Flyfishing, flytying and hooks
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Blue Charm Doubles

2014.12.21.dryfly.me.blue_charmMore Blue Charm today,  but this time on a Partridge Patriot #8 double hook. The more I tie on these small patriot hooks, the more I like them. I haven’t fished with them so I don’t have any experience on the hooking capability and durability if a larger fish is on, but the hook itself feels light but strong.

This late autumn and early winter has seen a lot of salmon patterns from my side: I tend to focus on one side of the fly tying at a time, and this time it is salmon. The thing with this is that you get to focus on one particular aspect of tying that later can be adapted to different styles or patterns. With the amount of salmon flies I put out here you would think I have done more salmon fishing than the 1 time I was after salmon this autumn, but I haven’t! I want to do more of this next year, and focusing on salmon flies this winter is one of those things I do to prepare myself for the river.

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Blue Charm

2014.12.19.dryfly.me.blue_charm_rabbitHook: TMC 7999 #2
Thread: UNI 6/0
Tag: UTC French Tinsel Medium, Lagartun Silk Floss
Tail: GP
Body: Lagartun French Silk Floss
Rib: UTC French Tinsel Medium
Throat: Keough Hen Saddle Blue
Wing: Wapsi Squirrel Tail Blue/Tan

The blue charm with squirrel tail is one that shows up a lot of places when you start looking at salmon patterns, I have done some of them earlier, but then with a rather stiff cock hackle. This week I got some hen saddle and two different colors of squirrel tail, so I tied up these to go in my salmon box.

The blue charm is a great pattern that can work for both salmon and seatrout,  it is not a very hard pattern to tackle, but make sure that the squirrel is tied in well: it has quite the slick surface on the hairs – use a waxed thread or ensure that it is well locked in before tying off!

No Hackle CDC Quill Body

2013.12.06.no_hackle_quill_1Hook: Mustad 94840 #14
Thread: Sheer 14/0 Brown
Tail: Hareline Mayfly Tail White
Body: Polishquills  Stripped Peacock Orange
Thorax: Wapsi Squirrel Spikey Dubbing
Wing: 2xCDC White

The stripped peacock eye makes for a very good segmented body, here I have tied it on a no-hackle CDC with a 94840 from Mustad. You can of course strip the feather  yourself and color them the way you want, but the quality you get from polishquills.com is great and it saves a lot of time!

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View from above: the split tail can be a bit tricky to get the first time you try it, but once you get the hang of it it should be easy to do. Here I have used the thin mayfly tail from Hareline, but you can (and I often do) use any hackle/feather to form a tail.

2013.12.06.no_hackle_quill_2A family picture:

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Spent Spinner

dryfly.me.2013.08.spent_spinner1Hook: Mustad 94840 #14
Thread: Sheer 14/0 BrownTail: Mayfly Tails
Body: SLF Squirrel Spikey Natural Fox, UNI-Mylar #16 Gold/Silver wrapWing: Hareline Para Post Wing Dark Grey, White Foam

Spent spinners are a good addition to any box that will work both in lakes and slow-flowing rivers: it gives a great profile! I tend to experiment some with a pattern when I sit down to tie up some for fishing, so this time I tied up some in different colors, with/without the foam head and with/without the tinsel wrap around the body.

dryfly.me.2013.08.spent_spinner2The split tail is starting to align up, this takes some time the first times you tie them up!

dryfly.me.2013.08.spent_spinner3White wings with pale-yellow body should be a good visual indicator in a river

dryfly.me.2013.08.spent_spinner4The wrapping of the body doesn’t align up perfectly, but this is not something I tend to stress a lot with when tying up for fishing purposes.