Glasso hackle wing style - advice

[Joe Smolt]

I really like the Glasso style hackle wing on spey flies. I understand the idea is to pitch the left and right side hackles to "tent" them along the hook shank. Any advice on doing this. I can tie in the hackles in straight up, but I have a hard time getting a good looking pitch to the wings and a low profile.

Joe

[Wakemaster]

There are several tips that may help get the proper position and shape of hackle tip wings on a spey pattern. First, make sure that the area of the wing base is flat, smooth and as clear as possible of extraneous materials. Second, strip off a few more hackle fibers from the base of the hackle tips on the side of the feather next to the hook. Third, crimp the hackle stem slightly at the tie in point but not enough to break them. This is usually done with your fingernail or teeth and it helps if the shafts of the hackle tips are fine and supple as opposed to coarse or brittle. Lastly, after tying in the hackle tips and completing the fly, lightly moisten the hackle tips with water (or saliva) stroke them back and down so they form the classic hump, and let them dry in this position.

Material management and fine thread 6/0 or finer are also necessary if one is to duplicate the small heads that are characteristic of Glasso patterns. I was fortunate enough to watch Syd Glasso tie some of his own spey patterns as well as low water Atlantic Salmon patterns. Each wrap of thread and turn of material was placed just so, tension was often provided by no more than a clothspin on the thread--I don't recall ever seeing Syd use a half hitch, or a bobbin for that matter. Speed was not important.

Happy tying

:ray1:

[FT]

Joe,

The Glasso speys are some of my favorite winter steelhead flies. Tying them so they tent, which is the correct way and the way Glasso tied them by the way, is not difficult at all. However, you cannot tie both the left and right side in at the same time. The far side (right wing as you look at the fly from the front) should be tied on first, and the near side afterward.

To tie them in so the tent, you have to use neck hackle (Whiting American in the best, Chinese neck hackle is second best) because saddle hackle is too fine stemmed and not shaped properly for a good wing). Anyhow, to tie them in 1) pluck two hackle from the right side of the neck for the far wings (these will naturally bend a bit to the right, which is what you need for the far wings); 2) place them one on top of the other; 3) size the wing, it should be just a little longer than the body; 4) strip most of the fibers off the butt so you have bare stems; 5) tie them in so the top of the feathers are inclined toward you and when you tie them in, make sure you catch some of the hackle fibers with you thread (this is needed to keep the feathers "tented" as they are tied in); 6) pluck two feather from the left side of the neck for the near wing; and then repeat steps 2 through 5 remembering to "tent" the feathers inward.

Don't worry about the feathers touching all the way down the wing. In fact, it is quite normal for them to be separated slightly at the top of the wing, especially near the end of the wing. And when you set each pair of feathers for each wing, tie them in with only 2-3 turns of thread, which will allow you to nudge them into place and to pull the near wing a bit through the thread to make the near and far wing ends line up. After the are sitting where you want them and they are of the same length, put on 2-3 more turn of thread, and while holding on to the wings with your left hand, cut the stems close. If you don't hold on to the wings when cutting the stems, the wings will distort on you.

To make a small head with the hackle tip Glasso spey wings, put a drop of head cement on the wing butts as soon as you cutt the wing stems, and then whip finish over the wing butts to finish the fly. The cement will cement the wings to the thread and the thead to the hook and itself all in one easy step and produce a small head and very durable fly.

Hope this helps and clear enough to follow. If you find it hard to follow, Bob Veverka has an excellent photo series on how to do them in his book SPEY FLIES: HOW TO TIE THEM that was just published last year.

[Joe Smolt]

Thanks for the advice to date. Key new things here for me are use of neck hackles and tying in the far side hackle first. When I tie in a spey wing (mallard), I tie in the near side wing by the conventional direction of thread, then switch direction to tie in the far side hackle. I am guessing FT is switching the thread direction before tying in the near side hackles.

Joe

[FT]

Joe,

I never reverse my tying thread anymore. When I began tying full dressed classic salmon flies 20 years ago, I reversed my thread because that was what Jorgenson said to do. It was a pain to reverse the thread and added unnecessary thread wraps to the head of the fly (unless you use a blind eye hook and pass the thread between the hook end and the wraps holding the gut loop in place).

Then I bought the books by Kelson, Hale, Blacker, and Maxwell and found none of them mentioned reversing the thread when tying in wings. Since apparently they didn't reverse the thread, I decided I'd learn to tie wings without reversing the thread.

I simply tie the Glasso hackle tip wing by tying the far side first (without reversing my tying thread) so that it is "tented" or has the top edge learning toward me. Then I tie in the near wing so it is learning away from me and the top edge of against the far wing's top edge. Veverka doesn't bother to reverse his thread either when tying Glasso hackle tip wings, not does Dick Wentworth (who Glasso taught to tie flies when he was in junior high and Glasso was his principal). Both of them do tie the far wing in first and "tent them toward each other.

