Avoid spining deer hair on a caddis.

R

Rkey530

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Jan 13, 2009
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I was just reading a post where somwone mentioned that you need to be carefull to avoid spinning the deer or elk hair when tying the wing on a caddis. I figured that i'd share a tip that another tier showed me a few years back that eliminates this problem: Hold the clump of hair above the hook shank about 1/8" bring the thread up and put a wrap of thread around only the clump of hair, then with the next wrap secure the clump of hair to the shank and flare it with 4 or 5 tight wraps. This insures the hair stays together rather than spinning on the shank and keeps all the hairs together while your fly is in a fish's mouth and being removed from it.
 
Attached is a video of Hans Weilenmann, an expert fly tyer that post on several FF forums. The video is of him tying his CDC & Elk (deer hair) pattern. The pattern is a killer, but note how he ties in the deer hair wing. With four wraps he secures it to the hook like a rock. It's reallly a simple method and works well.



CDC & Elk Video
 
Use a sparse clump of deer/elk hair and just keep it pinched between your fingers as you tie it down.
 
Thanks for the video, interesting way of tying a caddis in general and particularly intersting way of tying the deer hair in. I may give that one a try.
 
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