Yak Hair Spider

[Old Hat]

I may have posted this before but it falls in connection with the interests in Horse hair bodied patterns.

For this body I used natural yak hair (commonly found for saltwater streamers) and wrapped it over primrose silk. It is a great easily found substitute for horse hair.

reducedYak-bodied Spider.jpg (96.9 KiB) Viewed 4003 times

[letumgo]

Beautiful.

Question - Did you taper the thread underbody, or is the taper formed by the changing diameter of the yak hair (maybe both). I really like the shape & color of this fly. Very insect like.

[Theroe]

Stunning ....
That fly has all required attributes of a “killing pattern”, as they used to say. The translucence, coupled with variation in shades is something I look for.
One question: is yak hair fragile? Does it hold up well to trout teeth?

[hankaye]

Theroe, Howdy;

You asked, " One question: is yak hair fragile? Does it hold up well to trout teeth? "

Most Saltwater fishes have teeth, So I'd reckon that it would just be a matter of which fish
and what teeth it has. Flounder, not so much of a worry. Baby shark on the other hand ...

hank

[Fishnkilts]

The segmented body the hair makes looks great and I like the color too. Well done.

[Old Hat]

Thanks guys. The yak hair ties nicely. Very strong Dana. I had no problem with pulling it tight and wrapping it, no cracking etc. As Hank said it is used a lot down here for salt water streamers and is considered very durable.

The purposeful taper Ray is just a function of how I tie my spiders using the layers of silk and the stem of the hackle. The Yak hair is not naturally tapered.

I want to play around with this idea a bit more. This is version one.

[letumgo]

I look forward to seeing subsequent generations. You do nice work Carl.

[Roadkill]

Beautiful fly!!

Was this tied with NE Oregon Yak or local Florida Yak?

[Old Hat]

Beautiful fly!!

Was this tied with NE Oregon Yak or local Florida Yak?

It came form a Florida shop. So local Florida Yak.