[Geoff Gill]

Tried tying the Olive Dun today as per in article in this months eat sleep fish. Having trouble with the quill body.
Its a turkey quill im using, do you tie in with thin end or thick, ive tried both and still cant get a smooth body with them. 

Geoff

[Iain Goolager]

http://www.fishingthefly.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=3224.0

I tie them in by the thin end as in the SBS linked above, be careful as some colours/types that I have bought are weaker than others so I doubt that you'd want to tie them right in at the tip anyway (though this is obviously the thinnest end and would allow for a nicer segmented body compared to a thicker section of biot especially on a small or short bodied fly).

Once you have tested the integrity of the biot for winding around the hook shank at the tail section of the hook I lay a small bed of Fly-Tite along the shank for durability prior to wrapping (although any biot without some form of wire protection will eventually succumb to a trouts teeth).

Iain

[Iain Goolager]

Sorry Gilly,

Just checked out the fly in question - size 20?

It's olive peacock stripped quills you need - a lot finer but has the same pitfalls so ensure they are strong enough to wrap at the tie in point and a fine layer of some form of 'glue' along the hook shank prior to wrapping will help with durability.

Iain

[Sandy Nelson]

Geoff

Iain is right the peacock quills are much easier to tie with, but if you are using turkey you will need to soak it for a couple of minutes to get it soft so it doesn't break .
I tie with peacock quill quite a lot and always put a quick coat of varnish over the thread body before wrapping the quill while the varnish is still wet, this makes it more durable. I tend to do a few bodies and leave them to dry before tying the rest of the fly

Nice wee fly though


Sandy

[Geoff Gill]

Thanks guys ill try that especially soaking them first as I was getting lots of breakages. 
Iain yes they use size 20 but I'm starting off a good bit bigger until I get better 
Thanks again

Geoff

[Iain Goolager]

Geoff,
I'm not really a fan of microfibbets so I tied one with CDL fibres on a size 19 103BL (they come in odd sizes).

One step I'd change slightly, more down to my tying ability, is to dub the thorax with sparse mole once the hackle stem is tied in and then wrap the hackle as on this and smaller sized flies even a sheer thread is quite thick and with the inclusion of a 'dub' might be tricky to wind through the hackle fibres without making a mess.
Just my opinion after tying one.




Iain

[Geoff Gill]

Iain,
Really nice fly and ill try more with dubbing first, makes sense 
Kinda makes my fly look like a trout has already chewed on it next to yours 
I was chuffed with it last night now I'm embaressed   
Cheers again for the help, ill keep at it.

Geoff

[Peter McCallum]

Don't worry yours will catch as many as Iain's 

Keep going they will come good soon enough. 

[Iain Goolager]

Geoff,

Having the correct or good quality materials goes a long way to producing a good fly. If you had peacock quills then there would have been very little between both patterns.

Sorry for the use of the word 'glue' in the post regarding laying a bed layer prior to wrapping the quill. I did mean varnish, ans as I've said before Fly-Tite is great stuff with a bottle lasting a lifetime and it doesn't thicken up over time.

Never feel bad about posting a picture of a fly.

Iain