FLYMPH FORUM

I'm playing around with an idea for a soft hackle scud/grub imitation. Consider this a rough draft. I will keep playing around with the idea and see how if fishes this spring.



Dubbing Blend - Mixture of white rams fur and walnut colored yarn. I am still trying to work out the ratios to get a "spectrumized" dirty gray color. The dark colored yarn is Lion Brands Wool-Ease Chunky Yarn, in Walnut color No. 127. I finally found a skein of this yarn at JoAnn's last weekend. I was inspired to buy this yarn, after seeing Paul Beel's McClain's flymph post (http://www.flymphforum.com/viewtopic.ph ... lit=walnut). several months back.

Nice exercise Ray. Local scuds here tend to be a shade of olive or when dead a orange/yellow scud is very productive.

Ray, I think we're on the same wavelength, or one of them, as I've been dicing yarn and adding bits of ice dub in very sparse amounts and bits of Hi-Viz to others. Something to try and see if I can claim any difference. I know those flashier materials are very effective, and I've somehow avoided them for the most part, but maybe I'll find something that sparkles my interest this season.

Back to the lab.

w

Bill Bailey has made a gray colored blend of seal's fur for a vintage Irish salmon fly. Maybe Bill can chime in with his recipe and save me from searching for a copy of the pix he sent me.

Charlie

I share your fondness for creative dubbing blends, Ray, and think you are on the right track with this one. As implied by Roadkill, a touch of dull olive might add to the overall "scud appeal".

In his book “Tying Flies in the Irish Style”, EJ Malone wrote that “The older generation of Irish fly tyers were quick to realize that some desired colours could more easily be obtained by a judicious mixing of the dyed furs and not only did the colours look more natural to the human eye – the fish appeared to find them more attractive also”. For example, the Ballinderry Black by Tommy Hanna has a body of half royal blue and half black mixed together. Another, the Donegal Olive, has a body consisting of a mixture of equal parts emerald green, bright yellow, scarlet, light blue, golden olive and deep orange. When he was young, EJ Malone was given a pamphlet on fly tying which mentioned a collection of flies from 1902. Hundreds of trout and salmon flies were tied by the best Irish tyers of the time http://classicflyrodforum.com/forum/vie ... 73&t=68155. Later in life Malone initiated a search for the collection and, as luck would have it, it was found with most of the flies still intact and as bright in color as the day they were tied. One of the flies, "Mixed Pigs Wool" has a body made with natural gray, with yellow, magenta, fiery brown, and teal blue pig’s wool added in small amounts so overall colour looks gray in hand. At the time I didn't have natural gray pig's wool so I had to dye some.

Some pictures:

Nice job on this fly. I like to use a dubbing blend that's a white gray and black mix that also has a small amount of mixed bright colors mixed in with a small amount of orange or pink right before the head and of corse there are other components but the dubbing seems to be the most important aspect and since using this type of dubbing blend my scuds have been much more productive. Your fly should work well and I've never thought of turning a scud into a soft hackle but it's a great idea thanks for sharing, I'll have to try that out as soon as I get my tying station back up and running( hopefully real soon cuz I'm chomping at the bits to get going again)