[ceviche]

So. basically, we are talking about tying the far side wing first, not reversing the thread, bringing the near-side feather into alignment and binding it evenly with the far side wing, and all towards not building up excessive thread. No?

[FT]

ceviche,

Yes and no, let me explain.

Yes, you tie the far wing pair of neck hackle tips in first with 2 turns of thread while tilting the top edge toward you in order to have them tent.

No, because when you tie in the near pair of hackle tips, you don't have the stems next to the stems of the far wing. The stems will be tied in a little toward you and their will be a small separation of the far and near side wing stems. And you have to make sure to tilt the near wing's top edge toward the far side to get the wings to tent. These are also tied in with 2 turns of thread.

This also means that the wing top edges will not be together or touching all the way down the wing. They will be separated near the tips and there will be a noticeable separation of the wing stems at the head.

[ceviche]

Thanks for the clarification, FT. What you described lies at the crux of the problem I had when trying my first and last attempt at tying a GP. What an abortion! :beathead: Those top wings just killed me. Now I can see what I did wrong. Thanks again!

[FT]

ceviche,

The wings on a GP are tied differently than a Glasso hackle tip spey wing.

GP wings are tied flat on top of the body. To do this, you have to clip the hackle off the top of the fly before tying in the golden pheasant red breast feather pair needed for each wing over each body section as you tie the fly. And to make sure the golden pheasant red breast feathers stay in place and don't roll down on the side of the body when you tie them in, you need to catch a few fibers of the feather and not just tie them in by the stem.

A GP is easiest to tie if you do it in this order: 1) tie in the hot orange bucktail; 2) tie in the orange Kystal Flash over the bucktail; 3) tie in a pair of small g.p. red breast feathers over the tail so the cover 1/3 of the tail; 4) tie in the small (or medium on flies #2 or larger) oval gold ribbing; 5) dub the rear 1/3 of the body with hot orange dubbing; 6) tie in a hot orange chinese or Whiting American Grade saddle hackle by the butt; 7) wrap the hackle 2 turns right in front of the body segment and then palmer it backwards to the tail; 8) use the oval gold tinsel to hold down the hackle as you wrap it forward (the same technique used to tie a Woolley Bugger by using fine oval silver tinsel or silver wire to make it nearly indistructable) to the front of the body segment (this should take 3-4 turns of tinsel); 9) tie off the tinsel with 3 turns of thread and fold it backward and make 2-3 turns of thread to hold it back; 10) cutt the hackle fibers off the top of the body; 11) tie in a pair of g.p. breast feathers flat on top of the body that extend to the bend of the hook; 12) tie in the g.p tippet that has had the center cutt out on top of the g.p. breast feather pair (a little flexible cement like Flexament on the bottom 1/3rd of the tippet makes it lie better) so the tippet feather tips are the same length as the g.p. breast feathers; 13) dub the next body section; 14) tie in another saddle hackle, make 2 turns in front of the body segment, and palmer it back to the end of the body segment; 15) use the ribbing to hold the hackle in place as you wrap the ribbing forward; 16) tie off the tinsel; 17) clip the hackle fibers off the top of the body; 18) tie in another pair of g.p red breast feathers flat on top of the body (they should cover 1/2 of the previous pair; 19) tie in another piece of small oval gold tinsel (if needed, otherwise, use the rest of the piece you tied in at the rear of the fly); 20) dub the front 1/3 of the body; 21) tie in another saddle hackle, make 3-4 turns, and then palmer it back over the body segment; 22) hold the hackle in place with the ribbing as it gets wrapped forward; 23) clip off the top of the hackle; 24) tie in the final pair of g.p red breast feathers flat over the body (they should cover 1/2 of the previous pair; 25) hold the final pair of g.p red breast feathers and clip the stems very short; 26) add some Flexament (or other flexible cement) to the wing stubs and whip finish over then to finish the fly.

If you follow the above steps in the order given, you will find your GP's will come out looking good. Granted the GP is not the easiest fly to tie (probably why the ones I see in nearly all fly shops are not tied properly) and even the best tyers who have tied thousands of them can only crank out 4 or 5 of them in an hour.

The amount of time they take is also one of the reasons properly tied ones are not common fair in most fly shops. The shop would have to buy them from a professional/commercial tyer and because of the amount of g.p. breast feathers used in each fly (8 are used in each fly) and the time it takes to tie one, the shop would have to charge at least $4.00 a fly with $4.50-$5.00 not being unreasonable. Most fly fisherman it seems are unwilling to pay this to get a well-tied GP, which is one of the most effective winter steelhead flies.

[FT]

GP wings