I tie a lot of warm water flies using tinsel.
I was in Wal-Mart and Dollar General the other day and found iciciles for cheap. The stull looks like it’ll work on the flies I tie quite nicely. Got a couple packs of silver and a couple packs of holographic.
Jeff
I’ve been using tons of it. I use individual strands for wing cases on nymphs. clear/holographic makes adandy flashback case resembling the ari bubble on emergers. I found some black mylar strands( shreds?) at craft stores, that I use for cases on small black stonefly nymphs. A strip of holographic gives a Whitlock’s Sheep Shad a very interesting sheen. Great stuff!!
Randall Sale
the Kytroutbum
Tied a fly I thought would work for both trout & gills. Got the idea from a muddler minnow
pattern. Used that Holographic Tinsel.
Tim
Try a little before your buy a lot.
I have tried several types of tinsel, both opaque, and translucent, and all have not performed well. The opaque tinsels all tarnished and lost their luster and some a apparently had a coating that delaminated and came apart. None were as fluid as flashabou and other similar materials and did not perform well when incorporated into streamer patterns. The opaque materials that I tried also came apart and were to stiff for most applications.
Other tyers have apparently had some better experiences but I have yet to find anything that was satisfactory.
I’ve never really been worried too much about how long stuff lasts once tied. I use these on bluegill and bass and regardless of the materials used, a couple dozen fish and the fly has been beat to shreds anyway, and that is assuming I don’t hang it in a tree or snag it on a log before the fish beat t to death.
Here’s one of the most effective tinsel flies I tie. For some reason, this combination is very effective as a minnow imittion on bluegill, bass and crappie especially early and late in the year.
Jeff
I have found big bags of assorted feathers at Wally world very cheap. All natural colors, but many different patterns, Non-slip ponytail holders (I have two grandaughters) make good worms, legs, and other appenages. If one shops and observes one can find all sorts of potential materials.
Check any non flyshop feathers to see that the dye doesn’t run when wet! Many do. Coat the tinsel bodies with Sally Hansen’s, head cement, or epoxy to prevent tarnish. I always coat any tinsel body to protect it.
We don’t have any fly shops around here either and I guess I’m old fashion but I’m still sort of scared to order stuff online, although I got a great rod from albright the other day and I’m dying to try it out. Anyway, we went Christmas shopping Saturday and I bought a pack of craft cord at Hobby Lobby. The cord has something that looks just like flashaboo running through it. I don’t know how well it’ll hold up, but for $2 I got 10 yards of material and it looks like it has 2 strands of the stuff running through it.
hNt
Like Tailingloop, my experience with Christmas tinsel has been spotty.
Too often, iIt ties up into beatuifull but very short lived flies. Sometimes you’ll be surprised at how quickly your beautiful colors washed out into clear plastic…
I’d advise ya’ to still play with it… Just don’t incorporate it into patterns that you want to last…
isnt that christmas icicle/tinsel that goes on trees a little too thin and flimsy to use as a fly tying material unless you double/triple it up??
does plastic tinsel tarnish?
It may be a little thin but I have all of $3.00 invested in the stuff. That’s about what a spool of the other stuff costs and if it works, I have a lifetime supply. If it doesn’t work, I have $3.00 invested in the stuff.
As for longevity of the flies, between trees, rocks, stumps and getting slammed by crappie, bass and bluegill, I’ve never seen any fly last too long. I always coat the tinsel (regardless of what I’m using) with some clear nail polish (Hard as nails) which seems to give them about 3 or 4 more fish than uncoated ones.
I’ve even been known to bring the flies home, cut the dressings off and retie when they become too battered to catch fish any longer. No need to throw away a perfectly good hook ( I loose enough in the trees, stumps, and rocks I don’t need to be throwing away any more hooks than necessary).
So, I’ll give a full report once I get a chance to do some tying.
Jeff
Not all ‘Christmas Tinsel’ is created equal.
That thin flimsy stuff that they called ‘icicles’ in my youth is pretty useless as a flashabou type substitute.
But some of the newer mylar and plastic based tinsels are first rate fly tying materials.
How I ‘tell’ the good ones is to look at how they are packaged. The stuf that hangs openly on a card is usually good stuff (if handling it or exposing it to the outside world would degrade or damage it, they would have packaged it differently)… the stuff that’s packaged in a box or ‘covered’ usually is too fragile to use for flies. I’ll look at what’s available and gently ‘stretch’ the end of one piece…if it breaks, I don’t buy it. If it stretches, it’s probably fine to use…but, if it ‘curls up’ after a straight stretch, I avoid it (some of it can ‘curl up’ over time, especially after use…no problem if it’s wrapped or used as a case, but if it’s for a wing or such, you don’t want it to curl).
