Think you have seen every type of Caddis Dry Fly? Think again. Dave shows you how to tie a simple but unusual style....La Fontaine's Dancing Caddis.
Hook - Gamakatsu C16-B - #14 https://eastrosebudflyandtackle.com/products/gamakatsu-c16-b-crippled-emerger?variant=33313411367011
Thread - Uni-Thread 6/0 - Olive Dun https://eastrosebudflyandtackle.com/products/uni-thread?variant=8801327415395
Body - Snowshoe Rabbit Foot Dubbing - Brown Olive https://eastrosebudflyandtackle.com/products/snowshoe-rabbit-foot-dubbing?variant=39292828811363
Wing - All Purpose Deer Hair - Natural https://eastrosebudflyandtackle.com/products/all-purpose-deer-hair?variant=8759851712611
Hackle - Whiting Saddle - Barred Dark Ginger https://eastrosebudflyandtackle.com/products/full-bronze-cape-1?variant=8784609017955
]]>Dave ties a very basic Rusty Spinner and describes the value of tying them sparse. He vaguely describes the entomology behind the spinner stage.
Hook - Firehole 419 - #14 https://eastrosebudflyandtackle.com/products/firehole-sticks-419?variant=51165288836
Thread - Uni Thread 6/0 - Dark Brown https://eastrosebudflyandtackle.com/products/uni-thread?variant=8801327546467 Tail - Mayfly Tails - White https://eastrosebudflyandtackle.com/products/mayfly-tails?variant=8179625230435
Abdomen - Turkey Biots - Rusty Brown https://eastrosebudflyandtackle.com/products/turkey-biots?variant=8771629154403
Wings - Sparkle Emerger Yarn & Krystal Flash https://eastrosebudflyandtackle.com/products/sparkle-emerger-yarn?variant=8643376775267 https://eastrosebudflyandtackle.com/products/krystal-flash?variant=39638906756
Thorax - UV2 Fine & Dry - Rust https://eastrosebudflyandtackle.com/products/uv2-fine-and-dry?vhttps://youtu.be/-Rg1MlcFW3sariant=5329259200553
]]>Hi everyone, Dave here with East Rosebud Fly and Tackle, welcome. Today I'm going to tie for you what I think is a tremendously innovative fly. I have to give credit to Mr. Mihulka from Oregon. He developed this fly to fish for smallmouth bass primarily. It's also a pretty decent carp fly. But what really intrigues me about this fly is his use of a hook that you really don't think of for anything but maybe a steel worm.
]]>Hi everyone, Dave here with East Rosebud Fly and Tackle, welcome. Today I'm going to tie for you what I think is a tremendously innovative fly. I have to give credit to Mr. Mihulka from Oregon. He developed this fly to fish for smallmouth bass primarily. It's also a pretty decent carp fly. But what really intrigues me about this fly is his use of a hook that you really don't think of for anything but maybe a steel worm.
And this is the old classic Mustad, I'll get my hands out the way, the English Bait hook. That's what this fly is developed on. I just think it's just immensely fascinating opportunities, some potentials here, and do it in different color, in orange, and a couple of pheasant feathers or claws, and you've got a crawdad pattern, and of course, the way this is designed with the dumbbell eyes it just sinks straight down, and it moves the whole time. It's an easy pattern to tie, just using this size six Mustad, this is the 37160, some double pupil lead eyes. Of course you can also use brass. I'm using a small, I believe. And then for the tail, of course, just your blood quill marabou for the legs, excuse me, for the body, some just regular Rayon Chenille, this is the medium size for that hook. Legs are just a black Sili Leg, crazy legs, whatever you wanna use, and then for the actual soft hackle, I'm gonna be using some black Schlappen. I've got a lot of hook to cover there and a typical hen back just won't do the job.
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So it's a quick tie, it's a very interesting fly. I know I'm looking forward to giving it a try. Okay, now like I said, we're going to use this Mustad 37160 hook. Size six is the largest that they still make this hook, but that's alright. This will hold a very big fish. I'm gonna put the hook starting in a normal orientation. And I'm just gonna lay enough of a thread base here to get these double pupil lead eyes in. We have a tremendous selection of these double pupil led and double pupil brass eyes. So, I'm just following Chris's pattern here...
This is a size small, which I like for this hook size.
I'm gonna leave a little bit of room there for the eye, and I think it settles a little better when it's not right up against the eye.
That tight to make sure that we've got that fairly square, a little bit of Zap-A-Gap.
Okay, while that's drying, I'm going to reposition the hook so we can tie in the tail, reposition this, like so. And go ahead and continue laying my thread base. And by the way, this is some six-aught black Veevus. Again, any black thread would work fine on this. And then black blood quill. I'm gonna go ahead and strip off most of this. We need a piece that's about... I'm tying them above body length. It gets enough to have some movement without getting wrapped around the actual hook itself.
Like that. With a pinch wrap, make sure we get this tied in, and then trim off the excess. Get those butts tied down, and then I'll move the hook back to its regular orientation to finish this up. Okay, for the body, I'm using some medium size, just plain Black Rayon Chenille. I like to stretch the Chenille before I use it, not quite that hard. This will take about five inches to wrap this. We'll tie it in behind the eyes. I don't like that.
It's in on top of the hook as you wrap it back, and we're gonna go all the way back to the base of the tail.
Okay. Now, for our soft hackle, I'm just going to use some black Schlappen. The length is really not all that critical. We're using it for the movement. Take care of some of this base feather. It's just long enough to do the job for this hook. I'm just going to use a tip tie in. Right here. Right mid-shake here. Then I've got some black silicone type of legs, crazy legs, whatever you wanna call them. I'm just going to put a piece on each side, about the middle, a couple of wraps there, and the same on my side. We'll trim these up as a final step. But actually, when you're wrapping things around legs, I find it much easier if the legs are left long instead of trimming them now. If you trim them now, they're difficult to get out of the way. Bring your thread forward behind the dumbbells, now I'm just going to sweep these legs forward, you could also use something like a bread twist tie to temporarily hold those out of the way and wrap our body with this Chenille.
And a wrap, make sure we have our legs situated here, wrap in the middle, and sweep our legs back out of the way, and continue wrapping. Okay.
And lastly, we take our Schlappen... Make a few wraps. So this provides extra movement for the fly. And as I harp to all of my fly tying students, your flies must look alive. That's the first thing that the fish decide upon whether they're going to eat something or not is, "Is it alive?" I'm gonna get my legs out of the way here.
Okay... Then I'm going to bring the thread underneath the dumbbell eyes back to behind the eye of the hook. I always like to tie off on the hook wire itself... And of course, you can have some head cement there if you like, Zap-A-Gap, whatever your favorite is. Chris recommends trimming the soft hackle slightly away from the eyes. I don't personally know if that's gonna make a lot of difference. I'm going to trim the legs about body length, like so.
And he calls this Mr. Right, because after many, many trials and lots of experimentation, he finally decided this was the right fly. So I think it's an interesting tie, I think it has huge opportunities, a lot of potential here, so give it a try. Thanks for joining in, we'll see you next time.
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Hey everybody, this is John Wood, and I am coming to you from East Rosebud Fly and Tackle in beautiful Billings, Montana. In this video, I am gonna do for you a Clouser minnow, I'm gonna try to tie it the way Bob Clouser are intended for this fly to be tied, because the fly is good for everything from in small sizes, bluegills all the way up to anything you can fish for in the salt water and everything in between, I have started tying these on to saltwater hooks, and the hook that I'm really loving right now is this Umpqua X-Seris SS-420. We're gonna do this one on the size two. The threat I'm gonna be using is a Uni 6/0 red, I really like that 6/0, it's big enough to do what we need to do without building up too much bulk, the eyes will be a medium brass eye, and I like these brass eye as opposed to painted lead eye, is because the Clouser tends to bounce around on a lot of debris and the eyes are very exposed and the paint will just chip right off, so we put that paint on there and then it just chips off for the Belly.
We're gonna be using the white along the edge of a natural Northern Buck Tail, and I'm gonna put all flash in the middle, which is olive a Crystal Flash that will go on before we put the wing on, which will be a light olive buck tail. And again, we'll use the pair from along the outside age of the buckets, Let's get started
Hey everybody, this is John Wood, and I am coming to you from East Rosebud Fly and Tackle in beautiful Billings, Montana. In this video, I am gonna do for you a Clouser minnow, I'm gonna try to tie it the way Bob Clouser are intended for this fly to be tied, because the fly is good for everything from in small sizes, bluegills all the way up to anything you can fish for in the salt water and everything in between, I have started tying these on to saltwater hooks, and the hook that I'm really loving right now is this Umpqua X-Seris SS-420. We're gonna do this one on the size two. The threat I'm gonna be using is a Uni 6/0 red, I really like that 6/0, it's big enough to do what we need to do without building up too much bulk, the eyes will be a medium brass eye, and I like these brass eye as opposed to painted lead eye, is because the Clouser tends to bounce around on a lot of debris and the eyes are very exposed and the paint will just chip right off, so we put that paint on there and then it just chips off for the Belly.
