Fly Tying
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
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
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)
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)
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
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 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
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 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
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
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
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, 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 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
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
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
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
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