Durable , Durable , Durable

[osprey]

On Monday i was fishing The Raystown Branch near Manns Choice , it's a marginal stream in that area cause it gets warm later on but they stock it and there are quite a few trout for now. I happened on a pool where there was a group of folks i know , all fishing bait , in the standard forked stick method and they were not gettin any , after sitting an bs ing with them awhile i started to notice several trout rising at the head of the pool , i put on a caddis (there were lots of grannoms around) cast out and caught one , well before it was all over 6 bait fishers had caught at least one on a fly , including mine that's 7 and then one fellow broke the foam body off the fly while releasing the fish , that's 8. My latest phase in fly fishing has been to try and create a TRULY durable array of patterns , looks like i might be headed in the right direction. Is durability an important part of you folks process or do you not give it much thought as long as you're catching them you don't mind changing often? Just curious as to what you all think?

 

[bam]

my thread midges get shredded pretty quickly, but at a minute a tie, I just keep the hook for another tie. I counter rib most or all of my nymphs, and if I use peacock I like to run my thread through it for added durability. Unless the fish or my stats break the thread, I end up donating my fly to the stream before it comes apart.

 

[TLoomis]

I am on a quest to do this myself. My quills, or any hackled dry fly for that matter, seem to get ruined after a handful of fish. Does anyone put head cement down on the hook when it is covered in just thread, then tie over that?

 

[jayL]

I don't tie quill bodies for the most part. Thread midges shred on me too.

Really, all I've done as far as durability, is quit using mustads. I've also moved toward hairwings whenever possible. I tie my hairwings with minimal wraps. Three over the hair, then three at a 45 degree angle through the butts. Whip finish at the eye, and you're done. This can also be done on comparaduns, but the butts would be mid shank instead of the eye. The hair will never spin around the shank, and the bodies get shredded before the wings.

Any patterns with exposed thread are easy to shred. You can take 200 wraps, but if one breaks, the whole thing is screwed up. I try to minimize exposed thread.

 

[Alpabuck]

With patterns that call peacock hurl I use peacock ice dubbing instead much more durable and on flies like pt's the dubbing gives of a bushy gill affect I think.

 

[jayL]

I agree on the ice dub.

As for herl, try twisting it with wire before making the body. It makes it much tougher.

 

[MKern]

Durability is half of the equation for me.

I hate changing flies (afterall, it's the fisherman that makes most of the mistakes).

Most of the patterns that I've created last for countless fish and are usually lost on the bottom or in a fish's mouth. Probably because I don't like to retie and my tippet is frayed.

Do stocked fish have teeth? Wild fish are harder on flies (IMO).

 

[afishinado]

For a PT or peacock herl body, I just twist the PT or herl on my thread (I use tacky dubbing wax) just like dubbing. It makes the body durable and even allow you to taper it if you like. Also you can add strands to the thread and will not run out of material when tying bigger flies. Give it a try.

 

[ryguyfi]

I just had a wolly bugger get ripped to shreds this morning. After about 7 fish and 15 other strikes it was litterally stripped down to the lead wrapping. It was a sz 14 with angora instead of chenille (chenille is too bulky at that size). I do look for durability, but sometimes you just have to live with it and tie on a new one.


I tie my egg patterns for steelhead as durable as I possibly have found. I put a thread base on the whole hook and cover it all in head cement. I found this helps from the egg itself slipping up and down the hook. I then tie in my yarn and then put some thread wraps around the yarn parachute style (even though it makes it uneven on the hook) and then whip finish and put more head cement on. This has improved the durability of my eggs dramatically. It's a huge plus when the steelies are running and you're hooking 20+ fish in an hour or two. I have rarely had one go bad on me... it usually gets snapped off on a fish or a snag rather than gets torn apart.

 

[jayL]

Ryan,

Do you counterwrap your buggers with wire?

