How Leisenring tied the Tups

[Soft-hackle]

Good points, Davy regarding the hackle. I generally tie in by the tip when hackling through the thorax for the reason you gave. It brings the longer fibers to the front of the fly so they taper back nicely.

Mark

[narcodog]

That is a very interesting tie, in so much as it is not slim as most of the newer variations.

[Hans Weilenmann]

Hello again, Mike. Nice to see your name pop up on this thread.

Cheers,
Hans W

[wayneb]

Hi Mike;

Glad to see you back!

Interesting fly the Tups, every example I've seen is slightly different. The example you posted, is that considered a wet or dry fly?

Also, what is the rear part of the abdomen composed of?

Wayneb

[redietz]

I've never personally bought into the idea that a fly shouldn't have a visible head -- real ones do.

Bob,

I am not sure what you mean by this observation. The eye of the hook is as pronounced a head as I need to mimic the natural

Cheers,
Hans "minimalist head" W
running & ducking

Nonsense. The eye on a straight-eyed hook has no profile at all when viewed from the side. You might as well completely leave off the body, because the shank and bend of the hook are all you'll ever need for that. Of course, Stewart/Baillie did pretty much just that with the Black Spider, but that's beside the point.

Kidding aside, I believe that the head on the fly is more of a representation of eyes (two, one, trout can't count) which on the males of most ephemerids are quite prominent, and often of a different color than the hook eye. And there have been times when I've caught fish on flies with a large, orange thread head when an otherwise identical fly with an inconspicuous black head produced nothing. The variables in fishing being what they are, I can't positively attribute the difference to the head (maybe the fish just turned on when I switched, maybe the flies sank at different rates, etc) but at least it's consistent with supposition.