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Fly Tying Journal Notes

A collection of helpful information and tips regarding fly tying, especially rotary fly tying. A collection of my own observations, and solutions concerning tying techniques and materials selection I have found helpful.

Fly Tying Notes

Spey hackle guard

When tying Spey flies or any fly using long flowing hackle that is tied in early in the tying process working around the hackle fibers can be problematic and certainly less than fun. Borrowing a technique used to store tube flies I have found simple but elegant solution. I simply place the hackle feather into a small light piece of tubing such as a piece of drinking straw or as shown below a length of high temperature thin walled shrink tubing available from any electronics supply shop. By using a very light weight tube section prevents the tube from flopping the hackle feather around as the rotary vise is turned while winding on materials. In addition, as shown in the photograph below, if the hackle is long enough, or you can move your materials clip close enough, you can mount the butt end of the hackle feather into the materials clip to hold it in place. Once again a light weight tube section helps ensure the butt will not pull free of the material clip as the vise is rotated.

Rotary tying blind eye and loop eye hooks

Rotary tying techniques which allow laying down a very flat thread to provide a smooth and thin underbody and the ability to wrap materials such as silk floss smoothly and with great precision are especially useful for the salmon and steelhead fly tyer. However, when tying on blind eye and loop eye hooks which are common for these types of flies there is no "catch" for the thread to be held against during the rotary function. Thus, in order to use the rotary procedures the tyer must use half hitch knots to hold the thread in place. This negates the value of being able to tie a slim smooth fly body as it puts lumps from the knots along the underbody of the fly. It also prevents the tyer from unwrapping temporary wraps of thread as the knot does not allow for unwinding the thread or other material behind the knot's position on the hook shank. To solve this dilemma I have come up with a very simple solution for each of these types of hooks. While I am sure others have found the same solution I have not seen it in print anywhere so offer my solution for your use. In the case of blind eye hooks I simply take a short piece of soft plastic tubing and skewer it onto the front end of the hook perpendicular to the hook shank. In the illustrative photograph below the tubing is soft polyvinyl tubing used for tube fly hook junctions. The piece of tubing does not have to be this big but is here to more easily illustrate how it is mounted and used.

For loop eye hooks my very simple minded solution is to use a similar piece of plastic tubing sized to fit snuggly in the opening of the eye as the thread stop. In the photograph below the tubing is micro Teflon tubing but any type of tubing that fits snuggly will certainly work. Again the piece used is longer than necessary but is used to show up well in the photo.

Rotary Tying Floss Application Tool

When you apply floss or other materials that you want to lay flat on the hook you can do so without having to pre-cut a length of material off of the spool. This saves material and eliminates a step in the application of the material to the hook. The tool is simple to make and can be as finished as pleases the user. My prototype below was made by my son and wood has been filled and sanded glass smooth and then finished with a finish used for wooden bowls and the like. Silk does not snag on the surface of the tool and spools and paper tubes don't climb out of the tool, which are the only two criteria that are important in its use.

This is a picture of the tool. Simply a block of wood with a round channel sized to fit common spools and paper tubes that silk floss comes on.

This is the tool as it would be used during the wrapping of a silk floss body on a hook.

Rotary Tying Materials Application Techniques

I have been trying out the Rite brand of thread bobbins which allow for easy and fast setting of the amount of tension required to pull the thread or floss from its spool. One techinque that is very easy with this bobbin (or any bobbing that you can adjust to provide between about 1oz. and 2oz. of tension) is the application of a smooth flat layer of thread or floss. The first photograph shows the manner of doing this that can be used on any bobbin at any thread tension by stopping and pulling thread out of the bobbin and then wrapping until the bobbin tube reaches the guide finger and repeating until the desired amount of thread or floss is wound onto the hook. The second photograph shows a similar technique where the 1 to 2 oz. tension setting on the bobbin allows the guide finger to "stop" the bobbin tube and allow the thread or floss to come off the spool and lie flat on the hook as it is wrapped on. To insure the thread or floss flattens on the hook shank you have to keep the guide finger as far from the hook shank is possible. In both cases the thumb and trigger finger used to hold the hand in place on the hook slides along the hook shank toward the hook bend as the thread or floss is wrapped back toward the bend to the hook and reverses travel when wrapping forward toward the eye of the hook. The Rite brand bobbin makes this technique very easy and fast. And not being spring loaded like the Nor brand bobbin you never have to stop and released the fully wound up spring.

