Was it Allan or AlanB that was tying up an order?
Question: What are you using for the wing?
Guilty as charged, though it was White Wulffs. Here are a dozen waiting to be sent off. It’s that time of year again, (or will be in a couple of weeks).
Currently I am using goose breast but any symmetrical duck feather will do. On smaller flies I use larger partridge hackles, like this. 
Folding the feather is easy if you have three hands working together. Recently I’ve developed a tool to make the fold. Push the feather in and draw it out folded and in the pinch you use to tie it on. Its saving me a lot of time and much cursing. I was amazed at how well my prototype worked. Must look into making more of them. Here it is. Directions presume right handed tier.
The tool fits loosely on the vice stem. 
Prep the feather as shown. 
Push the stem into the slot. Place your left finger and thumb as shown and draw the feather to the right, pulling the tip. Once you feel the clear stem in your finger and thumb pull the whole thing clear. You are now in the pinch position to tie on the feather.
Usually I try to use as few tools as possible. Each tool you have to look for and pick up slows the process. This though, has made tying Wally Wings much easier and faster. It is earning it’s place on my bench.
Cheers,
A.
Damn. That’s pretty sweet.
What time of the year is it in the Scottish Highlands?
Brilliant!! And, beautiful!
Steve, Its just coming up to Mayfly time. End of May into June so I am getting orders for them now. Fortunately I did all the prep work through the winter.
Thanks Byron.
Cheers,
C.
Just another thought, I know there is an article on Wally Wings somewhere on FAOL, but I did a quick “Photo story” here for anyone who wants to see the technique.
http://smg.photobucket.com/user/AlanBithell/story/23793
Cheers,
A.
I thought those were olive…
Some of them are. A pale creamy olive. These are for a shop in Bakewell, Derbyshire and he wants creamy white. Last winter I had a disaster with a snowshoe hare’s foot. When I split it all the hair fell off. I mixed it up as dubbing in the coffee grinder, and saved it for these. Waste not…
Cheers,
A.
Like to see a tutorial on making the tool!!! Great looking ties!!!
AlanB,
Doesn’t your “Mayfly” look like an “Eastern Green Drake”…actually white/cream in color?
Byron, I’m not sure. It may, I’m not familiar with the Eastern Green Drake. Some are creamy white some are light olive, the Irish ones certainly are of the olive persuasion. They vary by area. Some of the lochs north of me (there isn’t much north of me before you fall off the top) are limestone based, like the Irish loughs, and have Mayflies. Every year I plan to go to fish them. This year might be the one. My circumstances will have to change drastically first.
Some years ago I fished the Derbyshire Wye, as a guest on the Chatsworth Estate water. Large fish throwing themselves at large flies. No wonder it is known as “duffers fortnight”. Those flies are certainly more cream than olive. During the Mayfly hatch the cost of a day ticket to fish there rises from the usual 45 ukp to 85 ukp per day. (To give you a comparison my entire season’s fishing here costs 75 ukp).
It was Pete at the local shop that put me on to the White Wulff as an imitation. Since then he has bought the shop, and I now tie for him. Those original Wulff flies, I found, often fell forward, floating on the hackle with the tail in the air. That is why I started tying them with Wally Wings. If the Wulffs are perfectly proportioned it doesn’t happen so much, it is still a problem, one that has spooked fish for me.
Cheers,
A.
Nifty… cool trick.
Alan,
It didn’t seem that you moistened the feather before using. Most instructions, including Wally Lutz’s here on FAOL, say you should.
Have you found this unnecessary?
-Steven
No, never found I needed to.
Cheers,
A.
AlanB,
Here’s a photo of an Eastern a Green Drake
Nice picture of a green drake Byron. I think the White wulff looks like the later stage of the green drake, AKA Coffin Fly which appears about Memorial day in this part of the country. Very nice fly Alan. I’m curious about the tool. Looks like a dowel with a slot holding two pieces of some kind of foam. Am I getting warm?