We're gonna be using the white along the edge of a natural Northern Bucktail, and I'm gonna put all the flash in the middle, which is olive a Crystal Flash that will go on before we put the wing on, which will be a light olive bucktail. And again, we'll use the pair from along the outside age of the buckets, Let's get started.
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Let's Get started tying this thing... Now, as you can see, I hold this up here, this is a very sparsely tied fly, and that's where some of the issues come with this thing and not getting it tie just right, the tendency, is to throw a lot of materials on there, 'cause you want a lot of ball but that's not how the fly was designed, if you put too much hair on there, especially on the belly side, it's gonna flip it and never write like this, and it's gonna do that. The fly is intended to swim like this through the water, so we'll get the hook, I'm gonna set it in here... Now, one of the things I see when beginning tyers are trying to learn how to tie this thing, set the eyes really, really close to the eye of the hook, what we really wanna do is you wanna take the shank right where the Ben starts, and we wanna divide that into thirds, and I'm gonna come one third back on the shank and build a big thread bump. And this is gonna be a pretty good sized bump, now that's gonna set exactly where my eyes are gonna be located, and what I'm gonna do is take these eyes and with my thread in front of the bump, I'm gonna loop this over the center of the eye and then drop it behind the bump, and when I do that, that's gonna pull it right up against that thread bump, now I wanna get three or four wraps one way on the eyes, and you don't see it, start to tell titled, you can see it spinning that way it's tilted.
Now I'm gonna go the other way and get the same amount of wraps, and that will even those eyes up, and this is the point where I wanna check and make sure their level with the eye of the hook, because now I'm gonna really lock these down when we start and make quite a few wraps one way, then make quite a few wraps the other way, make sure they're straight, and now I'm gonna loop between the eyes and the hook Shank several times, and what that does is that squeezes or RAPS in and then repeat the other process, and I do this several times, what that's gonna do that's gonna lock those eyes down so tightly that when I grab them and try to move them around, they should not move at all, and those are very tight. Right now, we're gonna bring the thread all the way up here to right behind the eye, and then bring it half way back between the Barbell eyes and the hook eye, then we're gonna put our belly on, and like I said, this is just a nice Northern buck tail but there's a couple of things you wanna know about this buck tail, the base of the buck tail, the hair is very hollow, it flares like the hair off the back or the body of the deer, if you put this on here and then you tighten it down, it's gonna flare out like this as get towards the end of the buck tail, the hair becomes solid.
So basically, for tying Clousers, what I wanna do is Disregard at least that bottom third of the tail, this... I don't wanna use hair from that portion of the tail, I'm gonna come up here about halfway in, and I'm gonna grab a very small clump of the white, and then snip it off. Again, I wanna emphasize the fact that this is a very sparse Fly, I don't have a lot of hair there, now, to start off, I'm gonna pull the extra long ones out and get them out of the way, and then I'm gonna grab it about an inch from the end and pull all of those hairs out of the base, all the short hairs, and what I'm gonna be left with is about 20, 25 at the most on a fly in the size, this is a size two I don't want... A lot of bulk. I'm gonna take these the shorter and pull them out a little bit, I don't even it, I don't wanna stack it, you don't want the end completely even, but you don't want it look in two, Scraggly won't have a little bit of bulk towards it in, in...
I like the hair to be about twice the length of the fly on the hook, so this one is gonna be about a little over two inches long, if I measure the hair the link that I want it, cut it, I want it cut nice and square. Now, here's a little trick to tie in the end as I've collected my hair and groomed it out, my thread has flattened out, all the twist just come out of it, and that's gonna help me if I've got a lot of twists that's gonna want to go backwards as I put that first wrap on there, but with the thread flattened, if your thread is still spun, spin your mom and counter clockwise and that'll flatten your thread out, but the end rite down behind the eye of the hook, and then make one very loose wrap. And don't pull down as you come down with this thread tension as you come up, and what that's gonna do, it's gonna pull that thread of the hair right up on top of the hook, and then I'm just gonna wrap forward, I kind of rotate it a little bit, so I'm gonna pull that back and then cover that up and get it bound down, and if you'll notice I'm not going all the way back to the eyes, I stop short, low, past halfway, and then just loop back behind the eyes, and as you pull down on the thread, pull up on the buck tail and that stacks it right up on top of the hook, which will be the bottom when we're done, and then I'm gonna spiral them back and tie that off right at the bend.
We've got kind of a candy cane spiral, and I'm gonna come back and make a Chris cross. And if you wanna strengthen it a little bit more, which is not absolutely necessary, 'cause we're gonna coat, this one, we're done, you can make another round and you were... And you'll notice there's no hair on this side of the hook Shank, it's all on what is gonna be the belly of the fly, once I get my thread back up here, I'm gonna jump it all the way up right behind the eye of the hook. Now, for a long time, I would turn this upside down in my vice or the hook point, but I finally figured out that with this style of Vice, the Jaws actually helped me tie the fly a little more correctly because it forces everything the way it's supposed to be... 'cause we want this why to create a V. So by tying against those jaws, that's gonna help us create that, now I'm gonna put some flash in here and I want it... I don't want a whole lot. So I'm just gonna use four strands of the Crystal Flash and take it and Loop it behind the thread, even it up, and then set it right up on top of the fly, make one loop in front, and then while holding up on it in a spiral back, to my tie-off point of the belly hair, make another wrap there, and now I'm gonna go behind it three times, and what that's done is it's gonna take that Crystal Flash and hold it up between the hair that makes the back and the belly.
So that flash is gonna in end up, as you can see, right in the middle, it keeps you propped up there, now we're gonna put the back in and I wanna bring this right to the center of my tie end point, and again, I wanna let that thread unwrap while it hangs there, so that it will be nice and flat, and you can see this buck tail I've cut it in half, it was the tip over here, and this one is a little fluffy or so I'm getting more out towards the end, and the way you can tell if the hair is... How is to squeeze on it and a spongy is hollow, and if you squeeze on it and that's not so spongy, then it's more solid. So again, I don't wanna use a lot of bulk, I want this fly to look pretty sparse, so... Here's the clump that I've got, it looks fairly big right now, but again, we're gonna clean a bunch of it out, I'm gonna take the longest ones out, so they have got a fairly even... And it's not too scraggy, but it's not like we've stacked it, and again, grab it about an inch from the end and brush out all the shorter hairs.
Till I get the bulk I want, and then what I'm looking for here is about twice the bulk of what I had in the belly... Again, no, it's not a whole lot. It's a lot less than you would think. This is probably 35 to 40 hairs at most, and I'm gonna measure it so that it's just a hair longer than the belly hair, because when we tilt it up, it's gonna make it appear a little bit shorter, and again, cut it to length a nice square in and this is the thing that leaving the hook in the way it was originally set, it really helps you because you want to put that hair down at a sharp angle when you put it on there, and that's what's gonna keep it clump together. As you tie it in again, very, very loosely, and as you come around on that wrap, pull your hair back to where it's all behind eye and then pull right up and keep it pinched very tightly, and then work your way right up to the eye. Now I'm gonna, as I keep that Pinched, I'm just gonna cover everything in front of that tie endpoint, and as you can see by pinching that hair like that, it's not flaring out and it stayed right up on top of the hook Shank. Get my little whip finisher here.
Whip finished this thing. And then one last step before we toughen up this fly, I pull that up there and grabbed this Crystal Flash pull it up, make sure you're not getting any hairs in there, and then list had shorter than the olive on top. Now, one of the problems with the Clouser are, If you don't reinforce it, is that this thread is very, very susceptible to fish teeth as well as right here between the eyes. It's very, very delicate. So I'm gonna use Solarez, thin hard formula. And this is something that when they first started timing the thing back in the old days, I had to use epoxy, and it was a little trickier to work with, luckily, we've got the good stuff. Now, I'm gonna put this a little bit on the back and then take my bodkin, and I wanna make sure that it coats the whole back side of that and then bring that drop up over the hair between the eyes, and then I'm gonna drop it just a tad off the back of those rear thread wraps, and once I cure this, you'll see why. Rotate this back and forth, and you could see when I let go of that, how contain this hair is for the belly, it's a nice type clump.