Rotary tying hook shank materials clamp

In ongoing research into the methods used to tie his Spey flies I have learned that Syd Glasso used a flat silver tinsel underbody for his floss bodied creations. However he only wrapped this underbody from the front to the back and then held the tag of the flat tinsel by the weight of a hackle pliers while wrapping the floss over-body and then using the flat tinsel tag for the flat tinsel rib to get it back to the front of the fly and the tie off point. When using a rotary vise and applying the floss body as shown above the use of a weight to hold the tinsel tag will not work as it will cause the tinsel to wrap around the hook shank. My solution is to use a slice of a foam popper body or the like and cut a slit into it forming a "clamp" that I can apply over the last tinsel underbody wrap and leave the tag end of the tinsel free to rotate in place as the hook shank is rotated to apply the silk over-body.

Feather wing shaping technique

Finding matched pairs of feathers for use in wings of feather wing streamers or feather wing Spey flies that are both of the correct size and have the desired curve so they provide a pleasing profile. However, if you only have to choose the proper size things are a lot easier. One way to eliminate finding both size and proper curve is to create the desired curve in the feather after the feathers have been mounted on the fly. This is very easily and quickly done by placing an object like a bodkin needle (shown in the photograph below) under the wing stems, pressing down on this needle from above the wing stems with your thumb forcing a bend in the feather stems and then stripping this down the length of the feather similar to zipping the crimped package wrapping ribbon to make it curl. Simply insert the needle under all of the wing feathers close to the tie in point and zip back to the tip of the wing. You can do this multiple times until the desired curve is achieved. Obviously, most of the pressure is applied onto the needle but you must be able to zip the needle down the feather length easily enough you do not pull out the wing or break the wing stems off.

Here is an example of the a wing after being curved using this technique.

Forming a Melted Head on a Plastic Tube

When tying using plastic tubing such as sold under the Mikael Frodin FITS brand melting the head end of the tube produces a nice finished fly. In addition, when mounting a cone or bead on the front of the tube fly, melting the head end of the tube allows the cone or bead to be permanently fixed to the fly without the need of adhesive. If the tube end is melted off of the mandrel used to tie the fly the hole in the tubing can easily be plugged with molten plastic or very much reduced in size making threading the tippet through the tube difficult. The following technique prevents this problem and automatically opens up the tube end and provides a very even and symmetrical plastic collar to finish the fly and/or lock on a bead or cone. This technique is illustrated using both a blind eye salmon hook and a tapered hook commonly sold for tying tube flies. If you use one of these for the tying mandrel the technique is simply the final tying step before removing the finished tube fly. If you tie using a button ended mandrel system you will need to remove the tube fly after the fly is finished and ready for the melted collar and insert it on a blind eye hook or the tapered hook to form the melted collar.

Here the simple tube fly has been tied and a black nickel tungsten cone mounted onto the front of the tube and forced back into the collar and wing of the fly. A small stub of tube protrudes past the front of the cone about 1/16th to 1/8th inch. 

Here the heat source, here a butane cigar lighter, is positioned so the side of the flame will heat the side of the tubing. As the tubing is rotated by the rotary function of the vise or by hand the tubing in front of the cone will melt and draw itself backwards and outwards. Because the metal of the hook is not being heated as fast as the plastic tubing the plastic stays cooler on its inside surface causing the hole in the tubing to open up instead of closing down.

Here is the finished fly with the tube head melted into a collar tight against the front of the cone locking it in place while ensuring that the hole in the tube remains open and easy to insert a tippet through.

Here the fly has been finished on a tapered needle commonly sold for tying tube flies.

Dee Wing Tying Tool and Method

Warning!!! Classic salmon fly tyers may have an apoplexy over this non-traditional wing mounting method. For the rest of us, tying on Dee wings so they are splayed, in a horizontal plane, and not overlapped at the tie in point can be a bit hit or miss. To make this task a bit more consistent and the wings properly set with less potential problems I have come up with a tool to make a known non-traditional method a bit easier. The tyer still needs to provide a proper mounting area on the hook and must also utilize good quality suitable wing material if the final results are to be satisfactory.

