Does anyone know of any free videos or YouTubes on tying Thunder Creek streamers?
I’ve been tying them for quite a while but wonder if there are any novel techniques.
Thanks.
Ray
I tie a ton of them and have for years. It has been a favorite dolly varden fly which I thought of as a smolt pattern, particularly for streams with pink salmon runs. Then last summer I watched dollies picking sea lice off silver salmon and realized they may well take the thunder creek as a sea louse.
I usually tie them on 3XL hooks in 8, 10 and 12 with bear hair and bead chain eyes. They really work! The eyes seem just about right for weighting them for the smaller streams I often fish.
Bigger ones in the 4-2/0 sizes on mustad 36890 or Gami T10 hooks have been really good on lake trout feeding on salmon smolts. The eyes are not used on these. Salmon are not afraid of them either…
There are a number of serious fly fishers/tyers here that consider them a top 10 fly for AK.
art
Sorry, guess I failed to come close to your actual question about videos…
No… 
Hi Hap; Thanks for the comments on using the TC in Alaska. You really have me confused however, with using bead chain eyes. If you use any sort of eyes on the head other than painted ones, how can it be called a TC? Do you epoxy over the whole bead chain?
I think you’ve designed a new pattern, somewhat like a crosbreed with a Clouser.
B.T.W. I used bead chain eyes on egg sucking leaches for my nephew to use in AK because the solid dumbell eye versions sank to fast for him. They worked well.
Bear hair…that’s interesting. What made you choose bear hair? (I hate tying with deer hair or bucktail.)
Also, I just did a search for it. My local fly shop does not carry it, but I assume I can find it easily enough. Is it dyed or only available in one color?
Bear hair…that’s interesting. What made you choose bear hair? (I hate tying with deer hair or bucktail.
There is more bear where he comes from(Alaska) than deer BILL:tieone:
Ray -
Not exactly what you are looking for, but I think it might be very interesting for other folks who read this thread and follow the link.
http://globalflyfisher.com/streamers/guest/thundercreek/patterns.htm
Thunder Creek streamers are the first streamers I fished. Did pretty well with them. But really do not enjoy tying with bucktail, although it does make for a pretty durable fly, and it is available in just about every color under the sun. I did tie some in one of the synthetic “hair” materials which was much easier to use than bucktail and did fish well.
John
P.S. Have you seen Fulsher’s book from the past year or two ?? I only took a quick look at it one time, but it is really quite impressive and shows a very broad range of TC variations.
Ray
I generally do not epoxy my thunder creeks… Especially since I started using the bead chain and bear hair is tough, far tougher than deer.
I also like the head bulk it creates which is really missing in the TCs I tie because mine are SPARSE! The result is a huge-headed minnow looking fly… WHich I think looks far more natural.
Using black, brown, grizzly and polar bear hair gives me a wide range of natural colors. A couple strands of flash for a lateral line and you would swear you were at a sushi bar!
art
Blue Dun
I hit most of your questions but to add… Bear can be a bit tough to find. I ask taxidermists for scraps and get lots, usually. The last big batch of brown, grizzly and black I got was offered here for anyone wanting it. Generally the colors are honey brown to black. Bleaching works and dying does too…
Fortunately I have stumbled into a little polar bear from old rugs and have square feet of it.
I cannot imagine why the distaste for tying with bucktail. Possibly the fact I haved tied thousands of bucktailed coho flies makes it seem like a pretty natural material.
art
Hatches tv I think had a great one. It was an instructional video on tying the rainbow trout Thunder Creek. Now I cannot find that video anywhere. I have too many patterns saved on my computer favorites.
My wife snuck out this morning with a couple girlfriends and fished for monster rainbows in a very urban setting… She was able to catch 5… about 40-45 pounds of fish. She used one of the little bead chain eyes TCs… After she lost it the fish would hit nothing else she tried…
Hap: can you post a photo of what your TC’s look like with the bead chain eyes? Also, when you use bear hair, do you still tie them with a lighter belly?
JohnScott: what type of synthetic material did you use?
Thanks, guys!
BD
This was tied a bit heavy because it is show and tell sort of fly I usually tie much sparser than this for using… I am putting together a step-by-step for this fly by request from a number of local folks… Mostly the ones that have fished it.
This is brown bear and polar bear. The body is tinsel, but flashy thread of any kind works. Last night I added a chartreuse dubbed body to some for testing. Oh, last night’s have pink or green eyes…
art
Oh, the hook is a Mustad 9672 size 10 and I almost always use 8/0 thread or smaller. The stray hairs on the head are clipped and Sally Hansen is added to the whole head and thread collar. When they get up to size 6 I switch to Gamikatsu T10 hooks. Size 2 to 12 is the range I usually tie these in.
The tinsel body is the usual first failure point… and makes it fish better.
art
BTW
My wife did not realize she should change rods after the first big rainbow and all her fish were caught on a 4wt TFO Finesse…
I used thundercreeks when I was at Rainbow River Lodge on the Copper River in Alaska and thundercreeks were the fly. The rainbows took them for salmon smolt and I’ve had the fish break off 2X on the strike. I was tying them at night and fishing them during the day. The fish tore them up.
Hap,
Thanks for posting the photo! I like the idea of being able to get them lower in the rivers where I fish them. The first few TCs I tied all had big heads like that - I thought they were “mistakes” b/c they did not have the flatter heads, but I kept them anyway! 
I’m glad I kept them!
To vary it up a bit and get a bit larger head profile try wrapping 6-8 wraps of lead (size to suit) wire around the two bundles of hair before you fold 'em back.
Makes a nice variation and gives the head more profile plus helps sink it a little if you like that.
I tie 'em in a few variations on that theme. I like fishing streamers of all sorts, especially Clousers.
G’luck!
Jeremy.
Great tip. I’ve tied TC’s several times and never would have thought of that.
The same trick could be used with a few wraps of heavy mono or an old fly line to build up the head profile without adding weight.