Now, give that another shot. I make sure I've got it everywhere. And they don't wanna do the front, and we're kind of gonna do the same thing that we did with the belly and containing that hair, you could give it the exact shape that we want, it may look like I'm putting a lot on here, but this is maybe three drops on, just kind of coaxing, not drops out of the bottle as I go around, and I wanna make sure it's where I want it, pull that hair up there. You see, I'm getting it all clumped together and then... Shoot that with my light. And again, you can see it just kind of contained everything and keep that hair in a clump and keeps it from splaying out quite so much. I just wanna make sure I've got that cured. Really, really good. And there you have it, a Clouser Minnow, you could see that it's in shape of a V, and it gives it a flat profile, and when you pull it through the water that hair is gonna collapse down and open back up, and you can also see that the Crystal Flash, because of those loops under the thread is held up in between as opposed to just laying there on the hook so tie you few up and see how they do for you.
Hey everybody, this is John Wood and I'm coming to you once again from East Rosebud Fly and Tackle in beautiful Billings, Montana. In this video, I am gonna tie for you a stable pattern, it should be in everybody's box, if you're fishing in the Rocky Mountain West, and it is Gary LaFontaine's emergent spark pupa. This is a surface caddis fly that imitates the emerging adult, and it's just... It's a spectacular fly that's based on years and years of underwater research and observation by Gary LaFontaine and his team, and it comes from... It's listed in several of his books, Caddis Flies obviously, Trout Flies, Proven Patterns, and also in the Dry Fly New Angles, but if you're gonna fish Caddis hatches and you're fishing a Caddis Hatch, you can't get them to take a curtain fly like the standard elk hair caddis is probably because they're keyed in on the mergers, this fly right here is the ticket, will do it for you, so this one we're gonna tie for you today, I'm gonna tie it on a size 16 Timeco 100 hook, just your standard dry fly hook, any standard dry fly hook will do for this by the shuck on this, and the bubble is a burnt orange antron yarn, and you can see it's a pretty bright color, the body is a combination in his mixed of bright green insect Green, antron and insect green hair dubbing.
Deer hair for the wing we're gonna use, I like this dark spinning hair, now, you can see it didn't really flare 'cause I'm right out towards the ends when we tie this in, and it's gonna give me just in a flare, but not too much, and then they head on this fly, which creates that forward shroud. I have cut off hair from a hair mask, the reason I like to do this is because it lets me control the color, as you can see, the edges are really light and a center really, really dark and by using the dark and the light, and then around the back, some of this red that you can see right here, you're able to get a really, really modeled color out of that. So let's get started with started see if we can tie one up.
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Okay, so let's tie Gary LaFontaine sparkle emergent pupa. This is a caddis emerger pattern, this works really, really well in situations where they're Caddis on the water, but you can't get the trout to take a dry... I'm gonna start by putting my thread on there, I'm gonna come back and be just a little bit short of the start of the hook, man, and what I've done is I've pulled off a link of the burnt orange antron and kind of not right in the middle. To double that over and trim the ends, so that they're nice and even, I'm gonna start by bringing my thread back forward about halfway and catch one half on the back side of the hoop, and then attach the other half... Evenly that real quickly. On my side of the hook and catch it in my material clip there. Now, what this is gonna allow me to do is create that shroud that goes all the way around the body in this way... Now, I'm gonna take my thread back to the start of the bend of the hook, there a couple of ways you can tie this... Some people like to tie off the shuck first and then do the bubble around the fly, I like to come back later, and I'll show you we're gonna pick that trailing shuck out.
Now they've got my shock in place, you're gonna come up here and a little dubbing wax to my thread, I don't mean a ton, I don't need a long surface covered with it. Now, this is the two beings that I mentioned, they've been blended together and I've got them in my little make shift coming dispenser. I just find it a lot easier to use. I'm gonna pinch it out and just kinda touch it on to the thread And it's a technique that Gary called Touch Dubbing, and you just put it on there. And for this portion for the body, I do like to give it to us a little bit of a twist to kinda contain it, so it doesn't get so wild, so I've just touched that under the wax and then lightly created a noodle, but I'm not... I didn't wrap it real tight, I don't wanna completely contain because inside that bubble, you want those fibers nice and loose, so that they'll catch air bubbles, which will imitate that mirrored look that these bugs get when they're merging, when the air... The gas that's created gets trapped inside that shuck that's being shed. Now you can see I'm about a little over two.
I links back from the eye of a hook, that's where I stopped, and I brought my thread back to the eye 'cause I want a little thread base to really lock this shuck down once I get it in place and we'll pull it around. Oh, it's snug, and you can grab the two pieces of andtron front of the eye and kinda pinch it, and then just push that back and then very lightly loop over that, and I'm using my thumbnail on my finger tip to keep the thread from shifting forward 'cause I want these wraps, just rite in front of the under-body on this fly, now I can just kind of take this with just those two kind of loose wraps and make sure that that Antron distributed... I'm gonna turn this up here so I can look at the bottom side, make sure it's distributed all the way around the hook Shank, and I like that nice bubble, that's a really good bubble for this, you can make it too big. And it's much easier to make it too small because you want it big enough, again, like I said, to catch air, once you've treated this with some good floating to catch air inside the shock to help the Antton imitate that ease that they get when they're emerging.
Right now, I'm gonna lock that down really, really good, and then pull up that Antron clip it as close as I can to the hook shank, I wanna make sure that I don't have anything up here further, the back of than the eye of the hook, and then wrap up that those... But now I've got my under body and are shuck and for the wing, like a nice dark deer hair, and I'm just gonna pull off... This is a fairly fine deer hair, it's not gonna flare a whole lot, but I is gonna give me a little bit of flare. Put that off of that. You can see how much I've got. Put that off the skin, I'm gonna clean this out real quick, I usually end up clipping a little bit more than I'm gonna need, that allows me to look at what I've got and then decide exactly how much I want, and I know this just from trying... So many of them, you just get to where you can feel it, and I'm gonna take this, put it in my handy-dandy stacker... I won't set. I'm using this a Loon stacker, or I really like it because it's got that window in the front and you can look down in there and see if your tips or even...
And when you get everything even, do you just flip it up and you've got a really nice long length you can grip. Whoop, you know what, I got ahead of myself, 'cause we didn't... I didn't pick out the shuck... Let's, before I get that on there. Alright, I've got my bodkin, I'm just gonna come up here and I'm gonna pick these fiber from the top, because we don't really need them up on the top of that, that's gonna be covered up, and I don't want a whole lot. I've got like eight or 10 fibers are, and that's it, and that's gonna be enough to catch a whole lot of light and imitate the shuck on that fly, and by picking it out, I've already set my length when I cut it... So the length that I pick out, I already know what length that's gonna be once, pick it out. Alright, back to the wing stack this is never as easy the second time, get the... Alright, now, now the tips, I want them to be just a hair longer than the bend of the hook, so I've got that set right back there, and I'm gonna take that, transfer it to my left hand and pinch that down real time and then make a loose wrap, and then as I come back around, applying the pressure by pulling up, and what that does is it keeps you from pulling the hair around the hook, if you start and apply pressure as you go around on the first wrap, it's just automatically the tension of the thread is gonna try to roll that hair onto the other side of the hook, but by pulling upward, the tension is even all the way around and it just sucks it down in place.
Now, once I get it locked down with two or three wraps, I'm just gonna come through it right through the hair and make those wraps and that locks it down even more, and your wing is right up on top, I wouldn't let go of that way till I've trimmed it, but I wanted you to see what was going on. So brush that out of the way, clip that off, get it out of the way of the eye of the hook, unlike the elk hair caddis, we're not building a big hand with the deer hair, we're gonna build our head with a dubbing in a minute, and it's gonna also add to the illusion of the emerging shock, I've got that in place now. I'm gonna come back a little bit, and I'm gonna tell you that I've got that tied just a little bit of forward a little more than I actually like it, but we're gonna use the head to kind of camouflage that. Then you can see it's kind of buggy, I've got some of the under-body sticking out through the shuck, and that's good, 'cause that'll imatate legs and it's just another trigger on the fly.
Now for the head, I'm gonna use the touch dub technique again, or you just put a little wax on your trend, and then I got my hair mask that I've tried and put in this little empty our whole hook, I'm gonna pull those fibers out and I just want a little bit, not too much. At a time, I'm just gonna lay them flat over that, I'm not gonna spend them at all, just lay it on to the thread on the wax now to hold this hair, I'm gonna put my fingers on either side of the thread, on my side and just kinda get that back on the hook, I'm just kind of fold it over and then it comes around like that once you get it started, it works fairly well. It kinda holds itself in place. Work my way towards the eye of the hook and kinda write up behind the eye in the book, and then slide this back and let back contain all of it and build a head. And then we whip finish shop the head of fly, then I've taken just all of that extra here's mask off of there, and then you can see there's not a lot left, but the head of the fly covered up and it's a super buggy-looking fly to treat this with some good liquid floatant.
