hooker-of-men
Well-known member
I want to pick folks' brains a bit about strategies for tying streamers to avoid flies fouling when casting.
I recently posted this fly, which worked well (until it was lost on a log), and I have been playing with various iterations of it:
The fish liked the pattern all weekend, but it fouls a good deal and I am spending a lot of time adjusting the flies.
I have similar experiences with say, sand eels, tied like this:
I'm more looking for general rules of thumb to consider than specific solutions for these two patterns. I've done some experimenting over the last week with tying the longer materials as a tail and then a dubbing loop body and a shorter length of similar materials at the head (so sort of a two part body), but I am still not getting the head-length quite right to keep it from wrapping under. ( I wish I had a pic of these attempts to clarify, but I was just churning through a handful of variations to test and didn't bother to take photos.)
Is a short shank hook going to be better? Is there a point at which, counterintuitively, longer materials will actually avoid fouling by being too long to wrap around the hookpoint? What guidelines do you follow when you're tying?
Thanks!
I recently posted this fly, which worked well (until it was lost on a log), and I have been playing with various iterations of it:
The fish liked the pattern all weekend, but it fouls a good deal and I am spending a lot of time adjusting the flies.
I have similar experiences with say, sand eels, tied like this:
I'm more looking for general rules of thumb to consider than specific solutions for these two patterns. I've done some experimenting over the last week with tying the longer materials as a tail and then a dubbing loop body and a shorter length of similar materials at the head (so sort of a two part body), but I am still not getting the head-length quite right to keep it from wrapping under. ( I wish I had a pic of these attempts to clarify, but I was just churning through a handful of variations to test and didn't bother to take photos.)
Is a short shank hook going to be better? Is there a point at which, counterintuitively, longer materials will actually avoid fouling by being too long to wrap around the hookpoint? What guidelines do you follow when you're tying?
Thanks!