What Have You Been Tying Today?

[Robert MacDonald-Lewis]

Those look very nice, I like the colour combinations.

[Robert MacDonald-Lewis]

I have used some CDC dubbing for this Pink Shrimp. Could be considered an odd material choice, but it should move really well in the water.

[Ben O'Neill]

Thank you Mike,  the hook has an offset shape which I find great for such type of flies, with fantastic hookup rate

What hook is this? It looks a bit like the Hanak H550BL but I can't find that smaller than 16?... I really like this hook for barbless spiders. I like the traditional straight eye + as Mike says the extended and upturned point on a barbless hook gives me more confidence.

Offset is really interesting to... re-opens any lost gape from that upturned point and as you say may help hookup. I hope the temper on mine is good, they might be getting a tweak in the vice...!

[James Laraway]

a wee flock of 'capercaillies'. They look like nice, meaty trout snacks that's for sure. Finally finding some use for all those zonker strips....

[Ben O'Neill]

I was attracted to this forum because of the outstanding tiers and rod builders (and many who do both to a high standard!). Here is what I got up to during part of today. I'm definitely learning so feedback welcome






Also my first attempt at a tube fly as part of this coming season's sea trout mission

[Mike Barrio]

Nice work Ben 

[James Laraway]

very nice Ben, i like those spiders. I'd say you are likely to catch a salmon on that tube....Don salmon do like a sunray. I used to fish them on a single hander mostly on plastic tubes - simple but deadly. I also mixed the colours of the bucktail underwing - blue, purple you name it - they all worked

[Ben O'Neill]

Sadly like most the West Wales salmon returns make sad reading. Tubes still confuse me but I bought the HMH tool in the Sportfish/Farlows sale and am playing with the sample tubes that came in the kit.

This is Ceri Thomas's egg sucking leach, as described in his (+Alan Parfitt's) excellent book. Fantastic lure for early and late season llyn (or loch?) trout. Apparently Arthur McDonald called it an abomination  I call it the first-cast-Ceri

[James Laraway]

So despite Ceri calling it a leech its not a leech its a tadpole  ( leeches have a rabbit zonker tail instead of marabou).

That being said i fish such tadpoles and humongous' all the time for wild brown trout and they love them so you will do well.

The only issue with a humongous is the big bead chain eyes whistling past your ear but if you get your hands on small bead chain and tie on a size 10 or 12 hook they are deadly...

[Robert MacDonald-Lewis]

The flies look good to me Ben.

On the lure pattern, if it has a tinsel rib you might want to include a wire or mono counter rib to protect and hold the tinsel rib in place.

[Ben O'Neill]

The flies look good to me Ben.

On the lure pattern, if it has a tinsel rib you might want to include a wire or mono counter rib to protect and hold the tinsel rib in place.

Thanks, Ceri omits this in his tying but that makes a lot of sense Robert

[Robert MacDonald-Lewis]

A simple snatched, experimenting with some Pink resin

[Sandy Nelson]

I finally got to the vice last week too.
Refilling my V-wing duns and triple wing spinners.
I tried one in grey duster/iron blue colours. I fancy this will will be rather effective

[Mike Barrio]

Nice one Sandy 

Yep, l reckon that will fish really well, great looking fly.

[Sandy Nelson]

A yellow may version today.
I fancy it might also work when Danica are about.

[James Laraway]

been at Arthur's book again, the 'smidge' looks very fishy



Now i have a thought i would like to run past everyone. I like the 'hotspot' but surely trout are most likely to be deeper than the fly we are fishing so should the hotspot not be on the underside of the fly ? Asthetically it looks better on the top but....

Same with 'splitting the head' - what is the point unless the opal mirage is on the underside of the muddler head ? Thoughts ?

[Robert MacDonald-Lewis]

I had the same thought on splitting the head, agree it would be barely visible to the fish. Hadn't thought about the tag too much, it may be slightly more visible from behind the fly, assuming that the weight of the hook will make the fly swim at an angle with its arse lower.

Nicely tied version of the fly though.

[Ben O'Neill]

Biot jingler-ish with found badger hair tails... will hopefully find some March Brown munchers...

[Robert MacDonald-Lewis]

Very nice Ben, Thoise tails look great.

[Robert MacDonald-Lewis]

A leggy Claret and Magenta werfly, at heart a bit of a play on a Kate McLaren.

[Robert MacDonald-Lewis]

A CDC and deer hair dun.

[Robert MacDonald-Lewis]

Messing about with some resins on this buzzer. Worth checking out some of the flies ties by Wes Penny, the source of inspiration behind this one.

[Robert MacDonald-Lewis]

A boot bodied CDC dun, I used some pink floss to split the wings and create a small sighted.

[Robert MacDonald-Lewis]

A simple wee mini lure today.

[Robert MacDonald-Lewis]

A couple of buzzer or midge patterns. One was a result of getting bored tying up some pennels. The other a more intentional tying I put together today.