorials on FAOL will explain it all better than I can. If you have some quills, you can practice by just cutting a slip, then divide it in half, then put it back together. You’ve just build a married wing, but because the two slips are from the same feather, you can’t see where they joined. A married wing is the same thing, but you just use different colours so you can see the results of your efforts!
Thanks EightThumbs! I admit I’ve been tempted to give some salmon flies a try at times. Some of the ties I’ve seen people produce here are beautiful works of art that give inspiration.
Thanks Jeff, I will search amongst my feathers for some quills and give it a try. I haven’t forgotten about the demo at Rod n Reel, but I do really appreciate the reminder to ring them - so will give them a ring tomorrow and see what time it all starts.
Will also look up the FOAL tut’s on Married wings as well. Thanks again Jeff…
That’s a nice and clear illustration of the different wing styles! On most, I tie “tips down curved inward”, and try and lay the wings low along the body. If I want the wings tied in more vertical, and if I remember, I’ll go for “tips up curved inward”. Must less often I’ll do the curved outward wings for variety, especially if I’m tying a bunch of the same pattern at one time. I’m not sure I have a reason for doing all of this, but I know I do it!
For the tutorial on Married Wings, Go to the FAOL home page, and choose fly tying on the menu.
Then choose Atlantic Tying and scroll down the page until you find the link to Married wings. It starts out talking about tying the wings for Atlantic Salmon flies, but at the end it talks about trout flies. Read the whole section as there are really good tips the whole way though.
There’s lots of good info to be found in that whole section of FAOL, so spend sometime just reading random stuff too.
You tie your wet fly wings curve down like me. I like curve down because to me they seem to swim better than curve up. Maybe curve up are more for cosmetic appeal than utility. You think or not?
