Davy
01-27-2006, 07:11 AM
Thought I would attempt a step by step pictorial on how I dress a simple basic spey for us. I will be editing and adding pics as I go along until the fly is done. The pattern is a new blue spey named the Blue DeLe . I will also attempt to underline key aspects of the recipe.
The hook is a TMC 202SP size 1/0
I have started here in this picture by laying down a decent thread base for the entire section where the floss portion of the body will be wrapped. I am using white thread since the blue floss is a light shade and do not want dark thread to "bleed" thru.
After preparing your favorite beverage to have handy, the thread is started at or near where the floss junction with the forward body material will begin.Basically my formula for speys is 1/3 rear body floss, front 2/3 is dubbing or chennille. It is then wrapped evenly as possible back to a point directly above the hooks point, and then brought back to the beginning,again, as evenly as possible. If tying for presentation you may want to to stop and untwist your bobbin several times during this operation to achieve a smoother thread base. I omit this in the case of tying fishing flies >>>>>> More to come
In pictures 2, 3 & 4, I have prepared the oval tinsel ,tyed it in and wrapped in to the rear of the body and back forward.
When I prepared the tinsel ,I pinched the tinsel with my thumbnail and forefinger at a length just sightly longer than the rear body section we have prepared previously. Giving the tinsel a guick yank will strip the metal of the core leaving you with just the core (picture 2&3). Taking about half the core fibres between thumb and finger of each hand and pulling apart slightly will retighten the metal twist on the remaining strand.
Picture 4. When this is completed you can tye in the core from below and wrap thread back to rear of body working the thread back forward to your starting point. At this point there should be nice clean area for laying down the floss section of the body in the next step.
In the next picture I have taken a 14" or so length of two strand floss and tyed it in and am now wrapping back and then forward to finish the floss section as smoothly as I can. At this point ,to smooth out some of the bumps ,you can take a burnishing stone or agate and burnish the section to smooth it. Sometimes I do, but it also takes some of the sheen off the floss and if you can live with a few bumps, have a drink and move on .
Picture 6. Now I have chosen a dyed blue blue ear pheasant hackle, since this is fairly long hook I need to choose a feather with as much usable stem/barbules as I have without the stem bulk. This can be a challenge with Blue ear.
Having chosen a hackle I now prep it gently stroking the fibres back and holding them in my left hand and holding at the point I will tye it in at( bobkin pointer in picture 7). I then trim of about an extra 1/4" and then trim the reamining barbules down short but not off, this will help lock the feather in place when tyed in. (picture8).
I then tye the hackle in at the juncture concave side toward the hook and from below, leaving just enough barbues out to begin the wrapping process. At this point I like to put just a drop of cement at the juncture to help stregthen the fly where all these materials come together. This also allows me to take a break while the cement drys and I can finish and freshen my drink,maybe have an olive or two while I am in the snack room. aaahhhhh!!!
Ok, now we're and ready to finish this darn thing. bout time.
Forward body structure;
In picture 11, I have prepared a dubbing loop of coarse dubbing followed by the dubbed body in picture 12. Now ready for the body ribbing to be applied. In picture 13 I show how I take the first turn of tinsel at the rear of the floss to lock it in(the floss).I then begin my forward rib wraps from below, trying to space them as evenly as possible and if not then slightly wider moving forward . The next picture shows the body tinsel completed and just wanted to show how the 3rd tinsel rib lays directly in front of the hackle stem. Picture 15, shows the tie off of the tinsel. Taking extra turns of thread to lock down the tinsel I then cut off about an extra 1/2" , then take the tinsel tag end as close to the hook shank as possible in your thumbnail and forefinger ,yanking it to strip the metal off.(hold the hook shank with other hand to steady it) You can then take the the tag ends of the core in your hackle plier to hold it tight,unwrap the extra turns of thread and retye down only the core material of the tinsel. This produces a strong tie down and with less bulk. Dang!, time for a drink now I think and then we add collars,throats and other fun stuff.
OK, nuthin like a nice healthy snack of a frozen Salisbury steak to get one ready to finish.
For the collar on this fly I have decided to use black dyed peahen spey hackle. You may just wish to use more pheasant or other long fibre'd feather. Peahen can be expensive or hard to find and tricky to work with. It is a split stem and you get some that wrap left and some that wrap right. I like the stuff because it produces Zero bulk from the flat stem.
After preparing and adding four turns of peahen t is time to stroke all the fibres downward below the top of the hook. Any obstinent fibres can be plucked from their stem , use care and hold down the other fibres and the hook.Pluck each fibre individually. This is done since we will be using a down mallard wing. You need a flat area to lay the wing. If we were using a Dee wing style or hackle Tip Wing we would either omit the plucking or only very lightly pluck near the collar.
After I finished the collar I thought a little more black would be good and I just happened to have a useless Whiting spey cape laying near my bench awaiting the next firebuilding episode. Hmmmm? How about a throat of 6 whole hackle's? two below and two on each side. Dang!, I finally found a use for that seemingly useless (IMO) thing.
Continuing on, I prepped a freshly harvested Widgeon flank feather and added two turns. Carefull to use the thinnest part of the stem to avoid bulk as we are about finished.
