Wingless Killer

[Old Hat]

DUBBN, that is a good thought. I have found quite a few crane fly larvae on this system, usually buried I the shoreline. I often wonder how fish get them. I don't know the entire life history of crane fly. I will have to go look into it. There are a lot of October caddis in this system as well, this could be as well. Any way it is desired. I haven't fished the smaller size yet as our waters are closed now until Memorial weekend. I am interested whether this will make a difference. It would be a good guess I think, if the the smaller one is not productive and the larger remains so, that the crane fly or fall caddis it is. Then it might loose the tail. I really don't know why I put a tail on it, surely for me and not the fish.

Gingerdun and CM Stewart, thanks for sharing those patterns for comparison. It always interests me to see how tiers from different areas, even different timelines, can come up with similar patterns.

[JohnP]

All the flies in this thread look great!

[William Anderson]

Cool posts. I will have to tie some of these up and maybe do some field tests.

CM, the effectiveness of that fly doesn't surprise me in the least. These are all great to see.

I keep meaning to turn this into a SH fly. Looks like I'll be in good company when I get to it.



w

[hankaye]

Howdy All;

Beautiful tyes everyone.... Really liked the
'Blast form the Past'. Thanks for that, gd.

hank

[JohnP]

Cool posts. I will have to tie some of these up and maybe do some field tests.

CM, the effectiveness of that fly doesn't surprise me in the least. These are all great to see.

I keep meaning to turn this into a SH fly. Looks like I'll be in good company when I get to it.



w

Great fly! I can see that with a couple of turns of black hen being a real killer of a soft hackle.

[redietz]

In a size 8 I can see the trout taking it for a Cranefly larva.

I've always assumed that's what trout take a Killer Bug for. You don't need to go as big as a size 8, either. Much of the success of that fly I think was due to the amount of wire that went into it -- it got down where cranefly larva and aquatic worms live.

... it seems like we spend a lot of time talking about slender, delicate bodies with lively materials, but I was wondering about these robust versions recently.

Usually when we're talking about slender, delicate bodies, we're talking about mayfly (i.e. "upright") duns and spinners, which in fact have slender, delicate bodies. When we start talking about other trout food, all bets are off. Cranefly larva, aquatic worms, caddis larvae, many mayfly nymphs, stonefly nypmhs, crayfish, minnows, caterpillars (I'm thinking inch worms), moths, dragonfly larvae, et al have thicker bodies. Most of these, however, are not often found in the film or just under it, which is where I tend to fish wets the most.

[Kelly L.]

I loved ALL the flies in this thread. I like sparse flies, and big fat morsels like these too. I know if you tossed some of these out where I live, you'd have a fight on your hands.

[Old Hat]

killergrub.jpg (79 KiB) Viewed 2063 times

killerpartridge.jpg (46.68 KiB) Viewed 2064 times

Ok here is couple more. One a wingless one a nymph. I don't know what this yarn is used on these two. I ordered the 477 Chadwick's killer bug yarn replacement supplied by Veniards. When the package arrived there was a small amount of yarn with a little sticker that read "The Real Chadwick's" as an extra. Nice touch I must say from Great Feathers Fly Shop. Anyway I used that yarn on these. I have never seen real 477 Chadwick's so I don't know what the original looks like. But I do like the yarn sent as a freeby better than the Veniards.

[hankaye]

Old Hat, Howdy;

Those are some truly excellent lookin' flys...

How would you best discribe the coloring of the
'real' 477 wool ????
Which color is largest % followed by...etc. ???
If you care not to that's alright as well.

Thanks,

hank

[Old Hat]

Hank, I would say about 35 grey, 35 tan, 20 cream and 10 other. I'm working on a flymph where I have taken the yarn and mixed it thoroughly as a dubbing. Doing this the dubbing comes out mostly a light tan with a pink hue which some say is the strength of the 477 Chadwick's and is the predominant color of the Veniards interestingly enough.