I like to use the Loon Locsa, it's just a personal preference. Treat it really good before you fish it, if you wanna fish it under the surface, you can put a little split shot out in front of it or just don't treat it and squeeze it wet before you put it in the water and it'll fish just a few inches under the surface. So this is extremely versatile fly, this is my color that I've had a lot of luck on just across the country with that burnt orange and green, bright green body, so give that a try and fish it through any caddis hatches that you see, especially if they're not taking the surface is the adults, I think it'll do good for.
However, one Dave here, East Rosebud Fly and Tackle in Billings, Montana. Good morning, it's June, which means it's a damsel fly season. How I developed the pattern, I wanna call it a goggle eyed damsel fly, this is a light damsel meant to be fish right underneath the surface, to be chain eyes and a little bit of a epoxy on the wing case. Give it just a little bit of weight. So when you quit retrieving, it slowly dies when you start treating, it picks back up, and I'm using the Daiichi swimming larva hook, and that's going to help with the motion on this particular fly... Let's see, thread-wise, I'm just gonna be using some Uni 6/0 Olive little strip of 0.25 lead weight that's just to help make sure at this damsel floats in the right direction. And then for the tail and the hackle, I'm gonna be using this Whiting soft hackle with the Chickabou on it, is actually a tremendous value, there's a ton of feathers on this, you can buy the Chickabou separately, but then you don't get all the soft tackle in here, so this fly is dedicated to Dr. Whiting and his products and his Chickabou soft hackle, the body is just Midge Diamond Braid just to wrap on that.
And then for the thorax, I'm using a strip of bug skin, this is actually a goat leather thin very fine Chuck for Mike's developed this, and this was a paralyzed Olive, but I found out it really doesn't make a lot of difference. I'm going to tie this in so that I actually bring the dull side up, and when I hit it with the Solarez thick that really darkens that leather and gives me a darker one case.
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Hook: Daiichi 1770 Swimming Nymph size 6
Thread: Olive 6/0 uni
Eye: Chartreuse Bead Chain
Tail: Whiting Farms Grizzly Chickabou Dyed Olive
Lead: 0.25
Body: Diamond Braid Green
Hackle: Whiting Farms Bamha Grizzly Dyed Olive
Thorax: Bug skinFinish: Solarez Thick
Hi everyone, Dave here at East Rosebud fly and tackle and Billings, Montana. Welcome, I know it's been a while. The rumors of my early death have been a bit exaggerated... I know, I apologize, it's just that we've been so busy here at the shop, opening two additional stores trying to get all this material crawled up in a POS system, so hopefully I'm back in the saddle here and we can get this to you at least once every month or so. So the first one I'm going to tie for you is actually a fly that I just did as a lark, it appeared in the autumn version of tyer magazine, Barry Ord Clarke, who is a Norwegian tyer in an outstanding tyer. Just outstanding, he had this in the magazine, so I thought, What the heck, I'll give it a try. Well, it's been a top seller here at the shop, so this is called the jelly bean, I don't know the history of this fly, so I don't wanna take anybody's credit for this, I certainly didn't develop it, but it's a cool little fly, it can be tied in a variety of colors, you can use ostrich herl which I'm using here, you could use hackle, you can tie it in any variety of different colors, wires, everything, the key components really are just really scud hook.
Some type of wire, I'm using a brassy UTC wire, and then the most important part, of course, is the ostrich, and then the topping I'm using solar EZ, this is the medium. The thin is just... Runs too quickly, it's hard to capture and cure before it gets out of hand, and the thick is too thick. So it's kind of like the three bears. This is the one in the middle, there are a couple of different tips which can be used, and fortunately, the ones that loon sells also fits these bottles, so the green one, which they typically sell with the thick or stuff, or this pink one, it's up to you I think the Pink gives me a little bit better control. So that's what we're gonna use. Florescent thread is important. I'm using UTC 140 Florescent pink thread. And we might as well get to work.
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Jelly bean
Hook: Daiichi 1120
Thread: Uni 140 Denier
Herl: Ostrich
Wire: Brassie smaller
Resin: Solarez Medium (Use a high quality U.V. Lamp is recommended, cheaper options tend to leave the resin uncured)
So we're gonna lay a thread base.
Here, just a little bit around the bend, don't worry too much about a really even thread base, it's gonna be covered with the ostriches, go ahead and flatten your thread, which is a nice characteristic of UTC thread. Then I'm going to take some brassy wire, just a few inches here for one fly.
I am going to tie Wire in on the far side of the hook.
I Think what I'm going to do is lower my chair, how about that? All the way down to the end of your thread base now, since the ostrich doesn't leave much of a footprint, I don't really tie it all the way back up to the eye. Plus the way I do it still going to take about 5 inch here to get this done now, if you run out of ostrich when you're wrapping it, you can certainly phase in a second piece, it's not that big of a deal, but it does take quite a bit of ostrich. When you tie in the ostrich, you wanna make sure that the Quill is against the hook Shank, because we're going to flip this when we wrap it so that the Quill is forward, you'll see how bushy that makes the body. And ostrich is just like peacock in that way. So if you've never done this before with hospice Peacock, you'll be amazed how much it flops out. Well, I said Makes a tie off much cleaner because the Quill will be leading each wrap, so make sure, again, with ostrich and co, the herl does not grow directly off of the sides, it grows in a Y shape pattern.
We wanna make sure we have the actual Quill down against the hook again, so he had me tie it to the back and then I bring my thread forward, and just to get it out of the way, I'm going to hang it on my Bobbin holder.
Now, you can use the rotary function of your hook or your vise, if you'd like on this, I find that until I get around the hook point itself, I like to wrap it by hand to give me more control, or remember what you're wrapping... Here is a spring. So if you let go of this, this is gonna unwind faster than you can come up with a bad word.
So you wanna make sure that when you're winding this, the quill part is leading and the herl is following, that way we get the maximum density... Take your time, particularly at the tip. The here is not that. Thick, it's easy to break. Just.
Continue to wrap this forward and touching wraps.
I'm sure my camera man can speed this up. You do wanna make sure you get it on hackle pliers... Oh, as soon as you can... Again, if you let go of that, the whole thing is going to unwrap, I find it also makes a tie-off more secure, so still the Quill is leading were going to carefully wrap this right behind the eye.
0:06:12.7 S2: This fly is not difficult to tie, it is time consuming in some parts, wrapping this, and also the many layers of solar as I'm going to apply, but it is an easy fly-to tie and it's very effective. I'm sure it's being used for more things than just a Scud...
A couple of wraps to tie that off securely, it can be difficult sometimes when you have a curve to the whip finish wants to slip off. The trick is make sure the barrel of your whip finished tool is on the same plane as the hook itself, then it won't slip off. Now next, I'm going to damp in this and lay this hurl down to the bottom of the fly, the trick here is not to use any more water than you have to, and as you know, I am not a proponent of putting this stuff in my mouth a lot of these dyes are really not all that permanent, so I just have a sponge a little bit of water and just press it down underneath the hook, the wetter you get this, the longer it takes this ostrich to dry, so it does not need to be all that wet. And.
Then using this UV cure resin, you wanna make sure that all of your layers and it's going to take several layers are very, very thin. That's why I'm using this thin or nozzle, and you want it tapered, so make sure that you let off, solarez as recommends a one-second flash cure, but it sit for about 10-second sets to help dissipate some of the heat from that catalytic conversion. And then come back again in 10 seconds.
So as we're building this body up, you wanna make sure it's actually more control of squeezing the bottle than anything, and your placement of your layers.
We wanna make sure we're making a tapered body under body, so my next layer is going to start short of where I started the previous, and I'm going to stop short of where I did the previous, that way we keep the semi-circular shape and keep it... Thin you can always come in with your bodkin, push us around if you don't like words at... And this is part of the time-consuming process is just curing these layers, we want an under layer that's thick enough to where the wire will appear to be floating in between the different layers of resin, and I find that it typically takes me a good three sometimes four under layers until I get the height that will give me that. And.
This particular light from solarez is their most powerful light, you can feel the heat, if I was using any smaller light, I would be carrying it for two or three times longer than I am here.
So our next layer again, we start a little shorter of where we entered the other... Almost there, I'm not sure how well you can see the difference between the actual top of the ostrich and the top of our layers solarez, but it does take a few layers, don't get in a hurry and try to make them thick because before you can get the light on them, they're starting to slide off of the side, which is not really what you want, and you can put your resin either direction... Just depends on what you're comfortable with. Alright, I think that'll be enough. We can wrap our wire next time, and if you've used the minimum amount of moisture when you push this off ostrich down, it'll be almost dry by the time it's time to wrap the wire, and that just makes wrapping the wire that much easier. It goes between the herl and doesn't attract it, that we take our wire... Sometimes you need a bodkin just to make a separation, make as many wraps as you like...
