FLYMPH FORUM

joaniebo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:47 am For years, I've gathered way too many fly tying materials as I've often searched for materials to tie a dozen or so of a specific dressing and then kept the "extra' materials on hand for heaven knows what future use.

But in looking at many of the pics of flies done by others, I've been impressed as to how many different flies can be dressed using either hare's ear dubbing or pheasant tails for the bodies and then using various feathers for the hackles and tails.

A hare's ear body with a furnace, partridge, Golden Plover, honey dun, etc. etc. hackle, with and without tails, make different looking flies as does a pheasant tail body with various hackles. Adding a colored thread or wire rib of gold or silver or a thorax of a darker hare's ear dubbing or peacock herl and, voila, more different flies.

I'm really starting to think that maybe some of us are just making it difficult for ourselves. Maybe, just maybe there's something to keeping it simple, eh?

Bob

PS - as an added thought, I wonder why the few of the North Country spiders have tails yet many of the English dry fly dressings do have tails? Maybe the pic of the old flies with large, bushy hackles answers that question. But, who knows why "no tails"?

Theroe wrote: ↑Wed Sep 02, 2020 9:40 am

joaniebo wrote: ↑Tue Sep 01, 2020 9:47 am For years, I've gathered way too many fly tying materials as I've often searched for materials to tie a dozen or so of a specific dressing and then kept the "extra' materials on hand for heaven knows what future use.

But in looking at many of the pics of flies done by others, I've been impressed as to how many different flies can be dressed using either hare's ear dubbing or pheasant tails for the bodies and then using various feathers for the hackles and tails.

A hare's ear body with a furnace, partridge, Golden Plover, honey dun, etc. etc. hackle, with and without tails, make different looking flies as does a pheasant tail body with various hackles. Adding a colored thread or wire rib of gold or silver or a thorax of a darker hare's ear dubbing or peacock herl and, voila, more different flies.

I'm really starting to think that maybe some of us are just making it difficult for ourselves. Maybe, just maybe there's something to keeping it simple, eh?

Bob

PS - as an added thought, I wonder why the few of the North Country spiders have tails yet many of the English dry fly dressings do have tails? Maybe the pic of the old flies with large, bushy hackles answers that question. But, who knows why "no tails"?

Bob

Great way to start a rainy Wednesday - nice topic!
I too, have a TON of material/hooks/rods/reels/ephemera/etc. However, most is scrounged/picked/recycled/ bartered material(including roadkill). This is how "those who came before us" during the golden age did it: there was no uber fly shop, stocked with zillions of overpriced baggies containing a few bits or scraps. Therefore, I follow that tradition.
Items used were items gleaned from elsewhere...wives sewing baskets, hunting friends and the roadside.... these were their resources, THEIR fly shops. Personally, I get ALOT more satisfaction tying a pheasant tail nymph using old hooks I might have bought at the museum, copper wire from an old electrical relay rescued from a job at work, with PT feathers from a hunting trip.

The master only buys hooks:he in his mid 80's and still cranks out a couple of hundred dozen flies each year, all material coming from hunting or trading.

Yes, it is more difficult now, as is everything else!!

As far as the tails, or "whisk" - John Shaner had a very good explanation, but I cant remember it now.....

Dana

Theroe wrote: ↑Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:00 am veering off topic, ever so slightly: Joseph Grigely aka "bearbutt", somehow purchased Datus Propers travel fly tying kit. I believe it was described in one of his books, possibly "What the Trout said". From polar bear hair to size 15 Saville hooks, this kit has it all!
Dana