I have two big saltwater trips coming up in the next few months.  I think that the pre trip planning, anticipation and dreaming are as important as the trip itself, especially for fly tiers.  There is nothing like thinking that I am re-inventing the wheel (fly) when at my tying desk looking at the newest fly posing for me from my vise.  I am tying flies for deep water fishes and for Giant Trevally (known as GTs from now on), now, as my next trip is to Christmas Island in December, followed in March by a flight to the Indian Ocean to fish Providence Atoll in The Seychelles.  This blog isn’t about the trip, but the flies and tying.

I have always hated putting eyes on flies.  I don’t mind putting feathers of a contrasting  or complimentary color in for eyes, but I haven’t liked adding stick-on flat and bulging eyes directly on to material tied in for the head.  They just don’t look right to me.  Plus they are hard for me to get even. 

While tying for these trips I was adding feather eyes and they just didn’t Pop (take a look at the photo above of the 4 flies together).  In fact I didn’t really notice the real difference until I studied the image and realized the fly with the stick on eyes really made a better impression.  Before I took the photo, I was holding up a stick-on eye up against the feather eye on a finished pattern to see the difference.  Then I took a dyed, church-window feather of a pheasant and stuck an eye on it after stripping it down to the size I wanted and held it up against a finished fly.  What a difference!  So then I tied the one you see above.  I am now a convert.  I am working up some variations, now.  Tying flies is something like fishing a river.  There is always a bend in it where you can’t see around it.  You just have to go there and look around the corner to see wha’ sup.  That is the way I tie.  Rarely am I satisfied with a finished pattern.  I may stop “improving” a pattern and move on to another.  But I like to go back and keep at it until I just have to say “STOP!”  When i carve (wood or some other material) I have to tell myself to quit and put it away.  It is finished, but I don’t know it.  I can always take another knife stroke.  I have to force myself to stop.  I don’t dislike this; it is just the way it is.

The pattern is mostly tied with craft fur.  The markings are made with a Pantone pen.  It is approximately 5 inches long on 5/0 hook.  I am experimenting with a finish for the eye on the feather to make them durable.  I think an epoxy finish will be the best, but I’ll look for others.  I am now using a couple of finger nail products.  Bondini and Hard as Nails.  I coat the material behind the feather before I tie it on with the Bondini.  Not the whole area, just from where the rear of the eye is positioned to the thread.  Tie on both sides.  Now coat the outer surface of the feather where the eye will be placed (this leaves the very tips of the feather free and easy, not glued together).  take the eye (either flat or the bulging kind) off of its paper and press it to the feather.  Be careful not to mess up the feather and/or get the super glue all over your fingers or the eye.  I use a pair of big tweezers for this.  It is easier to get the eye lined up because the feather has the stem running right down the middle of the feather.  Now it is a matter of placing the eye on the feather with the stem dissecting the eye.  Judge how much feather is in front of the eye on one side and place the second in the exact same position on the other side.  You’ll see it is much easier.  I coat the thread with a light application of the Bondini.  Let this dry (about 10 – 15 minutes) or until the next fly is done.  Then coat the eye, the feather immediately around the eye (leave the tips “free and easy), the feather just in front of the eye and the head with Hard as Nails.  Let this dry completely and touch with a second coat if necessary.  Wa La !  You’re done. 

But Wait!  What about a larger feather behind the eye-feather and………….

How about a smaller steelhead fly that has a lot of movement, is easy to cast and is tough enough to withstand the occaisional (or in my case frequent) errant spey cast?  I tried small intruder-type flies and they were OK, but not quite what I was looking for.

Now, you have to realize that what I am looking for and what a fish is looking for are sometimes and very often, two different things.  But first I need to please me when I look at new patterns or changing old ones.  A lot of the time I like to tie for colors and shapes that just look good to me.  Then, if I really dig it, I’ll fish the hell out of it and maybe get a fish to eat it.  Some of these turn out to be real winners while others give me the short term pleasure of dreaming it, thinking it, tying it and swimming it.

Other times I set out to tie a fly of real purpose with specific requirements attached to it.  That is the case of this newest pattern idea.  I’m pretty excited about it, actually.  It is not a totally new concept.  I’ve seen similar techniques used in large saltwater flies, but this use is new to me and those I’ve shown it to.

First Thought  -  I like (as many other tiers do) to fish long-flowing-slinky flies for anadromous (not Andromeda) fishes.  So, I have several saddles with varying amounts of dyed hackle attached to them.  When you first check out these saddles in the package they look great.  Then after yanking out the best hackles for several flies you see that a good number of the hackles are perfect except the tips are missing, creating a little “V” at the end.   Where did they come from?  No matter, they’re here, now.  First reaction is to discard them as unusable, but you leave them on the skin not really wanting to toss an otherwise perfect hackle.  In reality, they could easily be used without any adverse consequences except for the nagging thought that while fishing for steelhead only the best (complete) hackles should be used.  What self-respecting tier would use a decapitated feather on a steelhead fly?  Unheard of!  We’ll leave this whole situation, for a while, bouncing around where ideas do that sort of thing.

Ever notice (especially you steelheaders) how you hold up flies in front of your mouth with the eye of the fly close to your lips and you blow across the fly like a river current might do?  You can then watch the fur, hair and feathers move so you can imagine it swinging through a run.  I’d just finished a fly with saddle hackles tied on at 10, 2, 4 and 8 around the fly so it would have good movement.  It was a smaller fly (#7 AJ) so just the tips of the hackle feathers were used.  It just wasn’t the same as larger, longer flies.  They were not moving enough.  It seemed too stiff.  I picked up one of those long saddles with the tip out of it.  I was playing with it and stripped some of the fibers off of the stem leaving about a 1/4″ of the “V” at the end of about two inches of stripped stem.  It had kind of a “twangy” action.  Those few fibers at the end of the stem caught the air and moved more than if it were just the whole hackle tip.

Second thought – Attach this stripped arrow-looking hackle to the hook in such a way to give it a lot of action while swinging through the currents.  Now since I want a lot of water hitting and moving it, I use materials in front of it that will skinny down to allow this to happen.  I used dub and mixed dubbing (depending upon the color I wanted) for the body ( a little red Ice Dub mixed with black angora)and rabbit fur (red) with the guard hairs dubbed and tied as a collar.  The one in the picture to the right was tied on a size 6 Daiichi #1120.  It seems right for the size of the fly.  Once a pattern idea is established, then I go gcrazy with the colors and even the shape somewhat until I find what I or the fish like best.

The one pictured above is a different variation from the first.  Tied on a number 7 Alec Jackson hook.  The body is much more compact dubbing or you could use yarn and it is ribbed.  The collar is dyed mallard flank tied in by the tipand wrapped a couple of times, then tied and cut..  The wing/tail is one hackle stem on each side.  You can see that on this one I left some fibers at the base of the stem to create a wing.  And then seemingly suspended out back of the fly is the tail.  And who could stop here?

This one (above) is shown with 4 arrow tails, a blue dubbed body, black pheasant rump collar behind rabbit hair collar.  One of my favorite steelhead color combinations is black and blue.  Also tied on a Alec Jackson hook.

I have already tied up some carp flies using the “Arrow” idea and I am incorporating it into some saltwater patterns.  Bonefish beware!!