Swap suggestion feeler.

[Mataura mayfly]

Spun Opossum?! Outstanding!!! I completely missed that.

(Thanks for the nudge Jeff)

Fooled the heck out of me and I thought the same.... that is why I "nudged" before we all fell in the same trap.
That spun body is VERY well executed.

[hankaye]

dub-ya, Howdy;

, , ... , , ,
and I willingly signed on to have my neophyte flies
end up in a pile with these ..... , :banghead:

hank

[redietz]

I thought the same as Ray until I read the caption. It sure looks like ostrich herl.

[William Anderson]

You guys are funny, and thanks.

So Hayden has pulled up a chair next to me at my table and is in one of his 1000 questions a day phases. I'm teaching him why and what and how and he picks up the heavy loop spinner and wants to see it used. I confess I'm not any good at spinning hair and have never used the tool except long ago for some dropped loops with dubbing. But I managed the hair collar, then to demo the tool further did a very big wild body completely spun with the opossum hair patch. After clipping it just to show him how that could be done to shape a cricket body (his new gecko eats a pile of crickets everyday, so while I thought we were getting the kid a gecko as pet...We also now have a little cricket farm to support his habit). Anyway, I tried again and the body reminded me of the North Country Spider drawings from the Pritt color plates (peacock not fur) so I trimmed it out. It could be dressed to float or could become a soggy sponge. It would probably fish well on one of those days where anything presented naturally could work. It'd a cool texture for a spun body.

Thanks again for the encouragement.

Hank, you shine brighter for this stuff than I ever imagined. Absolutely remarkable. You're always generous with your comments but you also set a high bar with swap flies. Sincerely, you inspire me to try my best. And I appreciate that very much.

[hankaye]

dub-ya, Howdy;

You're to kind .... looking forward to seeing these wet as well.

So, from what you wrote I'm understanding that you did something
akin to Han's split thread only with the possum fur, laying in a ample
amount of the fur all neatly wound up tightly when you twisted it till
it yelped like a wee small child when you step on it's toes. Then wound it
in tightly touching turns till it suited your purposes. Am I close???

hank

[tie2fish]

These are all first rate "experiments", W, but I am really smitten with your Orange & Spun 'Possum spider.

[Dwclapp]

dub-ya, Howdy;

, , ... , , ,
and I willingly signed on to have my neophyte flies
end up in a pile with these ..... , :banghead:

hank

Right there with you on that Hank. At least the group will get a good chuckle out of my attempt at something original.

Darin

[William Anderson]

dub-ya, Howdy;

You're to kind .... looking forward to seeing these wet as well.

So, from what you wrote I'm understanding that you did something
akin to Han's split thread only with the possum fur, laying in a ample
amount of the fur all neatly wound up tightly when you twisted it till
it yelped like a wee small child when you step on it's toes. Then wound it
in tightly touching turns till it suited your purposes. Am I close???

hank

Hank, that's it. Just be sure to choose your hair to match the characteristics you want in the body. This has mostly guard hairs and those secondary guard hairs with the underfur mostly pulled out. I didn't comb it out or anything so there are lots of finer fibers in the spin. The wallaby would probably be a good candidate for spinning as well. Again, I'm not sure what the natural buoyancy of these bodies would be fished. Obviously not great if you keep too much of the underfur. Someone with more time on the water should give thus a serious test.

[Kelly L.]

William, somehow I missed your flies yesterday. They are all incredible. I don't know what you mean by judge too harshly. They are all BEAUTIFUL!!!

[zen leecher]

I thought the spun possum body was hackle or ostrich until I read it was S-P-U-N possum. That's not all that easy to do without a little extra effort.