Well, I have tied many, many, dozens of these, or this is about as fast as I can make them, whatever this time is.
So now we'll take a layer over the wire, and because I'm right-handed, I can't see this front side as well, I wanna make sure that I have some UV resin where I have my wire crossing, once again, we hit it with the light off of it, check your wire, and make sure that it's... You can break it off or you can cut it off for what I have found that this UV Cure, even though it's cured, It's not at its maximum hardness, I always put these up in the window for 12 hours or whatever... For the final hardness, I find that if I try to twist the wire off, I end up breaking some of this UV resin off, so I just go ahead and cut it. Now we're just going to make a layer or two just to give this impression of this floating wire really is a fun fly. And one thing you can do to give this fly a little more motion, of course, the motion is in the gills here itself, I impress on all my fly-tying students and movement is the key factor in any fly, it's what fish look for, it's what they've learned, it's a very young fry that if it moves its edible, you can put on a thicker top coat and simply let gravity adjust this resin and give you a more Hump Back shape.
What this does is this makes is unbalanced.
So when you retrieve this slowly through the water, it actually helps to flip this fly, so it just gives it a little bit of extra movement, and if I hadn't told you that, you probably realize that's what that's for.
For... And the final peer is going to be it, so hopefully you could see through the camera how this rib seems to float in a transparent field.
To very, very hardy flies. You can imagine, I can think you're going to lose it long before this thing is going to come apart since it's solid reside, but anyway, give it a try, have some fun. It doesn't take much in the way of materials. Thanks for joining us. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know and we'll see you next time.
Hi everyone Dave here at East Rosebud Fly and Tackle in Billings, Montana, tis the season spring is here, bugs are starting to hatch, today I'm going to tie for you a different Cates pupa. Now remember in the Caddis life cycle, the pupa is the most vulnerable stage, so it is the type of the stage that you should be fishing the most often, the pupa raise rise from the bottom up to the top, sometimes they stall, they go back down to come back up, sometimes they hang up under the surface film, and this whole time during view of the fish, and this applies to both River Caddis and lake and pond caddis.
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Hook: Standard Nymph Hook Size 12
Thread: 8/0 Veevus brown
Dubbing: SLF Squirrel
Wax: Overton's Wonder wax
Vail: Polar Fibre
Antennae: Ringneck Pheasant tail fibers
Legs: Hungarian Partridge
The pupa is a very, very important life pattern to be fishing, I'm gonna be tying... It's called a Ghost pupa. This is kind of a take-off from a pattern from John Goddard, who is a British fly tyer, a noted author fisherman. It's a little different than the sparkle pupa, the Gary LaFontain developed, it's a little easier to tie, but it's very much in the same vein and that we have a body, we have... And I'll show you how the sheath changes once it's wet and antenna and some beard tackles for legs, very easy pattern to tie.
I'm going to start off with just a standard M hook, this is a size 12, it's one extra strong 1X long, and you can easily tie these down to smaller sizes. I'm using Veevus 8/0 Brown thread. I like the Veevus thread for this because I'm going to be using touch dubbing and I need a thread that will hold wax well, and will also hold dubbing well.
So we wanna start about an eye length and a half behind the eye to leave a little room.
Just enough to capture the thread. Now, I'm gonna be using a product that Alan & Gretchen Beatty provide Teatro dubbing. It's a touch dubbing, they used to make this for Gary LaFontaine when he was still alive, so very easy is a synthetic mix. Very fine. And for touch dubbing, all you need is a tacky dubbing wax They make theirs. We carry overtons. Hairline also has a sticky dubbing wax, all you have to do then make sure you don't have a lot of wax exposed out of the tube, this is really a little too much because it then tends to clog up on the thread, so I just want a little bit of wax on there, and.
Then all you have to do is get your dubbing and just kind of just roll it down there on the thread, keep it thin... That's the key to touch... Dubbing is to keep it thin... I also like to dub in two directions, I'll be dubbing backwards and in dubbing back forwards, that helps to trap that dub, and I'm going to spin the thread a little bit, that also helps capture it, so just like wrapping thread were going to wrap it, not exactly touching wraps but fairly close, we wanna build up a conical shape body, make sure we're all the way down to the end of the hook Shank, and then reverse the process. I wanna come within about an eye of the end of the hook, a little bit more dubbing here, and this dubbing is available in a variety of colors, but you can really use any dubbing, natural or synthetic, that's fine enough that will allow you to use this as we come forward, I'm gonna just make the wraps a little bit closer, just to taper this a little bit, but the key again is don't over do the wax and keep the dubbing very, very sparse.
Alright, perfect. We'll go ahead and finish our thread to find handy eye and then back... Now, what I got from John Goddards pattern is really a material that I would never think of to use for nymph, and this is called Polar fiber. Do you look at this and you think, streamer, but this is actually a fantastic material for this particular application, it's silly fine, it comes in a lot of different colors and it's much easier to tie in, then with the sparkle pupa, you have two bunches of Antron that you have to then come out... Fold over and do all of that. It takes very little of this is going to cut some off here, it does have a bit of under fur to it. I'm just going to clean that out a little bit, and just like on any material, this needs to be... Translucent is as close as you can get to transparent, so don't overdo the amount that you use, so I'm just going to square off, and that was closest to the mat on that, tie this, a couple of wraps here, and I'm simply going to bring this around the fly on the other side, he put fairly tight, but again, this is the veil, A or two to secure it, it really changes significantly when it's wet, and I'll show you that here at the end...
Alright, for antenna, simply going to use a couple of ringneck pheasant tail fibers. Some of these pupa have antenna that are as much as two and a half times the length of the body, some are shorter, but I think it adds kind of an elegant touch to the fly on loose wrap, secure it. Make sure it's centered and tie it down. Pattern also calls for revered, which is simply some fibers underneath to represent the legs. People seem to have a difficult time tying that, of course, if you're tying it underneath it can be difficult, but I'm going to show you a method that makes it much easier regardless of whether you have a rotary capable Vice or whether you wanna tie it in just like it is, I'm just going to use a common partridge feather, and I say Just Hungarian partridge. I'm going to stay with a brown feather since we have tan and brown here, clean off the bottom of the feather, have it by the tip and express the Hackle. What we're doing here initially is determining how long we want this bear to be, so typically from about behind the eye to about the hook point, then.
Then I cut the tip out.
And now we determine the thickness of the beard by how much we retain on the Quill I don't want a lot of fibers on this, I think that's more than enough. And strip those away. So this is what we have, just a V-shape is the foe method been around a long time. Simply tie it in with a couple of not real tight wraps like that, and then pull the coil until you get the feather positioned where you want it centered under the hook and the hackle to about the hook point like that. Very easy. A couple of raps to secure it, trim it off. Then we'll whip finish. So that's what it looks like in the dry form, but when it gets wet, and this is where the difference really comes in, is this...
See how the water collapses, that polar fiber, the sheath becomes almost invisible, and it looks very much like a real caddis pupa, as you saw, it only took a couple of minutes to tie, it's very, very quick, very easy to adjust to different colors, different hook sizes you could even use a scud, if that's what you prefer. You can weight it with some wire, you could put a bead on it, a lot of options here.
So give it a try. Polar fibers is a remarkable material, I think another fiber that might do just about the same, although I haven't tried it, is floral fiber that has much of the same consistency.
Thanks for joining in. Any questions or comments? Please let us know if I'll see you next time.
Besides the right fly on the water the right gear such as Simms Flyweight Stockingfoot Wader and a pair of Korkers River Ops Wading Boots. You defiantly need to get on the river with the perfect Sage Fly Rod and Abel Reel to enhance the experience of fighting and landing that trophy trout.
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Everybody, this is John Wood, and I am coming to you again from East Rosebud fly and tackle in Billings, Montana. Today, I wanna do for you, this is a modified fly from Charlie Craven, this is a modification of his Gonga, and I got a call a while back from a fellow who wanted some gangs, but he was taking them to the coast of Texas, and he wanted to fish for red fish. Well, ravens Gonga writes her point down, and since red fish are bottom feeders, that kinda creates a lot of problems, especially when you're around weeds and things, so I have modified this so it will fish point up and instead of putting the eyes in the hook up, I'm putting them on the bottom. And what we're gonna use is, I like the tides on these series hooks, this one is the 420 in a size 1 and the eyes, we're gonna use our painted ladies size medium. I wanna get that down fast, the tail is this mini bar bugger, boo TA bar black, and then we're gonna have a little Crystal Flash in the tail Root Beer, and it will be wrapped with white shopping, the body is a medium tactical, it's got a little bit shorter fibers than the standard, and this is gonna be in Root Beer also, and then these bare legs in sand and Orange, we're gonna use four of those, and then the head is gonna be built with pseudo hair.