I have some textured pearl ‘tinsel’ that I bought over five years ago…I use it for lateral lines, wing cases, wrapped bodies, accent flash in wings…stuff works great and cost less than a buck (after Xmas sale) for many, many years worth. I have some of the same stuff in colors; blue, silver, gold, red, purple…good, strong, lasts in the water. I’ve caught hundreds of fish with flies using this stuff.
I bought some plain pearl…looks nice, but it curls (how I learned to ‘check’ for this)…only paid fifty cents for 3,000 strands…but I can only use it for wrapping and cases…but for half a buck, I can live with that.
Some of the first ‘silver’ tinsel I bought this way didn’t hold up…that was over a decade ago. Stuff would lose it’s color coat and you’d end up with just piece of plain plastic…but it was cheap and I just tossed it after I figured out that the metallic finsih washed off. Sometimes this ‘trying untested products for fly tying’ means that sometimes it doesn’t work out…I can live with that, too.
Just this past season I found some very thin pearl strands that were unusually stiff…makes great flash accent in streamer wings and bug tails…stiff enough that it won’t foul. Awesome in a flat wing streamer.
By the way, that cheap silver ‘icicle’ stuff makes acceptable dubbing…kind of like poor mans litebrite.
I understand some folks reluctance to use ‘non fly tying specific’ materials. If you see your fly tying time as somethig that you don’t want to risk, or just don’t want to gamble with ‘untested’ materials, maybe this kind of thing isn’t for you.
You got to be a bit adventurous to try some of this ‘outside the fly shop box’ stuff…it can be a bit of a gamble, but sometimes you end up with some great materials and great flies you wouldn’t have if you’d stayed on the traditional path.
I have had to ‘undress’ quite a few hooks, and have thrown away quite a few more when my ‘experiments’ didn’t work out. But I’m okay with that, …I enjoyed every minute spent trying it.
Buddy
You got to be a bit adventurous to try some of this ‘outside the fly shop box’ stuff…
Buddy,
You summed up my attitude about tying. I see it as something that is fun and a creative outlet. I get bored tying flies that look just like the ones in the book and like to venture out and try different things.
Two flies that have been very productive for me came from this experimentation. My “Hariy Weenie” fly (kush ball legs), and the tinsel fly (the one photoed in this thread) have been very productive flies and would never have been something I tied had I not been experimenting with some new materials.
Jeff
I absolutly agree. Tying flies should be fun, and making up new stuff is key to that. You need to show them something they haven’t seen to catch fish. The ones we are mostly after are predators. We want to make them hungry or mad. Different colors and shapes are the way to do that.
Hi All,
Like Jeff and Buddy I have had good luck with some of the Walmart material for Christmas trees from Walmart, and have recommended it in posts in the past. Some types clearly do not hold up to water very well. However, some that I have bought in the last few years seems to hold up very well.
The new type plastic or mylar icicle stuff I have is quite thin, so does not hold up to hard wear and to fish teeth as well as the stuff from fly shops. However, my experience is that it has better movement, so I will trade some length of fly life for better action. The stuff I have stands up to water mechanically and color wise very well without degrading.
It is incredibly cheap even now, and after Christmas it is even cheaper. I bought some several years ago for maybe 10 to 25 cents or so a package. I bought two packages and gave one away this summer. I still have many years worth left in the first package.
I bought 3 or 4 packages last year at full price, because it looked like they were going to sell out if I waited. This was not from Walmart, but from a Dollar type Store. Some of the Walmart stuff didn’t look quite as good last year, but it varies from time to time.
The silver that I bought perhaps 10 years ago was great and did fairly well even against walleye teeth.
Regards,
Gandolf
This is in response to Buddy Sanders comments.
After reading your post I got out a couple of strands of the holographic tinsel I bought at the dollar store. I took a cup of hot water and submerged the strands in it for several minutes. The strands retained their color and glisten. I then took a pan of boiling water & left them in the boiling water for a couple of minutes with the same results.
Therefore it appears the product is strong enough for my use as a tying material.
Tim
As was posted earlier, don’t buy a bunch now…wait until after Christmas, when Wally has it for 50% off plus. I buy it post Christmas at all kinds of different shops. sometimes you can even find the thinner stuff, which looks/works like Krystal Flash
I tie Godlie Jr with the Christmas tinsel.
The weak strands, very few, break in the folding. Have caught alot of fish on one fly and not had it breakdown.
Rick
Tim,
From the look of your fly, I have some of the same stuff…
I use it a lot and have never had any problems with mine.
Buddy
I tied flies with the stuff for a while but found that it would get torn up too easily by the fish. If there’s one thing I hate…it’s one fish flies.
I went back to the commercial mylar and I like the Wapsi Opal Mirage tinsel over the holographic.
The fly shop stuff just holds up better.
