Feeling Experimental

[letumgo]

This fly is a combination of odd materials, ideas and techniques:
1) Long bent shank hook (Daiichi Model 1730/Size 10)
2) Trimmed body fly (abdomen is first dubbed, ribbed with black ribbing and then trimmed flush to form a slender, yet translucent dubbed body)
3) Guinea fowl fibers used as thorax material (bunch of fibers tyed in by the tips, twisted with the thread and wound on like dubbed body)
4) Guinea fowl fibers clipped and tyed in as hackle fibers (no stem).

Kind of a crazy pattern, but it was nice to get back to the vice...

[Mataura mayfly]

Very cool and inventive. Kind of like a big slender stonefly that has been to visit Jenny Craig.

Neat set of methods combining into a very usable pattern.

[letumgo]

Jeff - That is a very helpful comment (stonefly reference). I think the addition of biots for a tail, and changing the way I trimmed this fly (allowing sides to be a bit longer / wide flattened profile), would be make for a useful stonefly pattern.

The hackle was inspired by Wayne & Hans. I just had to give this technique (using oversized hackle) a try. Not as easy as you guys make it look. I had to tye in a couple sets of hackle fibers before I was happy.

[Mataura mayfly]

If you are allowed weighted flies there is a good pattern here for stoneflies that uses strips of lead wire stacked on the sides and top of hook to build bulk and not close the hook gape as wrapping would. You could use that and still trim your body the same?

I know! I have a heck of a job with those clipped fibre hackles in split thread and getting it to sit/look right. You did well!

[Kelly L.]

Really like this one too Ray, especially the body work!

[letumgo]

Jeff - I tye a crawfish pattern using the lead technique you describe. It is a nice way to create a flattened profile. Thanks mate.

[tie2fish]

I'm seeing a cased caddis here, but in any event, the tying techniques are bold and creative. You always manage to give me an idea or two, Ray, and I thank you for that.

[William Anderson]

Ray, there are a number of great things going on here. I can especially see the need to make that hackle work on a soft-hackle with those markings. That should certainly get someone's attention. Glad to see you're at the vise noodling around. That's not a pun...it's just what my uncle would call his piano playing when he was sat and played freely just to hear different combinations and techniques. Sometimes he ended up with something new that otherwise would not have occurred to him.

w