For the salmon box I have tied up a batch of black zonkers to use by night (great profile when fished across a pool), tied it up with different colors tag and hackle to have some to choose between.
The body is black sealsfur dubbing and the zonker I have cut from a rabbit skin I got earlier this year.
Tag: UNI 6/0 Red, Bug Bond
Body: UNI-Mylar
Rib: Lagartun French Tinsel
Wing: Yellow, Red & Blue hair
Hackle: Guinea Silver Doctor Blue
Sides: JC
Preparing for the summer and filling up my box with this silver doctor inspired tube. Doing some without and some with cone to be able to target different depths:
The finished set ready for the river:
Have started to do up the body separately now to focus on one and one thing, that way I can do lots of tinsel work first, then pull out the hair and do the hairwing later.
Body: Gudebrod Metallic Braid
Rib: UNI French Gold
Wing: Red Bucktail with GP topping
Throat: Red Bucktail with GP topping
Eye: JC
The base pattern I picked up from Ken Sawada’s The Tube Fly book: Gold Aquamarine, but I did it with red instead of orange bucktail, and I did mine a bit more spare than the original pattern. The slim profile and red&gold colors on this is what makes it stand out: will try this out on seatrout as well.
Repetition is the key for many things in life, so also with fly tying! When getting into a pattern that I want to explore, or get some new material that I need to get familiar with I tend to sit down and tie up the same pattern in different sizes and on different hooks to see how it comes together.
This week I have focused on the rusty rat: I have tied it up in 10 different variations on singles, doubles and on tube. The pattern itself is a classic one that should need not much introduction (and there are other sites that can describe the background for this pattern much better than I can).
Of all the variations here there is one first for me: slipstream tubes. I have tied a lot of tubes the last year, but this week I got a good offer on some slipstream tubes from Veniard in different sizes, so when I got into the rusty rat I had to tie some up on that as well.
This a very good exercise that I can recommend for anyone: you get to know the pattern, and at the end of the session you know how the pattern is and behaves in different sizes and on different hooks.
TMC7999 #1/0
TMC7999 #4
TMC7999 #8
Mustad S60-3399A #6
Alec Jackson Spey #1.5
Kamasan B280 #4
Kamasan B280 #8
Partridge Patriot #8
Tube
Veniard Slipstream Tube
A lot of Blue Charms from me this winter, this time it is (yet) another one, but now on tube.
After all of these different versions of Blue Charm on different hooks, styles and sizes I’m thinking about making a frame with 7-8 different versions to hang on the wall, what do you think?
Recent Comments