After the abdomen is completed, a clump of peacock herl is tied in to be used to form the covert. The herl is pretrimmed so it can be tied in quickly and accurately. The thread is wrapped forward to the eye and then back to the rear of the abdomen. Dubbing is spun onto the tying thread and pushed up to the hook shank. Don’t worry if it’s a bit loose on the thread. It will be spun in a loop and will be absolutely secure (Figure 1).

Form a spinning loop. The dubbing will be on one leg of the loop. Pull a good sized clump of guard hairs from the back of a cottontail rabbit skin, and insert them into the loop at right angles to the thread. Spread them out along the top inch or so of the loop, and then spin the loop tight (Figure 2).

Wrap the spun dubbing/guard hair legs forward over the thorax, stroking the guard hairs back after each wrap so they are not trapped by the subsequent wrap (Figure 3).

Stroke the hairs that are sticking up out to the sides, fold the herl forward tightly over the top of the thorax and secure them at the head. Tie off the thread in front of the herl. Clip the waste end of the herl to the same length as the hook eye. Stroke the guard hair legs out to sides, and cut off any that are sticking downward (Figures 4 & 5).

Figure 1. Tie in the pretrimmed herl and apply dubbing to the tying thread.

Figure 2. Form a spinning loop and inset guard hairs in the loop at right angles to the thread.

Figure 3. Spin the loop tight and wrap it over the thorax .

Figure 4. Fold the herl over the top of the thorax and tie ti down at the head. Trim the legs off the bottom of the fly.

Figure 5. The completed Hair Leg GRHE, top view.

Day 3 of the show opened at 8 am for me and 20 others with our Bible teaching. Then at 8:30 it was off to another fly casting class until 11 am. At 11:30 I gave a presentation on Reading Waters. After a quick lunch, I gave a casting demonstration,  and then signed books in the author’s booth. Despite the fact that the Broncos and Steelers were dueling it out here in Denver, the crowd was still enthusiastic and stayed to the very end of thee day.

My next show is the Somerset show at the end of the month.

A very good late sunday afternoon crowd at the fl;y casting demo.

The Denver Show open on Friday the 6th at 10 am with a real boom. The line ran out the door as people waited to get in. And quickly the aisles filled with fly fishers. My first program was a casting demo at 1:5, and the areas around the pond was packed with anglers eager to watch. We had a fun filled 45 minutes. Then there was time at the author’s booth, a presentation on Long Flies, and a fly tying demo in which I tied a number of collared imitations. Day tow started at 8:30 an with a class on casting. 10 people worked their way through wrist casting, the three point grip, arm casting, elliptical stroke, a variety of mends,  the “C” pickup, shooting line, the triple shoot, curve casting, and other exotic casting and mending tactics. In the afternoon there was a stint in the author’s booth, a casting demo at the pond with nearly 200 people in attendance, and a program on Fishing the Film. Many, many people were in attendance today. Great show. If you’re in the area, drop in and say Hi.

The line for the opening day went out the door.

The day 1 crowd quickly filled the aisles.

The crowd on day 2 stuffed the aisles.

I like to use wire to rib the GRHE because it adds just a bit of weight to the fly, helping it dive through the surface film, and, more importantly, it reinforces the body, making the fly nearly indestructible. Look very carefully at the end of the wire where it’s been wrapped on the hook. You will notice that there’s a bit of wrinkle right at the end. This prevents the wire from pulling back and out from under the thread wraps. This is especially important when using mid-weight to heavy-weight wires. Jason came up with the way to get this little nub on the end of the wire. He folds the wire over one of the scissors blades, right at the very back of the blade (next to the hinge joint) and then snips. Bending the wire over the blade produces a tiny burr at the end of the wire when it’s cut. When tied in, the burr prevents the wire from slipping free.

As noted in the last post, the rib is tied in by wrapping rearward, which also brings the dubbing up to the rear of the abdomen, ready to go. Winding dubbing is not a one-shot deal, take what you get and whine if it’s not perfect. Rather, as the dubbing is wound forward, the tyer constantly evaluates the shape and thickness of the body. If the dubbing is too thin, the tyer backs off a turn or two and add a touch more. If the dubbing is too thick, the tyer backs off and removes a tiny bit. Remember, production tying doesn’t just make flies as efficiently as possible, it also makes them of the best quality possible.

Once the dubbing is in place and looking good, the rib is wound. I counterwind the rib so that the turns of the wire “Xs” across the turns of the dubbing, in order to strengthen and re-enforce the dubbing. This can be done by winding the dubbing counterclockwise and then winding the rib clockwise, or visa versa. I use the visa versa; that is, I wind the dubbing clockwise and the wire counterclockwise. I do it this way because I may have to unwind the dubbing to get it just right, and I find this easier to do when winding clockwise. When I get to the thorax, I continue to wrap the wire several more turns to add a bit more weight, before clipping off the waste end (always use the very back of the scissor blades when cutting wire).

Notice the burr on the end of the wire where it's tied in.

Counterwind the wire rib to re-enforce the body. Make a few wraps on the thorax region to add a bit more weight to the fly.

I have been asked many times to demonstrate the tying of Hair Leg Nymphs. It’s the dressing of the legs that causes most people the most problems. But there are a number of production tactics that can also be demonstrated by this imitation. So, in the next several blogs we will use the dressing of the Hair Leg Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear to demonstrate both the hair leg process and some other production tying tactics.

