Hi,
I have been looking at the beginners Fly tying lessons on the site.
The first dry fly has a hackle - but no wing. Is this a practice item or does this pattern really catch fish?
Thanks,
Rpb
Welcome, rpb!
There are a couple of theories on the importance of wings on dry flies. Some say they may be the most significant part of a dry fly, others never put them on. Wings can be tough to get right, even for tying veterans. It will definitely catch fish, but will it catch as many or catch finicky fish as well as a winged dry? Do some reading about wings (on this site and other places), tie up some flies with wings and without, and test them for yourself.
Again, welcome!
Joe
The Griffith’s Gnat has caught a lot of trout, including some very selective ones, over the years and it’s just peacock herl and hackle, no wing. On a lot of the dries I tie, the wing is more for me to see, not the fish. I’m sure there are fish that key on specific wing shapes and colors, but there’s also plenty that will strike a fly tied without a wing, or one with a fluoro pink parachute post.
When you do start tying dries with wings, consider using synthetics, like polypropylene yarn; it’s cheap, easy to work with, buoyant, and versatile - you can tie in upright/divided (Wulff style), downwing (Trude style), spent, as a parachute. Work your way up to stuff like deer hair, calftail, snowshoe rabbit, CDC, hackle tips, mallard flank, etc after you’ve had some practice and feel more comfortable with proportions and thread control.
Regards,
Scott
Art Flick (and probably others too) tied a fly with no wings called a “variant”, just with a tail, body and hackle. I haven’t seen a variant mentioned in the magazines for as long as I can remember. I still have a shortened hook shank for tying variants made by Mustad that is no longer made. Follow the advice of ScottP and JB above. When I first started tying dries, the wings were horrendous looking but somehow they still caught fish.
As Scott said, the wing is mainly to help me see the fly (and as Joe pointed out, others disagree.) I’m guessing that 75% of the trout that I catch on dries are on wingless patterns – Renegades, Bivisibles, Griffith’s Gnats, etc. I like to tie flies with wings, but I don’t fish them all that much.
The long and short of it is that it probably doesn’t matter.
As you get more into tying, you’ll come across the names of Vince Marinaro and his student Datus Proper. Marinaro and Proper were two of the first authors to look at fly design rather than simply pattern.
In his book, A Modern Dry Fly Code, Marinaro argued that tall wings were important as the wing was the first object to enter into the trout’s view. Marinaro liked cut wings, but his signature thorax style tie used relatively short hackle tied in in a criss cross matter. Marinaro did state that the hackle collar itself could make a surprisingly good wing and was known to fish Neversink Skaters during the Green Drake hatch.
In What the Trout Said, Proper argued that there wasn’t much difference between what he called a hackle fly (no-wing) and a traditional winged fly. The positive for the winged fly, according to Proper, was that it presented a well defined wing outline which could be necessary for the most finicky fish. Positives for the hackle fly included that it was quicker to tie and always landed correctly (or at least looked the same landing on its side as it did landing right side up). The traditional winged fly is notorious for not landing properly (this in turn may or may not matter to the fish). Proper said he always started with a hackle fly and only went to a winged fly if he thought it necessary.
A variant, by the way, is a fly without wings but over sized collar hackle. I usually tie my flies with wings (they just look better to me), but, if I tie one without wings, I use hackle that is one size up (say, size 16 hackle for a size 18 fly).
Edit to add: above the water line, I don’t think a hackle fly would look much different from a Comparadun - a design that many swear by.
A winged vs a wingless standard collared dry fly makes very little difference on the water in my opinion. In fine water, a wing “can” have an impact however since the trout get a better look at your fly, so it matters a bit what you are fishing over.
while my personal thinking is that it matters little, the fly tyer in me says put on the wings. do it right. again speaking for myself the most important function of the wing is that it is readily visible to the angler.
wings aren’t hard. practice practice practice.
griffith’s gnat is perhaps my all time favorite fly. for catching large trout. on a dry.
For me, it seems to vary. I used to tie traditional Royal Coachmen with white quill wings. Those wings never lasted long and after they got very battered I would snip them off. I don’t think I’ve ever caught a fish on a Royal Coachman once it has lost it wings. For many other patterns, it doesn’t seem to make much difference. I think Blue Wing Olives tend to do a bit better with wings than without, but I’ve had good times fishing wingless BWOs.
Regards,
Ed
Thanks guys. Good advice.
No matter what’cha do, DON’T CROWD THE HEAD with the hackle. It is one of the most common rookie mistakes. Look at a couple of your “commercial” ties. Leave room for that head…trust me in this.
Wings? Seems like an unecessary step to me. I only use em when I hair wing…so I can see the fly better. Hackle tip wings? No thanks.
As Steven noted, Marinaro and others who have studied trout and their optics in the medium of water have made a strong case for wings.
Goddard and Clarke in “the Trout and the Fly” explain , even more clearly, how a trout sees wing tips entering their window of vision before they see the body finally United with the wings. It is also why some tiers tie wings which are more pronounced than the insects to accentuate them in the trout’s window of vision.
Having said that, I often fish comparaduns or sparkle duns. HOWEVER, the deer hair used is a full hook shank length long. When you see those patterns on the water, the long, dense deer hair does look a lot like the natural’s wings.
If you are trying to imitate a mayfly dun, floating down the stream, why would you not want an artificial which has at least a semblance of wings? Even if you didn’t understand how the trout sees either an insect or the artificial coming toward them?
There are, after all, 4 major parts to a mayfly dun: tails, body, wings, and legs.
In answer to the above…
What purpose does the hackle serve then? In most dry flies, the wings are a small fraction of an inch taller than the hackle, which hides the lower part of the wing. How much “wing” do the fish actually see? In mayflies, the wings are held together above the fly as it rides down the water. How can split wings mimic this? A single post would do a better job.
I posit to you: the hackle ARE part of the wing to the fish, and are almost as tall as whatever wing one puts on the fly. I believe that the hackle serve the same purpose, rendering the wing unnecessary, except where I need an indicator. Otherwise, how could parachute styles of the same winged fly do as well?
In their book “Selective Trout” Swishers and Richards advocated winged, non-hackled flies. Whatever works for you. Try some of each.
I don’t think Marinaro and others made a case for distinct wings separate from hackle. He made a case that whatever was used to replicate the wing should be tall. Marinaro’s thorax duns had to have separate wings because of the way that he used the hackle to suport the fly.
Wing v. Wingless is one of the great flyfishing/tying discussions.
Steven,
I don’t currently have access to my copy of Marinaro’s book, but do have to Mike Valla’s history of him and other tiers:
In this passage Valla’s book he refers to Marinaro’s passion for wings was to the point that he didn’t think his thorax duns required a body to sell the fly to the trout.
He also mentions his interest in oversized wings.
Marinaro’s original wings were large cut hackle wings, followed by slip wings. In all cases, as far as I know, he required divided wings…
An early Marinaro thorax dun
Marinaro said that the wing, it’s height and breadth and flatness, is the most important part of the floating dun.
That’s what I thought, John.
If you wish, you can go the no wing and no tail route. Then the dry should hang in the film like an emerger. The Grey Duster is a venerable example of this style. Hans Weilenmann has another example in his video on the Jacobpattern.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6EPlC3feiU
Also note that one of the two definitions of “variant” is a dry fly tied without a wing.
Regards,
Ed
Again…what mayfly have you ever seen which has wings that curve out?