Hen and Hare - Wire Brush Body

[William Anderson]

Hi William,

Nice fly and thanks for the compliment.

quote: I have ordered a small acrylic tub that might allow me to shoot the flies dry and then shoot them wet in the same orientation and background using my current set-up. It's always fun to fool around with these things. I'll have to let you know how that turns out. Until then...

Try a whiskey glass

Greeting

Ruard...my glass is otherwise occupied. . Actually, mine are round and very heavy and I thought to keep my eyes open for one with flat sides.

CB, that's just the one. Thanks for sharing that. You're the man with the skills.

w

[William Anderson]

Bump for comparison/discussion.

I can't find the water tank thread on my phone so if anyone could pop that link in I believe it shows the dubbed wire body in the tank as well. Thanks.

[Mataura mayfly]

This one?

http://www.flymphforum.com/viewtopic.ph ... ank#p46551

[gingerdun]

Great idea to revive these two threads. I'm going to try the wire brush rib on a #16 like you did William.

[gingerdun]

William,
here is my fly on a smaller 16 hook, but still a 2x-long.
The first point is to show again the effect of treating the wire brush as a rib by spacing the first wraps wide enough to let the silk underbody show through.
The second point is the exaggerated tapering, with nearly bare wire over the abdomen, and quickly increasing dubbing for the thorax, in addition to closer wraps.



This next photo shows my brush-making technique.
I had added a lip to the sloping drawing table to prevent paper from sliding to the floor. This lip also stops the Clark block when I am pulling on the wire clip to spin the wire. I don't slope the table any more now that I use if for tying, but the lip still turns out to be handy.
In this shot the spinning is only one-third-done. I like the rope to be much tighter.
You can see that I use very little dubbing, and that it tapers rapidly down to nearly nothing.



There is something about the layers of primrose silk, copper wire, and yellow-orange dubbing that suggests the glowing amber bodies of the mayflies we saw on the Willow. They looked like they were filled with golden honey.
Maybe I will get the water tank going now to reshoot this fly.

[hankaye]

gingerdun, Howdy;

Nice fly, also like the use of the wire and easy-clip (?), for twisting
up your brushes.
I agree that these 2 discussions are well timed for revival

hank.

[Kelly L.]

William, that Hen and Hare Wire Bodied Caddis is SWEEET! I must of missed this one before.