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Now, one thing I wanna point out about the pseudo-hair is when you purchase your fur or doing this, make sure you get the fur that's got the super fine tips on it, some of the fur is sold from different suppliers has wide flat tips, and that's not gonna quite work, it will work for this that we put over the top, but when it comes to spinning the head, it just doesn't work out right. Alright, so let's get started on this red fish Gonga fly, which is a modified version of Charlie Cravens gonga. And I'm gonna put my hook and it's like we said, this is X series, excess 420 and the Vice, I want a point down, and the thread I'm gonna use on this particular one is a uni thread, 6/0 in Rusty Brown. Now, to set my eyes, I'm gonna come back. About one hook eye width behind the eye and build a big thread bump. I'm gonna use this thread bump to position my eyes, and this is gonna keep me from letting those eyes slide too far forward, once I get my thread bump built, drop the straight in front of the Bump, gonna take my eyes, make one loop over the center of the eye and drop it behind that thread, bump another loop, and then I'm gonna twist the eyes a little bit and make a few loops the other direction, and what I'm doing is I'm going at a 45 from one side to the other between the eyes, trying to get those positioned in the center...
There we go. Now, I'm just gonna make several wraps one direction, and then several wraps the other direction, make sure they're straight and level, and then I'm gonna make wraps between the hook shank and the bottom of the eyes, make several wraps There, and Then Repeat this procedure of making the 45 degree or wraps, one direction and then the other, and then loop again between the eyes and the hook Shank. What that's doing is it's collecting all of those thread wraps and snugging them up to the point to where I cannot move those eyes, even if I wanted to... You can see it, it's moving the hook Shank until it did spin. Now, I'm gonna have to do that again. Here we go, got a little too rough with it. Alright, so those are nice and tight right where I want em. And I'm gonna come back to just slightly beyond the bend of the hook, which if you let your thread drop, that's gonna be right at the front of where the bar is on this particular hood. Now we're gonna take this Barredd mini Marabou used for our tail, and I want it to be a little bit longer than the entire hook I havpe at a quarter of a inch, grab that between my left finger and thumb, sintch it in place, and I'm gonna pull my thread up here, and this is something that I wanna point out is we need to leave a gap between the dumb bell eyes and where we stop the body, so that we've got room to build the head and...
Set that wing on top. So I bring my thread forward, and the reason I do that before I pull my marabou down is to make sure I'm in the right spot, and then I can just lock this Marabou down really good, exactly where it needs to be, trim it. And then get it secured in place, now again, I'm gonna stop a little bit short of where my tail tie-in point is with my thread, so that I can set my Crystal Flash and the angle that I want it, because this fly is gonna be riding on the bottom, I want this Crystal Flash, which is about four strands to kind of stick up off the bottom a little bit so the fish get a little bit better visibility of it, and to do that... Sorry, one of those short... Let me grab another one. Okay, I need this all to be full length, I actually got five, which is fine, I just don't wanna get carried away and put 10 or 12 of them in there, so let's do this the right way. I'm gonna fold that in half, even up the ends, put that around and cut it in the middle, that's gonna give me almost exact link that I'm looking for.
Now, you're not gonna be able to see this as I do it, but I'll explain it to you. I want those Crystal Flash pointing down below the marabou, and I wanted about the link to tail, and I'm gonna clamp it over here, and it's sitting at an angle with the loose ends up near the top of the hook, Shank, lock that in and holding it in place wrap back to where I was and when I let go, that flash is actually on top of the... Marabou bring my thread back forward, fold this over here, and then this side, you can see what's going on a little better, I'm gonna hold that really tight in place, walk it down there, and that... Crystal Flash is right where I want it. Quickly, I'm gonna flip this over and trim that second bunch, 'cause they're just a little bit long. Okay, now for a body, you're gonna put this medium cactus chenille in Wait a minute, first, let's put our schlappen in 'cause that's what we're gonna palmer it with. Now, I'm gonna take, even though we're not using that portion, I'm gonna go ahead and get that fluff off of the base, 'cause it just gets in the way, it makes things a little trickier to operate, and then grab it by the tip and groom those fibers back.
Like any other feather, this feather has got a cup to it, it cups downward, this is the top side of the feather, and that's the bottom, I want that cup downward when I tie it in, bring that right back there, close to that and I wanna catch in not only the STEM, but a few of the barbs of the hackle, and that's just gonna make that tie in point just a little bit stronger, wrap it forward, clip that tip, bring this is up for a little bit. And then now we're gonna put in the medium cactus chenille, I wanna make sure I get quite a bit of that so that it's very secure, and then I'm gonna come right back up here to our tie-off point where we ended our marabou. Notice we've still got a gap right there, take that chenille and just kinda wrap it on there and brush it back and they go, so it's nice and full. Once you get that rhythm going, it just kinda works or we will till you Drop it like that, and I want it fairly thick, right up to the point where we had tied in the butt of our, tie that in clip it with a little extra line so that we've got something to really lock it in it, now I'm gonna take my schlappen and then we're gonna Palmer that forward, as you do you wanna brush the barbs backwards.
Alright. And just kinda... No, gotta get that up on top of that chenille so that it will stay in place. There we go. I'm gonna try to make about six, seven, maybe even eight wraps here, and just keep that stuff back, keep all your barbs going back as we go around, I want it to be fairly thick, but you can see that that cactus chenille still showing through there as an under body. Again, I'm gonna bring that right up to that same tie-off point to get up there and strip those out of the way so they don't get in my way, and then walk that down. And again, I'm gonna trim this so I've got a little bit of a stub, I can brush the bar back with my left hand and then catch that stub and make sure it is completely secured, and then I'm building a little tapper right here in that gap. You can see that pretty well, I hope. Now I'm gonna go upside down and we're gonna put the legs on, and these are the bi-colored, this is orange and sand, and just get some glitter in there, and I want four legs to click them off on and off of the other by the end.
My thread right behind the eyes, pop him over the thread, even up the ends and then just kinda pull it upward and lock that down now, holding tension on the thread, I'm gonna pull that half of those legs over to one side and lock them down. At would be about the 10 O'clock position on one side, and then use the other group and go to about the 2 o'clock position, and that kinda keeps them from being on the bottom side, but they're gonna be in a good position for coming out on the head and so they're not in the way while I'm spinning the head, I wanna take these and put them in my handy-dandy material holder, just come and walk them down in here a little bit, if I can get that to work. Come on, Spring. There we go. All them back. Now, I don't have to worry about is getting in the way, dampen that and push it back. Now for the wing, I'm gonna take some of this pseudo hair and I'm gonna use my scissors to kind of pull some up... Separate it from the rest of it. You see, I've got about two inches of her there, that's maybe a quarter into wider more, and I'm just gonna clip it as close as I can, write down on that cloth backing.
Now, I wanna take this and using a brush, this is a eye Brow, any kind of brush. Well, do I wanna get all the short fibers right out of the base, I just want the longer stuff...
You can see what I've got there, I've got of a little point, and I want this about the same lenght as the entire body, just gonna transfer that to the other hand and tie it right there and wrap right back to where everything else is tied in. Secure it forward, and then I'm going to clip the butt portion off and save it, and we're gonna use that for part of the head, now I wanna brush these, separate it on either side of the hook and just kinda pull that back down tightly against the schlappen and get it out of the way. And we're gonna build a dubbing loop. Now, I tie this, I do just say about four and a half insist what I've worked out for this size fly in, make a couple of rounds around there, drop my bobbin and over the two threads over here so that they'll come together right at the fly and then bring everything up here, and that's long enough that I can let my dubbing twister rest and I'm gonna take one more clump of the pseudo hair, about the same as what I had before I. Cut it off right at the fabric backing, and we're gonna do the same thing, I'm gonna grab it up here, about half an inch from the butts and then brush out all the really short fibers, it's gonna take some of the bulk out...
Those fibers would be too short to be of any use to us in the head anyway. So you see what I've got. Now, I'm gonna cut this at one-third at the butt and two-thirds at the tip, and we're gonna use these in our dubbing loop gonna start with the longer pieces from the tips, we'll get some dubbing lack on here, you wanna kind of liberally Coat this, make sure everything's gonna stick. No blobs, but you definitely want it really well, waxed the blobs off of there. Now again, no, take these tips, and I wanna stick the butt through there, it's just easier to handle them that way because the but are a little bit stiffer, opening this up with my fingers on my left hand, slide that up there to you, bump right up to the eyes don't go past that, because when you start spinning, you won't be able to get that hair to spin where it's behind the eyes in the dubbing loop. Now I'm gonna take the portion that I trimmed off from the wing, open it up, and again, open the dubbing loop, slide that in there, kind of tap it down in place, and I'll show you what this doing looks like.
