But today I got a lot of tying practice in, and experimented with some patterns I haven't gotten to try before. Most of these come from Peter Gathercole's "The Fly-Tying Bible." I've found this book to be incredibly helpful. Gathercole manages to condense fly patterns into six photos each.
The first fly I tied, however, did not come from this book, but rather was Mike Ott's Pheasant-Tail Nymph pattern. I've been practicing this pattern for over a week, and still find it challenging to correctly form the pheasant tail legs at the head of the fly.
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Pheasant-Tail Nymph |
I'm tying this pattern on a size 16 hook and using brown thread. I wrap the shank of the hook in .025 lead wire. At the bend of the hook I tie on a pinch of pheasant tail fibers, making the tail about the length of the fly. I also tie on a section of copper wire. I wrap the remainer of the pheasant tail fibers to about the midway point on the hook and tie it there. I then wrap the copper wire in the opposite direction as the pheasant tails, forming a gill/rib.
At the midway point, I tie on a second section of pheasant tail fibers (shiny side down), and two or three peacock herls. I wrap the peacock herls to about one eye-length from the eye to form the thorax and tie it there. I then bend the pheasant fibers over the thorax and tie at the eye. I split the remainder of the pheasant tail fibers in two equal parts, and pull them back over both sides of the hook to form the legs. I tie the legs in place, and do a wrap finish behind the eye to lock everything in. I trim the legs to about the length of the peacock herl thorax.
The second fly I tied today was the Brassie. This is described as a "small, simple, and deadly" pattern used for brown trout, cutthroats, graylings, and rainbow trout. It is designed to imitate midge pupae. It's a very simple two-material fly. First I wrapped the shank of the hook in brown thread, and at the bend, tied in a length of copper wire. I wrapped the copper wire up to the thorax and tied it off. At the thorax, the book suggested using muskrat or dark rabbit fur for dubbing, but mentioned you could use peacock herl. That's what I chose to do. I tied in two strands of peacock herl, and wrapped it to the eye. I tied off the herl and finished the fly with a whip finish.
While this was a relatively simply fly, you can see from the photo below, that my copper wire wraps were not tight enough. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to try fishing this fly, but probably as a secondary fly ties onto something larger, like a Pheasant-Tail Nymph.
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Brassie |
I'm not a fish, but to my, this fly doesn't look as appetizing as the others. I'll give it a shot this spring, and if it works, I'll be elated, because it was a lot easier to tie than a Pheasant-Tail Nymph. As you can see below though, I had some difficulty getting the fibers to stay under the hook.
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Teeny Nymph |
I liked tying this fly a lot, and hopefully it will catch some fish. It's supposed to work for browns and rainbows, so it should be great for the Missouri trout parks. March cannot come soon enough this year. I have a lot of new patterns to try out. Hopefully I still remember how to cast . . .
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Diawl Bach |
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