The other day I posted about reproducing the effect of the synthetic quills with different coloured threads. Here is one that is made from Tan and Black UTC threads, and coated with Diamond Hard UV resin. I’ve tied these as basic dry with a collar hackle, but no wing. You could use this any way you like.
And to give you an idea of the sort of effects, form Left to right, Adams Grey / Black, Tan / Olive, Tan / Black, Olive / Black, Green / Black.
You can get colours from the very subtle (Tan / Olive) to the very brash (Green / Black). It may tax your thread control at first. Once you get into the swing of it they are easy enough. One advantage of this is there is no problem using them for larger flies than can be tied with quills.
Cheers,
A.
Saw this technique in the other tread. Curious why you use UV resin on your dries. Seem to me that would increase the pattern’s weight and decrease its flotation…neither of which are highly desirable traits for dries. Or do you primarily fish these as wets?
Very nice Alan, you can wrap the underbody with a narrow strip of craft foam and provide a little more floatation from the body if that is desirable,
Whatfly, Purely for protection, the amount of resin is tiny. Not much more than some people use for their heads. Also these were purely tied to show the technique I mentioned the other day. I tied them as dries for contex, using up various bits of hackle I had around my bench. I use the technique on wet and dry flies.
Uncle Jesse, I’m never that sure how much that would be an advantage. Foam makes a fly buoyant, the scientific definition for buoyancy is that a body totally or partially immersed in a fluid experiences an up thrust equal to the weight of fluid displaced (Archimedes principal). A dry of that type does not float! It stands on the meniscus. Therefore the fluid the body is immersed in is air. To be of a benefit the foam would have to be lighter than air, not water.
Cheers,
A.
Alan,
Beautiful flies!!
You say “…stands on the miniscus”. What are they “standing” on.
Nicely done, thanks for showing that I’ll have to give it a try
Byron I know what you are getting at. I think it is useful to consider the process of settling onto the surface.
At some point the fly will be in the position that the fly in my first photo is in. It may not be stationary (stopped descending) at that point, but you must concede that it has to go through that point as it settles onto the surface. It can not arrive at any point lower on the surface without passing through that point. That is the point to start looking at what happens.
The tips of the hackle that touch the surface at that point are at or close to a right angle to the surface. Those will penetrate the surface, and the fly descend. As the fly descends further the angle of the hackle barbs, and tail, comes progressively shallower. Eventually the angle becomes such that the weight of the fly is supported by the contact along the the edge of the barb, and the bottom of the tail. This may or may not involve the body touching the surface.
Sorry, as I use a plastic sheet to take the photos, and do not have the facilities to drill the tiny holes in it to let the hackle rest in the position it would on the water, or have one of those boxes that let me photograph the fly on the water from below, I had to show it as I did. Which, considering I was only tying those to illustrate the body technique, the photos do well enough. The only reason that those are dry flies is that was the bits of material I had to hand. Had I been tying up a batch of wet flies previous to tying those they would probably have ended up as wet flies.
For future reference, Byron, there is no need to ask again about this. I know it is your passion to debunk the traditional view of how a fly stands, but frankly the constant arguments (here and elsewhere) are getting boring. In my case they are irrelevant as well, as I would take scissors to those hackles before fishing them anyway. More likely I would be fishing something that doesn’t have a hackle at all. Something like this. Which could be given a body like the ones above.
(I only started this thread to illustrate the point that I made in another thread that that you don’t need to spend extra to get the effects of synthetic quill bodies. I thought it might be helpful. I’m beginning to regret it.)
Cheers,
A.
Alan,
So sorry I asked. Won’t ask you again. Seemed like a logical question.
Take care of yourself.