So I got tired and bored after tying some w. buggers so I tried some different things with this. I noticed my wraps came out a lot better than with the first attemps with other flies I’ve tied. The head is a bit sloppy because I accidently cut my thread at the wrap and had to cement and start the wrap over it.
The only things I can see that may cause a problem are the shortness of the hook compared to the long body and the small hook gape. You may get some short strikes with the fish hitting your feathers instead of the hook. A longer shanked hook is the remedy for that, although there are lots of flies out there designed just as yours and they work very well. With the narrow hook gape you may not be able to get a good hook set, a hook with a wider gape will fix that in short order.
If you didn’t see it, let me point you to the 2nd ‘stinger’ hook. The feather wings are still 2x the length of the imaginary ‘shank’. Will that result in misses? Have no idea.
Right you are! I missed the stinger completely, which may mean that a fish may not see it either. Here in WA it’s not legal to fish for andromedous fish with a double hook set up so the fron hook is usually clipped off. Got used to seeing them that way.
That stinger, to me at least, puts the hook in just about the right location, and judging from the curve of the stinger, also eliminates the hook gape problem.