Saturday Night

[gingerdun]

Jon,
I don't follow your meaning. Maybe I should have had that second cup of coffee.
Can you explain the torque comment, and why I'd be spending more time tying on new flies?
I have used the yarn for dubbing sometimes, and it works great, but gives a totally different effect.
The fibers are amazingly wiry and springy.

Lance

[Soft-hackle]

Wonderful work, Lance!

Mark

[CreationBear]

why I'd be spending more time tying on new flies?

Ha, what I meant was that you'll be catching a lot of trout on these. Twisting the yarn compresses it a bit, I believe, making for a tighter body that would perhaps be more durable.

[CM_Stewart]

First, fabulous flies, Lance. Really beautiful (and I'd vote for #1, myself).

Second, I will disagree with CreationBear on the need to twist the yarn to make it more durable. I fish a lot of yarn bodied flies, both with and without hackle. I do not twist the yarn to compress it and I have only had one yarn bodied fly that ever had to be "retired" because the wool was coming apart, and that was one I tied "in hand" rather than in a vise and was unable to get the proper tension to keep the yarn from unraveling. Actually, a few thread wraps and a spot of cement would have resurrected that fly as well, because the yarn was sound, it was just unraveling. In my experience, the hackle will be chewed off long before the body fails, and the fly will still catch fish if you're willing to keep fishing it. Perhaps the difference is the use of wool yarn rather than synthetic, I don't know, but I've found yarn bodied flies to be extremely durable.

[CreationBear]

Ha, definitely listen to the Tenkara sensei-- Chris is definitely the go-to guy for yarn flies. I''ll have to give yarn another look--or else avoid catching so many little trout that have a way of wooling up a fly.

[Stendalen]

Just lovely! Have to try out the scanning technique, excellent detail and colour. Do you put the flies directly on the glass Lance? Have you tried to elevate the fly from tjhe glass, or maybe that will create problem with focus?

Martin

[gingerdun]

Jon and Chris,
Thanks for the illuminating dialogue on wool bodies.
I will keep on experimenting.

And Martin, I just lay the flies on the glass.
The focus does extend some short distance above the glass.
It is feasible, in theory, to raise the fly up off the glass by holding the hook bend with a reverse tweezer or wire clamp, thus avoiding the crushed hackle.
Another way to secure the fly is to insert a round toothpick firmly into the eye, (which I do for formal macro photography).
Just theorizing again, the toothpick or other device could be immobilized by embedding it into a kneaded eraser that could then be stuck onto the scanner glass, making it possible to fine-tune the distance of the fly from the glass.
Raising or removing the scanner lid would result in a black background, which might look great.

Lance

[Donald Nicolson]

Excellent picture results Lance. You have revived my interest in scanning flies instead of using a camera. My camera results were ok. My first fly photos were with a scanner and worked very well but that was ten years ago and my perfectly good scanner would not work work with a modern laptop. You can't get the updated drivers. But believe it or not' H. M. Customs and Excise came through with an income tax rebate which covered me for a nice new Scanner.
I got an Epsom Perfection V500, which I am now playing with. My next batch of flies should look pretty good, photowise. When I was using my old scanner I had a lot of tricks to prevent flattening the flies. With my new toy, the prospects are endless.

[gingerdun]

Donald,
This is a wonderful development. We all will be looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Lance

[letumgo]

Agreed!