Soft-Hackles

[Mataura mayfly]

I like them and will take a dozen of each in #14 and a dozen of each in #16!
Kind of old meets new and flymph meets North Country spider.
They look like a good heavy wire hook, what type and size are they?

[letumgo]

John - Excellent set of flies. I like the proportions you've used. How are you forming the taper of the bodies? That's a nice touch.

Nicely photographed too.

[William Anderson]

John, it's an interesting approach and should be very productive. Definitely an active little nymph profile and attractive colors. Great little set of softies.

[Old Hat]

Nicely done John! Thinking out of the box and still retaining that style and simplistic nature of the originals.

[Roadkill]

Very nice flies but looking at your specimens I would try a longer dark dun hackle with a heavier banded body. The natural duns have wings easily longer than the body and that nymph is a stout little guy.

[letumgo]

WOW!!! Those are fantastic John. Could you post a close up go the fly?

That dubbing is a treasure. I think I have a small piece, from Fran Betters, around here someplace. I met him in his shop many years ago. He sat tying rough flies, one after another, as he talked to me.

[hankaye]

WiFlyfisher, Howdy;

There are some Flymph threads in SBS section, think they may help with some of your questions.
Here's an example; http://flymphforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3937

hank

[NeoDoc]

On a light dry fly hook - would be a good Tenkara dry fly

[Smuggler]

That's a good fly.

[William Anderson]

On a light dry fly hook - would be a good Tenkara dry fly

That's a good point. There are a lot of possibilities here. That deep rusty dubbing would make some sweet Oct. caddis bodies as well.

John, thanks for sharing so much of your process hunting down the technique. If you don't mind a suggestion, the Hendricksons I see most often have a fairly sturdy medium dun wing, often longer than the body and a bit more robust, as far as wings go. That's not to say when creating an imitation you're always looking at proportions of parts and pieces as your guide. Sometimes you want to imitate the attitude of the wing/leg, amount of action or movement - the more relaxed vs aggressive action of the materials (drowned vs struggling).

Keep rocking the flymphs, man, these are great and I'd like to see more of what you're up to.

w