My expedition into diffusion hackling spilled over into my wet flies in using the wing casing to re-distribute the wet hackle fibers. Not a new technique at all but its funny how one thing leads to another. Besides, it gave me a chance to use some beaver fur again which I am liking more and more. Donald’s oldschool flies inspired the color combo of orange and brown which don’t show up well in the photos but in real life looks great. Now if I only had a bamboo rod and a nice trout stream… Let me know what you think of the flies and what you think of the wing.
Geg,
I like your flies a lot, I have copied them into my Pix files for more intense examination.
I have not really used Beaver dubbing much, so I have not formed an opinion.
Perhaps you could say why you like Beaver?
I shall now have to backtrack and re-read your BBs on diffusion hackles.
Excellent work.
Certainly not, I just pixed them into my files.
I think they are great. Has anyone read W. H. Lawrie’s “The Book of the Rough Stream Nymph” (1947) or “Border River Angling” b.
[/b]Unfortunately “Rough Stream Nymph” will cost about $50 these days But “Border River Angling” is a lot cheaper, about $10.00 at
its cheapest. You will find them very interesting on the subject of floating and sub-surface nymphs.
Hi Greg,
I think that you could put a hot needle into the eye of the flies where the hackle tips interfere with the eye and thus clean them out of there.
Cheers,
(another) Greg
Thanks Donald for the compliments: it was your site that started me tying soft hackles and continues to serve as inspiration. I don’t know much about the properties of beaver fur as I just started using it and haven’t fished with it yet. I’ve heard it is water repellant which, if it is true is nice for dry flies and soft hackles that you want to sit in the film or just below it. What I find I like is that the underfur is a nice light brown that matches many insects and by changing the color of the ribbing allows for a pretty good imitation of a wide range of body colors. It also has a nice translucent like sheen adding just enough sparkle without overdoing it and it is a very fine dubbing that can be applied very sparsely. It is the only dubbing I have used yet that I can use on a size 28 hook and still not feel like the body has become too bulky. I’m sure others know more about its properties and would welcome their thoughts/comments.
Thanks Greg for the advice on the needle. I used to do that a lot in the past but started running into problems with the hot needle burning the thread and causing the whip finish to fall apart. Any tricks on how to prevent that? I now just try not to crowd the head but sometimes it still happens that way.
I agree totally with the solution problem. Sometimes my hot needle gets stuck in the eye! As you listed last, the first key for me is to not crowd they eye, thus the stray hackle is easier to remove without hitting the thread. Head cement first so that when the head heats up the cement bubbles but the thread does not separate. I particularly ensure tidy flies if I am going to photograph/donate/trade them. Cheers, G.
Hey Greg, good call on the head cement. I’ve never really used it so it never came to mind. I’ll keep that as a solution if I have a particularly untidy head that I can’t thread the tippet through or if I happen to get some head cement in the future. I’ve never had much of a problem with the flies unwrapping or coming undone after whip finishing the fly. I either loose the fly to a tree, break off on a fish or the fly gets chewed up long before the head unravels. Since I don’t use head cement I am a little naive when it comes to its benefits. I can see its benefit on larger flies and streamers to make a smoothe head, but what advantages are there to using it on smaller flies?
I wish I had a good answer to this question, but I am by no means an expert. I assume that most people refer to “softhackles” as a fly that uses a soft feather wrapped circumfirentially around the head with a thread/silk body like a traditional spider pattern. To me “softhackle” seems more of a generic term used to describe any fly with a softhackle collar and could be tied as a nymph like pattern fished deep with the softhackle imitating legs and adding movement, tied light to imitate emergeres, using wingcases or wings if wanted to imitate whatever stage of insect you want. There are probably more specific names for each of these flies and “softhackle” may refer to one specific subset, but I seem to find myself thinking of them as described above. I have heard of the term “flymph” as well and remember that there was a flytying book about them from the 70’s I think, but don’t recall. It was a popular book that brought softhackled flies to the attention of many american flyfishers. Someone with more expertise in the area will hopefully chime in and enlighten us all, but that is the way I find myself using the term. Either way, they are fun to tie and to fish.
[b]I suppose a nymph is a fly that is imitating a natural nymph.
It is a bit of ‘cart before the horse’ situation, I suppose the correct term should be a nymph imitation.
Some nymphal imitations copy the wing-cases some do not.
Skues the originator of the first nymph imitations did both in his imitations.
The Clyde style nymphs had wing-cases for mature nymphs (larger) and none on the immature (smaller) patterns.
The word Flymph is just a contraction of fly and nymph.
Skues did not carve it in stone, neither should we.
Strictly speaking softhackle refers to the hackle used on a fly,
any fly, it is a game bird or domestic hen hackle.
That is one of the reasons I have my doubts about using the term to refer to spiders, flymphs and nymphs without wing-cases.
It causes confusion and is imprecise, and being a true Scot with no religion, but strongly influenced by growing up in a presbyterian culture,
I do not like it.:lol::lol::lol:
Hi Greg,
I am sure others might chime in on this, and perhaps there should be a new thread for the discussion. However there are 3 benefits that I can think of just now (aside from the side benefit of a secure head when using the hot needle).
Like on large flies and streamers, I like head cement on most flies so they look good (smooth and shiny) and in the case of mayflies, a little bulbous. I use a fine needle stuck in a cork to apply the cement/lacquer.
Head cement obviously binds the threads, and works best when it is thinned. I use fly shop head cement, and thin it with Sally Hansen?s Lacquer thinner which comes in a ‘nail polish’ bottle with a small ‘syringe’ to take the thinner and put it into the cement. You can also use Sally Hansen Hard as Nails and thin it. The main point is to have the cement thin enough that it penetrates the thread (thus binding everything together) rather than just sitting on the outside. If you want a really smooth head you can put on a second coat.
Head cement also helps in the construction of the fly, especially fragile materials like biot bodies or squirrel wings. For the biot bodies put some on the thread base before the biot is wrapped. For squirrel wings (for instance) put some on the butts of hair after only a couple of thread wraps to secure the hair prior to further wraps.
Cheers, G
