Itch Scratcher Soft Hackles

[Ron Eagle Elk]

Fortunately, Olympia is a somewhat artsy town. There is a really nice yarn shop that sells 100% wool yarns in a ton of colors including some interesting varegated colors. I purchase a lot of the wool I use in steelhead flies there. I'll be doing some more shopping.

REE

[Roadkill]

I also suggest that you look for specialty shops that cater to fiber art folks who spin their own yarns. Here is one of my Steelhead Spey dubbing boxes filled with unspun 100% Merino wool. I am working on another box with custom blends from my coffee mill for certain flies.



For my flymphs etc. I usually use my own dubbing blends of furs (rabbit, hare, beaver, muskrat, mink, mole...) and synthetics.

[letumgo]

Very nice! Those are great steelhead colors.

[daringduffer]

dd - The hook point on the bottom fly (march brown) is the same. It is less evident, due to the angle of the fly and the lighting. These flies are tyed on Mustad Model 94842 TUE hooks. When I look at the hook in my hand, the barb does not look quite as aggressive. The red fly may be tyed on an older Mustad hook. I noticed that the barbs have gotten much smaller on their new Signature Series hooks.

I thought it could have been Mustad 3221 but can see in another post that this is different. I prefer smaller barbs for fishing, but this was like an old sports car.
Thank you for letting me know.

dd

[DOUGSDEN]

Ray,
Beautiful patterns as always. I like how you really consider alot (or all) of the factors that make a great looking pattern. Thank you for taking the time to do a really special job on these great looking flies.
As time goes on, I am liking the TUE hooks more and more. There is just something about.....tradition perhaps?
The color combinations are a blast too! So buggy looking! Great job friend and as always,
keep them coming!
Dougsden

(I'm going back now to your post and try to pick my favorite.....It's a tough job!)

[letumgo]

The flies are sitting in a shallow layer of water in this photo.


Here is the latest installment in my on-going experiments with wool dubbing. All of the following photos were taken with the fly after they have been saturated with water. I found that, initially the flies floated on the surface of the water but in a few minutes they absorbed water. The water seemed to be absorbed by the untreated silk thread first and it almost looked like it "wicked" the water into the wool body. There is some change in color of the bodies after they are wet. The red wool fibers seemed to be more prominent in the tups blend.

Here they are suspended in water (small medicine cup) - the flies are hanging with the bodies below the surface of the water:

[letumgo]

Individual photos of the wet flies:


Note the color shift in the silk tag, as the color of the hook starts to show through the wet silk.

[letumgo]

Individual photos of the wet flies:




I am really liking the appearance of the bottom two flies. The pale green dubbing blend just has a nice tone to it. I like the combination of the bleached partridge hackle and soft green body.




This is My Favorite of the Lot (below)

Hook - Mustad Model 94842/Size 12 Turned-Up Eye (TUE)
Tread - Gossamer Silk (Green)
Hackle - Bleached Hungarian Partridge
Body - Natural Wool Dubbing (Pale Green Blend)
Rib - Tying Silk

[daringduffer]

Tasty!

dd

[William Anderson]

Ray, that is really nicely done. The dubbing seems to create a volume that is compelling. I dig it.

w