The method I have adapted is that of tying the Dee wing set off the hook and mounting them as a completed wing set. This involves placing the two feather slips on a hard smooth surface of a table top and using a thin thread to compress the two slips together side by side while holding the wing slips tightly against the table surface with pressure from the tyer's thumb. The difficulty with this method is that the holding of the wing slips tightly against the table surface can be awkward making the task more difficult than it should be.

My solution is to provide a tying platform for pre-making the Dee wings that the tyer can hold in the hand holding the wing slips such that the wings can be tied in front of the tyer at any comfortable position. In addition, if a transparent tool is used the tyer can actually look through the back side of the tool to confirm that the wings are indeed properly set before releasing pressure. While any flat, hard, smooth, somewhat slippery surface will do, I have found transparent Plexiglas to be particularly suitable. The tool here is constructed from an old scrap of 1/4" transparent light gray Plexiglas I salvaged from a cutting surface I used for rod building. The scratch marks visible are on the back side of the tool and not on the top surface used to tie the Dee wings. The tool size is not critical and may be any size that is comfortable for the tyer. Here the tool is approximately 4" x 2.5".

Above is a top view of the tool comprising a Plexiglas base with a brass wood screw mounting a rubber grommet in one corner area of the Plexiglas base. Below is the same tool in an side view showing the simple mounting manner of the rubber grommet. Note that the grommet needs to be rubber and not plastic to provide the proper grip to the thread that will be place under it. The grommet is a "catch" well known to tyers that tie "in hand".

After a right and a left wing slip have been prepared they are laid on the tool with the butts extending over the edge of the tool to the point where the wing slips will be tied together to provide the desired finished wing length. Here the slips are from an Eastern Woodland Turkey tail feather.

A suitable length of 8/0 or 6/0 tying thread is cut from the thread spool and an untightened single Granny or overhand knot is tied in it and the wing slip butts are lassoed by the knot. The knot is tightened just enough to take up most of the slack but not so tight as to change the wing slip side by side orientation. The wing slips and thread are then moved into a position where the tie point is slightly to the right (above) the grommet which will be used to "catch" one end of the thread so the knot can be drawn tight while the wing slips are held tightly in position by the tyer's thumb. Because a simple overhand or Granny knot can only be tightened by pulling on both ends of the thread the "catch" acts to hold one end of the thread during the times that the other thread end is being drawn tight. The "catch" held thread end is removed from the "catch" when it is being drawn tight.

In practice the tyer would use white thread or thread of the color of the head that will be tied to finish the fly so that the thread used to set the wings need not be removed before tying in the wings. This insures that the wing slip position is not disturbed during the wing mounting step. Here we are using red thread to make it easier to see.

Here the wing slips are ready to be tied together causing the fibers to be crushed edge to edge with no overlapping of the two wing slips and creating a very narrow tie in point as well as splay or flare the wings into a delta orientation.

The knot is pulled tight around the wing slips while putting fair amount of pressure on the wing slips with the hard end pad of the thumb. This is done by putting the thread on the left side into the catch and then drawing the right side thread tight with the free hand. Then the thread on the left side is removed from the catch and pulled tight with the free hand. You continue to pull alternate ends of the thread until you do not feel any further compacting of the fibers and movement of the thread at the knot. All the while you continue to apply the pressure with your thumb. If you use a transparent base as here you can rotate your wrist and check the wings from the back side to confirm they are completely set. If you always start to tighten the knot by pulling on the side with no catch you don't need to have a catch to hold that thread when you pull the catch side thread tight.

Once the wings have been set by pulling the granny or overhand knot tight a second overhand knot is tied in the thread and this is tightened to lock the thread. Here the second knot is just above the end of the thumb and ready to be pulled tight just as was done for the first knot.

The wings are now ready to tie onto the fly. As shown the wing slips have been crushed edge to edge with no overlapping of the wing slips as well having a very small diameter tie in spot. At this point you can handle them with care without fear of disturbing the set of the wing. Cut the thread tags short and mount the wings with the construction thread directly over the wing mounting point and overwrap with the tying thread. Cut the butts and tag ends of the wing construction thread and finish the head.

Hackle Pliers by Mike Barnum

Below are three images showing various views of the Mike Barnum hackle pliers for your information.

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