Here's how I do them:

Tie in lead.
Tie in tail.
Tie in wire at bend.
Tie in chenille at bend.
Move thread to eye.
Wrap chenille to eye, tie off.
Tie hackle in by the stem at eye.
Wrap hackle to bend.
Tie hackle off with a few turns of wire, then counterwrap to eye.
Tie wire off.

Can't bust 'em! It also makes for an appealing taper in the hackle. It's also impossible to crowd the eye. It's the recommended method on the back of a pack of whiting bugger hackle.

 

[ryguyfi]

That's interesting Jay.... does starting the hackle at the eye make the proportion of the hackle off a bit... I like the looks when it's at the back because the larger barbs of the feather are towards the rear, tapering towards smaller at the head. I think it would look funny the other way around... but good tip for durability.


I had a strike on nearly every cast this morning... darn that whole work think or I think I could have caught 30-40 fish today lol.


Never hit double digits on trout before this year... now I have 2 days in double digits in 1 week lol, one in a single hour.

 

[jayL]

Buggers are supposed to have the longer hackle at the head. Like a bait fish or sculpin, they are fattest up front, then get skinnier as they go back.

Buggers

I see one tied reverse, and the rest are tied with the long stuff up front.

Here's one of mine from a few years ago:

And one of my more recent creations:

There's no wrong way to tie em, but your way is certainly unorthodox. I doubt the fish mind at all. It's really a preference thing in the end. IMO, they look way better with the longer hackle tapered back to shorter at the rear.

Regardless, you could use the same method to the them that way.

 

[ryguyfi]

I guess that's what I get for being 100% self taught on tying lol. I now see that everyone else does it your way... which must make it the incorrect way lol. Thanks for the tip though. I'm getting a new streamer box probably tomorrow and need to fill it up. I got a monster articulated (about 5", big for what I usually use) that I plan on tossing at the JAM. Might make a few more. Looking forward to it... less than a month away!

 

[jayL]

No worries. It doesn't matter at all, most likely.

Tie em big and heavy. I got a tail whap from a pig on penns this weekend. I know which rock he's on. I'll spotted a few monsters in that stretch as well. We'll get after 'em.

 

[ryguyfi]

I actually always figured that the dorsal fin, towards the middle of the fish, was the widest part, hence the back end of the bugger being the biggest followed by the marabou tail. That's why I tie mine the opposite way... thought it was more proportional to a baitfish.

 

[jayL]

Here's what they are eating...

When the longer hackle at the front gets wet and sweeps back, the bulk of the mass will be around the first third or midpoint of the fly.

When the longest hackle is at the rear, I'd expect it to center over the tail somewhere when wet. Depends how stiff/webby it is. If the barbs can barely support their own weight, it's the right stuff!

 

[afishinado]

Lol....You can tie it Jay's way but tie in the hackle by the tip! I tie the heaviest hackle towards the front, too, but I don't think it really matters.

BTW, a bugger can look like a sculpin, dace, crayfish, hellgrimite, big MF nymph, fish fly, cranefly larva, a skinny mouse, a fat night crawler or just something good to eat to a fish. I guess that's why it works so well.

That's one butt ugly sculpin, Jay!

 

[littlelehigh]

Ryan,
For what it's worth I use to tie my buggers your way but after several youtube videos converted to jay's way.


I also found a video on youtube of a guy doing a wooley sculpin where he tied in the chenille at the bend of the hook. Wrapped it halfway up the shank. Tied in the hackle wrapping it 4-5 time around then used the chenille to split the hackle on the sides of the hook so the hackle looked like fins. Looked really good and something Jay would put on one of his streamers but can't find the video again. Bummer.....

 

[jayL]

Corey,

Next time we cross paths, I'll show you somethin... :-D (I do that on my sculpin, but not with hackle)

 

[troutslammer]

i normally don't tie woolys , i think jay has my version of a wolly bugger , no hackle necessary , no wire rib necessary , no head cement necessary