Before we start spinning that, and then this last little bunch work that in there... There we go. Now, what that's done is it's kind of created a slight taper, I've got my longest hair right up here 'cause I wanna create a bit of a shroud. Now I can just spin that. And I don't wanna put too much pressure on that as I'm spinning it, because if you pull it too tight, you don't get as much spin up here, you want it snug but not super tight, so that you do get spin near the fly. Otherwise, all your spin, if you pull that too tight, I've found you end up with more spend here than you do near the fly, so you can see it starting to... Kinda came up a little bit in the center. That's where I want, I don't wanna over do it. 'cause you break that thread, it's not that strong, and now I'm gonna take my brush again and I'm just gonna kinda lightly brush that out, you wanna be cared for brushing against the threads so that you don't cut it, especially if you're using a metal brush because it will the tips are pretty sharp and will cut that thread, and then you're starting over, and we've got a lot of time in this fly, I don't wanna mess it up now.
Alright, now, with it up like this, We wanna save our thumb and finger, the tendency is to wanna work from the top, but you end up with the thumb that looks like you've just caught a bunch of Pike and tried to lip them, so I'm gonna do this from down underneath for that, and you can see I'm wrapping right at the back of where all that thread base has been built up and do the same thing, and then we wrap it on like a hackle, I'm just gonna go over the next wrap right in front of it, don't let yourself pull it back on to where you're stacking 'cause you'll end up with a big thick walking back into the head, and you won't have enough left for the front... I've got three, this is my fourth wrap right here, and you can see that that ad is in a thick... I'm gonna go one more, and I'm squeezing that right up in behind the eyes, right up in that little dumbbell gap, and then as I come around after that fourth one, I'm gonna pull the fibers back, me get my thread a little better.
And I'm coming around, I keep pulling that back and that's gonna fill that gap between the dumbbells you... I'm not sure you can see how far back that thread is, but it's right back between the dumbbells and just keep doing that until... We've run out of brush. Now, in the beginning, I said I made my loop about four and a half inches, you can see that I'm about a half inch here, and then we had about a quarter inch, so you're using about three and three-quarter inches of dubbing Loop. Now, once I've got the brush all used up, I'm gonna wrap my time thread twice around the diving loop thread and then make a couple of wraps a... Okay, now I've got my dumbing look down on a trim it back here. And how... Before I do my whip finish, make sure I've got all of this fur really back as best I possibly can, and I can see the end of my dubbing loop. And I wanna make sure that I'm grabbing that with my wrap prior to doing the whip finish, I want dubbing loop secured, 'cause I don't want this head coming apart when I'm fishing it.
Here I go. I mean, just put a nice solid whip finish on there, trim it and now we can trim the head... Here's a product, I really like, it's this bucket, this trash bucket, I really love that because I don't have to worry about this stuff going everywhere when I'm doing a trimming like this, now I'm just kinda using my brush to pick that hair out to tease it out and get it all standing straight out from the hook Shank. What I don't wanna do is get this hair that I tied in for the back, caught in that, so make sure you keep that groomed out of the way. Now I start with the back for the bottom of the fly, and I'm gonna cut this way right here, and then that way, right there, you can even pull up on these hairs, get that bottom cut perfectly flat, and this is something that's slightly different from... Charlie's Gonga because that hand is rounded on that one because it's meant to swim through the water, call them at that bottom time flat, and I'm gonna come here to trim in front of my eyes one of the time... Now where everything standing out away from the hook, I'm gonna trim towards the point of the hook, and that's gonna give me the head shape that I want...
You don't wanna get too carried away and trim it flat, 'cause then you're just treating your head off, and then for the sides, you can see you... That's kind of flared out right there, and I don't wanna trim all that off 'cause I wanted to transition to be kind of sudle so I'm kind of lift as a trim that's gonna give it, as you can see, a sudle transition, it's not a sharp edge, but they do the same thing over here... With my brush, brush all the excess off. Now, I'm gonna release my legs and I wanna trim them to where they're just a hair longer and the tail... Now, I'm gonna pull this out of the vise and do one more little trimming from the other direction... Just to kind of contain everything. Again, I'm putting my scissors and cutting from above the point of the hook, so I don't cut that too short, and when we're done, I put my little thing away... Finally, there is Redfish Gonga, a modified version of Charlie Cravens Gonga streamer.
]]>Hey, this is John Wood, and I am coming to you from East Rosebud Fly and Tackle in Billings, Montana. In this video I'm gonna tie for you fly known as the balanced Leach, and this is a version that was taught to me by a good friend of mine from Colorado, Justin Brenner. Now, the balance Leech was actually originated by Jerry McBride of Spokane, Washington around 2005. And it's a great fly, and if anybody that's fish with me can tell you that I am not a big fly fisherman, I like small flies, I like things that are easy to cast, dry flies, small nymphs, this thing here kinda cast like a cowboy hat, but it's worth the effort, when fished the way it's intended to be, it's fish to under an indicator, and that's one of the reason that makes it so hard to cast. And we'll talk about that as we go along. I wanna show you the materials we're using, we're gonna be tying this on the... I get that nowhere. You can see the numbers, the U555 Jig hook in size 12, the threat I'm using for this brand, and one version is the rusty Brown Uni 6/0, and you can see it's a burnt orange color as opposed to UTC Rusty Brown, which is more actually brown.
Watch Here on East Rosebud Fly and Tackle
Balanced Leech
Hook: Umpqua U555 Jig, size 12.
Thread: Rusty brown, 6/0 Uni Thread.
Pin: Hareline Balanced Fly Pin or sewing pin.
Beads: Two copper. one 2.8mm tungsten, one 3.2mm brass.
Tail: Brown marabou barbs.
Rib: Small copper wire.
Body: Root beer, Medium Cactus Chenille.
Hackle: Dark ginger or brown rooster neck hackle.
Collar: Orange Ice Dub
To put the beads out front of the hook eye, we're gonna use a straight pin, you can use these specialty pins, or this may be the one case where it's okay to raid the household sewing kit and wrap some pins from your wife. The beads will be, I like to put the point bead is a little bit smaller, a tungsten out front, 'cause that's where you want most of the weight to create the balance, and then I use a brass bed for the bigger one, which is the second one, and this is a 1/8 or... What is that? 3.2 millimeter and the front one is a 2.8 millimeter, then the tail is gonna be just brown Marabou, we're gonna use a small tuff, you can see it's not real thick, it's just a little bit, the body itself is medium cactus chenille in root beer, the wire rib will be a small copper, the hackle I'm gonna use a dark ginger neck hackle, and then the collar up front, which creates a lot of flash is orange ice dub. So let's get cracking. Alright, so we're gonna start with putting this hook in vice, and I'm gonna go ahead and trim my pin and get the beads loaded up, these pins come a little bit long, just so you'll know, having a hard time picking that one it up...
This is actually a sewing pin, like I said, this is the one time when it may be okay to rate your wife's so and kit, so I'm gonna make this the link of the shank, 'cause I want it to be... Fall right in through here. Around the point, once I've got the beads on, but I don't want it so short, but I have trouble getting it to load onto the hook and be secured. So this is gonna be a little tricky. It's gonna be about right there. So that's the length I'm looking for. If it's a little longer, that's okay too, which that's pre-loaded on it is a tad longer, actually a little bit long for me, let's get our thread started... Get going. Now I'm gonna start the thread right at that bend and go all the way back to the hook bend, and you can see that's kind of a rough surface, I don't want that thread base really super smooth because the regret is the better it will hold that pin I found... Bring my thread up there, let it rest. Now, for positioning, I want all the weight of these beads in front of the front of the eye of the hook, and that's what's gonna help it balance in the water, you put that on an open loop under an indicator and just kind of let it hang and it will...
There's any wave action or anything like that it will Bob... And that tail is gonna kind of wag in the water column and it acts like an attractor. So to be honest, this is kind of a suspended Wooly bugger, especially this version. So we're gonna tie this just like we would a wooly bugger, I'm gonna take a bunch of these barbs off of my marabou quill, I want the tail to be pretty fluffy near the end, so I'm gonna come back here and I'm gonna pinch off the tips of those and then measure this and I want the length to be from the head of the pin to the back of the end of the hook, but it's not critical, it doesn't have to be exact, but I'd like to have it fairly close. Now, as I wrap this thing, one thing I forgot to mention as I did, it was avoiding the end of that cut pin unless you de-bur it, 'cause it will chop your thread, and you notice now that I put the marabou butts over the end of that pin and that'll help keep it from cutting my thread as I wrap over that section of the fly.
