FLYMPH FORUM

Golden Rod - Sawada

Tag - Gold tinsel
Tail - Scarlet fibers
Butt - Peacock herl
Ribbing - Oval gold tinsel
Body -- Orange seal’s fur or substitute
Hackle - Orange
Wing - A pair of Jungle cock body feather

Wet Flies - Ken Sawada



Golden Rod - Bergman

Tip - None*
Tail - Crimson quill sections
Butt - Peacock herl*
Ribbing - Gold tinsel
Body - Orange floss
Hackle: Orange
Wing - Jungle cock eye

Don Bastian Note

*The peacock herl butt is listed under ‘tip’ in the written recipes. There is no tip on the Golden Rod but I believe the appearance of this fly could be enhanced by the addition of a gold tinsel tip.

Trout - Ray Bergman

They are both beautiful but my favorite is the one with seal body. Nice job wrestling the seal dubbing into submission. I love working with seal and seal subs. The fibers tend to be course, but provide a nice effect.

seal dubbing is very difficult to work with

Seal dubbing sucks! I like the Bergman version.

Three ideas that can help with seals fur.

1. Put varnish on the tying thread. Just swipe the thread with a needle dipped in varnish. If you tie a large number of flies your fingers will get very sticky after a while and you will have to clean them before you can proceed with tying.

2. Use a heavier thread for the body part consisting of seals fur. The heavier thread provides a better base to spin the seals fur on. For salmon/steelhead flies that have a heavy body of seal I have used up to size D rod wrapping thread. Silk if you can find it.

3. The old tacky and amber colored Thompson wax was wonderful for seal fur. The secret was turpentine.
Placing one or more drops of turpentine on any wax and letting it soak in will produce a very tacky wax that seal fur adheres to much better. Your fingers will get less tacky than with varnish.

I personally prefer varnish on a heavy thread.

Thank you for sharing these is. Extremely helpful information.