Fly Fishers' Republic

Fly Tying

Touch Dubbed Body

Touch Dubbed Body

Touch dubbing imparts a soft silhouette to a fly body and allows creation of many bug like effects through carefully combinations of thread and dubbing material. Natural dark mole fur and yellow Pearsall’s tying thread are combined here in a Waterhen… Continue reading

Peacock Herl Body

Peacock Herl Body

The technique outlined below illustrates how to produce a full peacock herl body. You can use it for dressing flies like the Red Tag, Black and Peacock Spider, Coachman, Diawl Bach, and Temuka. If you’re tying a pattern like the… Continue reading

Marabou Tail

Marabou Tail

This method of tying a marabou tail produces an even underbody and a robust pattern. I’m illustrating it so as to provide an alternative to the technique offered in the other marabou article. In a situation where you could employ either… Continue reading

Booby Eyes (Foam Plug)

Booby Eyes (Foam Plug)

Buoyant foam eyes, or booby eyes (named after Gordon Frazer’s original Booby Nymph) have been used to modify several well established patterns, giving us a whole collection of flies popularly referred to as Boobies or Booby Nymphs. Amongst others, they include… Continue reading

Booby Eyes (Original)

Booby Eyes (Original)

This guide illustrates the original method used by Gordon Frazer to create his Booby Nymphs back in the early 1980s. The only difference is that he used balls of polystyrene packaging foam instead of Ethafoam. Shaping your own ‘eyes’ does require a little… Continue reading

Feather-slip Wings and Tails

Feather-slip Wings and Tails

Paired feather-slips are used for tails and wings on many patterns including the Butcher, Invicta, Muddler Minnow, and March Brown. Paired feathers come from various birds including, turkey, mallard, starling, grouse to name a few. Mostly the slips come from… Continue reading

Tinsel Body

Tinsel Body

Tinsel bodies are used in patterns, from traditional winged wets, to streamers. The Butcher, Silver Invicta, Muddler Minnow, Kenny’s Killer, Silverside, Lady Iris are just a few. Originally dressed with flat metal tinsel, many patterns now incorporate metallic Mylar instead… Continue reading

Tinsel Ribbing – Wire & Braid

Tinsel Ribbing – Wire & Braid

Steamers, wet flies, dry flies, fully dressed salmon flies. Many of them are ribbed, and more particularly ribbed with tinsel, be it single strand wire, or flat, round, or oval bound tinsel. Whichever material you use, as you’ll read in… Continue reading

Moose Hair Tail

Moose Hair Tail

Moose-hair and deer-hair tails are associated with fast water patterns where more floatation is required to avoid the fly becoming quickly swamped. Their length is a little shorter than a traditional hackle tail. I’d suggest 6/0 tying thread is about… Continue reading

Stacked Deer Hair Body

Stacked Deer Hair Body

Explaining this technique is problematic at the best of times. In the long run you may find a visit to a fly-tying demonstration helps a deal more. In the mean time, hopefully I’ll manage to shed some light on how… Continue reading

Traditional Dry Fly Tail

Traditional Dry Fly Tail

What I term the traditional hackle dry fly tail, refers to what for many is the ‘showcase’ style of tailing. It uses cock hackle barbs, tied in-line with the hook shank. For best results, the barbs should be reasonably straight… Continue reading

Dry Fly Split Tails

Dry Fly Split Tails

This is one of a number of methods for dressing a dry fly split tail. It is neither the quickest nor easiest, but the results are pretty and realistic! The cock hackle barbs used here can be straight, though it may help… Continue reading

Deer Hair Body

Deer Hair Body

Deer hair, due to its buoyancy, is used in several dry fly patterns including the Humpy and Bomber. In these the hair is either spun or used as tail, shell-back, or wing. Here the deer hair is used to build… Continue reading

Hinged Body

Hinged Body

Hinged extended bodies can give a subtle wiggling action to a pattern. For best results the hook upon which the extended body is tied should be straight eyed, and the nylon loop should be of a diameter in relation to… Continue reading

Braided Nylon Body

Braided Nylon Body

The material used here is braided nylon backing. Viewed against the sky, from below, the material is translucent even after marking with a pen. With the aid of a little floatant the body will hold on or in the surface… Continue reading

Palomino Body

Palomino Body

This is another quick and easy extended body. Illustrated is a version for the Palomino Midge. Omit stages 2 through 6 for a simple tapered body. You may not even want a tapered effect, in which case, just cut off… Continue reading

Furled Body

Furled Body

This is one of the most easy and quick forms of extended body to produce. You can furl almost any single filament or cord material of manageable thickness, including monofilament, floss, and wool (illustrated). In this instance the basic principle of furling… Continue reading

Marabou Wings & Tails

Marabou Wings & Tails

With regular marabou feathers, you have the choice of tying using the fluffy barbs taken from the thicker part of the feather’s stem, or if it’s sufficiently downy you can use the tip of the feather. This guide outlines what… Continue reading