Spiderpig(s)
Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 3:36 pm
Remember those elegant silk bodies on letumgo's flies? These aren't like that. 
Actually I was playing around with chamois bodies this afternoon with the idea of approaching the cased caddis we have in our local streams ("stickbait" as they're called in these parts.)
Here's a pattern by a gentleman named Paul Dieter:
Hook: TMC 200r, #12
Head/Thorax: peacock herl from eye-stick
Body: chamois strip
Hackle: English grouse
And, because the eponymous river is about 30 miles from my house, a Tellico softhackle:
Hook: TMC 200r, #12
Rib: Two peacock herls in a orange Pearsall's dubbing loop
Body: chamois strip
Hackle: English grouse
Actually I was playing around with chamois bodies this afternoon with the idea of approaching the cased caddis we have in our local streams ("stickbait" as they're called in these parts.)
Here's a pattern by a gentleman named Paul Dieter:
Hook: TMC 200r, #12
Head/Thorax: peacock herl from eye-stick
Body: chamois strip
Hackle: English grouse
And, because the eponymous river is about 30 miles from my house, a Tellico softhackle:
Hook: TMC 200r, #12
Rib: Two peacock herls in a orange Pearsall's dubbing loop
Body: chamois strip
Hackle: English grouse
At any rate, I'm curious to see how these fish--apparently "the" chamois for flytying is no longer made: Burton's Ultra Chamois was supposedly as thin as vellum, so you could tie a lot smaller--and was in fact thin enough to be transluscent over a brightly colored underbody. No doubt there are some tyers on the Front Range who've stashed some away for their buckskin caddis, but I might be reduced to my own experiments to try to replicate it. (Of course I might be in trouble if my wife drives up this fall and finds me brain-tanning Bambi in the backyard. 