Now, I like to put my wire on a bobbin 'cause especially for Wooly buggers and stuff, it gives you a little bit better control when you're handling the wire, so I've got my Bobbins over here and I'm just gonna let it hang back off the side of the fly, put our cactus chenille on here. Right at the back, I'm not creating a lot of bulk, and again, we're gonna let that hang, now I'm gonna come up here and I'm gonna attach my hackle in the front, as I said, it's just like we would with the wooly bugger, and this is an old cape I've been working on for a while, pick a feather off of there, and I don't want it to be... I don't want a giant handle like you would on a wooly bugger where you wanna move a lot of water when you're stripping it, this is just gonna hang, so I want this to be just about the size it would be on a dry fly for a number. 12, I'm gonna take that and catch it right here, just by going around that way, and I want you to notice right here that I've got a gap between where a tied in and where the hackle barbs starts.
The reason for that is this cactus chenille got a lot bulk to it, and when you start wrapping it causes those hackles to go in a weird direction, so we've got a couple of wraps coming around this way, now I'm gonna pull that back... Make a wrap here, and I'm going between the eye and the STEM, and that's gonna hold that hackle straight up, and then I'm gonna go in front again and then back behind, and then to secure that completely, I am looping the stem back over the shank. Now, when I start wrapping that, there is a new way, that thing is gonna break in, grab my hand pliers real quick. Alright, now, wrapped the body, very simple, just put it on there and spinning around this cactus chenille forms a nice sparkly under-body, I come up here, I wanna get right up next to the hackle and then I'm gonna cross to the front section behind the feather instead of front or in front of the feather instead of behind, 'cause if I do it behind, it causes that further to kink and then I have trouble getting it to lay out the way I want, and I'm just gonna kinda off right there.
Right behind the beads. Now, some people make a big thread bump back there, but I don't find that necessary because of the amount of bulk that we're gonna buy right there to wrap that around, I wanna get one full turn right there before I start going back and then just kind of spiraling or Palmer all the way back to where everything is tied of in the back. Now, here's a part where you can cause yourself to start over, I am gonna hold that hackle straight up, and the reason for that is, when I pull this wire around, it'll pop it, if I don't have it late against the back side of the hook, Shank and likewise, I'm not gonna go straight up with my wire, I'm gonna pull it forward and then come up like that without putting any pressure on the tip of that hackle until I've got the wire all the way around, then I can just pop it loose. If you break that, then you're gonna end up having to re-wrap that and it's not fun, 'cause you've gotta start over now to get this through the hackle, I'm just gonna kinda give this a wiggle.
And again, like I said, I like to use this on a bobbin because it just gives me a lot more control. And wiggle that back and forth through those stiff tackles, and it keeps from trapping as many as it would if I just tried to wrap it straight in, then once I get here, I'm gonna come up here right behind the beads and make one full wrap of wire, then I'm gonna go in front of the wire with my thread and then I'm gonna repeat this next process three times, once behind, once in front, one behind. Once in front, one behind, once in front, now that's locked that thread down, I mean that wire down completely. So all I've gotta do is helicopter and it'll pop right off. Without any problems for the collar, I'm gonna put a pre-bulky amount of this orange ice dub, 'cause I wanna really fill that up and make a nice full collar out of it, and we just take it and just shove it right into that gap and catch loose parts of it, and then I'm gonna stroke it back once I've got it on wrap and then do my whip finish is right behind that bead.
You don't need much for whip finish because as I step will grab that thread and it really locks everything down in place, it's very solid. Now, you can fish the several ways, the two best ways to fish it, or if you wanna strip a deep leech, just tie it on an open loop and strip it through the water, column and the other in the most popular way, the way it was designed as I put it under an indicator, and as I said, it kinda cast like a cowboy hat, but it's worth it because I have yet to go to a lake that I didn't catch trout. This just catches trout everywhere, and this particular color version seems to be really, really good across the country, but for casting what you wanna do rather than just trying to pick it up like you would if you had a couple of small nymphs and cast what you've gotta do is slide that indicator across the surface and that'll pull fly up closer to the surface, and once you've got that fly up out of the water column, then you can do your back cast with a lot of power and then start casting...
It is just getting it going, but once you get it going, it can fairly well, for a cowboy hat, give it try... You'll like it.
Bob Quigley developed this pattern back in 1978 while fishing the Fall River in Northern California. The Quigley Cripple represents a mayfly emerging from the nymphal shuck. It can be tied in a range of colors/sizes to match your local hatches.
]]>The Egg Laying Caddis is one of many effective patterns developed by Craig Matthews of West Yellowstone Montana. Craig Matthews patterns are standard fare and commonly used on lakes, rivers, and spring creeks in the Yellowstone area.
]]>In this fly tying tutorial Dave discusses the Letort Hopper and covers a bit of its background. Ed Shenk developed this killer little hopper back in the 60's. It is a proven hopper that has a delicate presentation which is very effective on spring creeks, sloughs and slow water areas.
]]>If there ever was an "essential" nymph to have in your box, the Pheasant Tail would easily make the cut. Dave offers a step by step tutorial on how to tie the Pheasant tail. This is a great pattern that is commonly tied in sizes 12-20 and imitates a wide variety of insects.
Material List:
Hook - Fulling Mill 5080
Bead - Cyclops Bead
Tail - Pheasant Tail
Body - Pheasant Tail
Ribbing - Small Copper Wire
Thorax - Peacock Eye
Wingcase - Pheasant Tail
]]>
Dave demonstrates how to tie a 20 Incher Stonefly. Versatile pattern that is very effective on freestones. Can be tied in a wide range of sizes, most common being #10 through #14.
Material List
Thread - 6/0 Veevus
Hook - TMC 200R
Weight - .025 Lead Wire
Tail - Goose Biot
Ribbing - Uni Floss
Body - Peacock Eye
Back - Peacock Quill
Wing - Hungarian Partridge
Thorax - SLF Squirrel Dub
]]>Doug McKnight of Yellow Dog Adventures demonstrates one of the most popular/versatile surface patterns. Very effective on a variety of saltwater species, also a proven warmwater pattern that can be deadly for bass. This pattern can be tied in any number of size/color variations.
]]>Doug McKnight of Yellow Dog Adventures demonstrates how to tie a Tarpon Toad fly. This is a very simple, lightweight, easy to cast pattern that offers the delicate presentation that is necessary when fishing to spooky fish.
]]>Doug McKnight of Yellow Dog Fly Fishing demonstrates how to tie the Gotcha fly pattern. Incredibly simple pattern that has become a standard in most any bonefish fly box.
]]>Doug McKnight of Yellow Dog Flyfishing Adventures ties his ER Crab pattern. Very effective Permit & Bonefish pattern that is a go to for Ascension Bay/Bahamas.
]]>Dave demonstrating a variation of Callibaetis tied on a Klinkhammer style hook.
Material List
Thread - 8/0 Veevus
Hook - Daiichi 1167
Tail - Pheasant Tail
Body - Turkey Biot
Post - McFlyon/Krystal Flash
Hackle - Whiting Dry Fly Hackle
Thorax - UV2 Dubbing
]]>Pretty hard to top a classic, but the variations are endless. Dave puts a twist on it by using CDL fibers for the tail and turkey biot for the body.
Material List
Hook - TMC 100
Tail - CDL Rooster Cape
Body - Turkey Biot
Post - McFlyon & Krystal Flash
Thorax - UV2 Fine & Dry
]]>Montana Guide/Outfitter Jeremy Gilbertson tying one of his go to Baetis patterns for fishing Montana's Bighorn River.
Material List
Thread - 14/0 Veevus
Hook - Firehole 321
Tail - CDL Fibers
Back/Wing Case - 1/8" Scud Back
Flash - Holographic Tinsel
Wing - CDC Puffs
]]>Dave offers a brief introduction to fishing Crane Fly patterns along with some insight into their habitat.
Material List
Thread - Uni 3/0
Hook - TMC 200R
Weight - .025 Lead Wire
Tail - Para Post
Ribbing - 3X Mono
Dubbing - Sow/Scud Dub
]]>
Pattern developed by ERFT friend Willy Self, this hands down is our favorite leech pattern. Incredibly effective in most any stillwater situation, also a proven winner when it comes to Carp. We like using STS dubbing for the body, but any combination of leech material can be used, just a matter of personal preference. Most effective sizes range from size 6-10 primarily black or olive in color.
]]>Pattern developed by ERFT friend Willy Self, this hands down is our favorite leech pattern. Incredibly effective in most any stillwater situation, also a proven winner when it comes to Carp. We like using STS dubbing for the body, but any combination of leech material can be used, just a matter of personal preference. Most effective sizes range from size 6-10 primarily black or olive in color.
Material List
Thread - 6/0 Veevus
Hook - TMC 5263 or Ahrex NS110 For Heavier Gauge (Great Carp Hook)
Tail - 1/8" Scud Back
Flash - Holographic Silver Flash
Body - STS Dubbing
Bead - Cyclops Bead
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