Here are four  production tactics that are used to start the fly. We’ve mentioned two of them before, but let’s look at them as we race forward. (1) Attach the thread at the front of the thorax and wrap to the rear. This is a production tactic that saves time and thread (notice no thread on the head of the hook). (2) Tie in a tail of pheasant-tail fibers. The butt ends are pre-trimmed to extend to the head so that they can simply be tied in making an underbody  of uniform diameter. Wrap forward over the tailing materials. (3) Wrap back, but halt at the center of the shank and apply the dubbing for the abdomen. (4) Leave a couple of inches of bare thread between the dubbing and the hook shank. This serves two purposes: first it’s much faster and far easier to apply the dubbing a couple of inches from the shank, rather that trying to twist it on the thread so close to the hook that you stab yourself on the point. Second, we’re going to use that bare thread to tie in the rib as we wrap rearward. Next time: applying the dubbing and wrapping the rib.

Apply the thread, tie in the pre-trimmed tail, and twist on the dubbing.

Tie in the ribbing wire as the thread is wrapped rearward to the end of the abdomen; this brings the dubbing up the hook ready to wrap forward to form the abdomen.

I love the Poly Caddis because it is fast to tie, rides high, can be pulled under to suggest a diving caddis, and catches fish. Gary LaFontaine used the Poly Caddis on a regular basis for just those reasons. In it’s original design, I just tied the wing in at the head and allowed it to extend back over the top of the hook. In the past season, I wanted to give the fly a little more realistic caddis appearance, so I began fussing with the way the wing is applied. What I came up with is just about as simple as the original fly, but is stronger and gives has a better look, at least to my eye. Here’s the way it’s been re-designed.

Step One. Apply dubbing thinly over the rear half of thee hook to form the abdomen.

Step Two. Tie in the poly yarn for the wing facing forward over the eye. Wrap the thread tightly, right to the eye, then back to the abdomen.

Step Three. Tie in an appropriate sized hackle.

Step Four. Wind the thread forward, wrap thee hackle “X” Style and tie off at the head. Spiral the thread rearward through the hackle to re-enforce it.

Step Five. Stroke the hackle on the top of the fly out to the sides, fold the wing back tight over the thorax and tie it securely at the back of the thorax. Tie off at the rear of the thorax. (1/3 of the way back on the shank) Trim the hackle off the bottom of the thorax. Place a good-sized drop of thin flexible head cement on the top of the thorax and allow it to sink in, re-enforcing the hackle and wing.

Updated (see below).

Jason is slaving away over not only hot pixels, but hot photos as well. There’s a great deal that goes into making a page look as nice as the ones below. This is the first page of flies in Chapter 10 in our soon-to-be-released book, Long Flies. I think it’s absolutely top shelf.

The updated page after some layout/text tweaks and color correction work by JB:

Jason has been involved in fly fishing since he was a little over a year and a half old. He caught his first trout by himself at age 2 1/2. And his thoughts on where he would fish if he had only one day, one river? See his answer at http://eat-sleep-fish.co.uk/content/2011/10/river-runs-through-him

Jason with a nice brown from Lake Botsford in Tasmania. Would this be his one day to fish choice?

Production tying is about speed, but it is also about well-built flies. We’ve discussed the concept of pre-trimming, and that’s the secret of building great looking heads on hair-wing flies. Rather than tying in a clump of hair, and then trying to trim the butt end to give the head a nice taper, taper the hair first. The taper is actually a rather steep one. The distance from the front of the taper to the rear of the taper is actually just a bit shorter than the full length of the head (Figure 1).

Begin wrapping at the rear of the head and wrap carefully and tightly forward to the eye. Then, still wrapping very tightly, carefully build the head into a nice taper (Figure 2.). This is a very fast way to attach the hair wing and get the tapered head that is so artistic.

Figure 1. Pre-trim the taper into the butt ends of the hair wing. Notice how short the taper has to be.

Figure 2. The finished fly with a nicely tapered, quickly built head.

When I started tying flies in 1955, I immediately realized that I was going to have a serious problem with tinsel bodies. First, there was no way that I could find to wrap the tinsel without getting a small gap here and there that showed the black thread underneath. If I ribbed the flat tinsel body with oval tinsel, then I could manage to hide most of those little gaps. Still, there was that need to dress flies with a flat tinsel body, and those little gaps just wouldn’t go away, no matter how carefully I wrapped. Then, somewhere along the line, not too many years later, I learned the trick for getting perfect flat tinsel bodies. First, use white thread so that black thread won’t show through any tiny gaps. Second, tie the tinsel in at the head (Figure 1). Wind back to the tail (Figure 2), and then wind forward over this first layer. The two windings will “X” over one another, and the forward wraps will hide any tiny gaps created when the tinsel was wrapped rearward. Any gaps created in the forward wraps will only show the underlying rearward-wound layer of tinsel (Figure 3).

Figure 1. For perfect tinsel bodies tie the tinsel in at the head of the fly.

Figure 2. Wrap the tinsel rearward carefully, Small gaps will still appear (note red showing through wraps).

Figure 3. Wrap the tinsel carefully forward, forming a perfect tinsel body.