Time for the wing. In the first "Mallard Pair" picture I have selected a pair of bronze mallard feathers , one left and one right. I then have cut the pairs into slips, matching them as best as I can. I don't count fibres on these or anything that fancy. One could tough. That would require more refreshment though. Maybe two.
Once the pair of slips are selected I grasp them in my right hand finger and thumb, each overlapping the other by about 1/2. maybe 3/4. I then lay the wing on top of the hook to measure for the length and look I want. Once I am happy and have decided on my tye-in point I place one turn of thread over the wing and pinch the thread on the par side of the hook with my finger, all this while also holding the wing in position to the hook and to to the tye in area with my left hand fingers.
At this point you can work the wing slips and the thread around to achieve the wing you want , you can pull the butt ends down the sides to kick the overall wing up or one could slowly tighten the thread and pinching and working the wing slips onto the top of the shank to lower the wing. It is all one decides to do -up to you. The thing is ,you can move and manipuate the wing so long as you do not tighten the thread. Once you decide to tighten the thread hold the wing tight and favoring pressure back toward you you can pullthe thread tight. Every subsequent turn of thread needs to be forwrad of this wrap, or your wing will move,change and/or be destroyed. All very bad things, cause's one to drink even. Now we know..:p
Here I have kept the wing pretty much on top with the wing low, but not too low, I wanted to kick the wing up just a little to expose the body.
Now, after releasing the wing to double check,, I re-grasp the wing tightly and take three or four more turns of thread very tightly.This locks the wing.
Now using my smallest pointed scissors I trim the butts of the wing and finish the head using 5 or six wraps and a 3 or 4 wrap whip. Whatever it takes to clean the head up.
I like to use 2 or 3 applications of a very very thin cement to soak in the head and then usually one or two applications of thick cement. Sometimes just one of nail polish will work as well.
At any rate- that's the Blue DeLe, and hopefully it will catch sumthin big, shiny and full of vigor.
The hook is a TMC 202SP size 1/0
I have started here in this picture by laying down a decent thread base for the entire section where the floss portion of the body will be wrapped. I am using white thread since the blue floss is a light shade and do not want dark thread to "bleed" thru.
After preparing your favorite beverage to have handy, the thread is started at or near where the floss junction with the forward body material will begin.Basically my formula for speys is 1/3 rear body floss, front 2/3 is dubbing or chennille. It is then wrapped evenly as possible back to a point directly above the hooks point, and then brought back to the beginning,again, as evenly as possible. If tying for presentation you may want to to stop and untwist your bobbin several times during this operation to achieve a smoother thread base. I omit this in the case of tying fishing flies >>>>>> More to come
In pictures 2, 3 & 4, I have prepared the oval tinsel ,tyed it in and wrapped in to the rear of the body and back forward.
When I prepared the tinsel ,I pinched the tinsel with my thumbnail and forefinger at a length just sightly longer than the rear body section we have prepared previously. Giving the tinsel a guick yank will strip the metal of the core leaving you with just the core (picture 2&3). Taking about half the core fibres between thumb and finger of each hand and pulling apart slightly will retighten the metal twist on the remaining strand.
Picture 4. When this is completed you can tye in the core from below and wrap thread back to rear of body working the thread back forward to your starting point. At this point there should be nice clean area for laying down the floss section of the body in the next step.
In the next picture I have taken a 14" or so length of two strand floss and tyed it in and am now wrapping back and then forward to finish the floss section as smoothly as I can. At this point ,to smooth out some of the bumps ,you can take a burnishing stone or agate and burnish the section to smooth it. Sometimes I do, but it also takes some of the sheen off the floss and if you can live with a few bumps, have a drink and move on .
Picture 6. Now I have chosen a dyed blue blue ear pheasant hackle, since this is fairly long hook I need to choose a feather with as much usable stem/barbules as I have without the stem bulk. This can be a challenge with Blue ear.
Having chosen a hackle I now prep it gently stroking the fibres back and holding them in my left hand and holding at the point I will tye it in at( bobkin pointer in picture 7). I then trim of about an extra 1/4" and then trim the reamining barbules down short but not off, this will help lock the feather in place when tyed in. (picture8).
I then tye the hackle in at the juncture concave side toward the hook and from below, leaving just enough barbues out to begin the wrapping process. At this point I like to put just a drop of cement at the juncture to help stregthen the fly where all these materials come together. This also allows me to take a break while the cement drys and I can finish and freshen my drink,maybe have an olive or two while I am in the snack room. aaahhhhh!!!
Ok, now we're and ready to finish this darn thing. bout time.
Forward body structure;
In picture 11, I have prepared a dubbing loop of coarse dubbing followed by the dubbed body in picture 12. Now ready for the body ribbing to be applied. In picture 13 I show how I take the first turn of tinsel at the rear of the floss to lock it in(the floss).I then begin my forward rib wraps from below, trying to space them as evenly as possible and if not then slightly wider moving forward . The next picture shows the body tinsel completed and just wanted to show how the 3rd tinsel rib lays directly in front of the hackle stem. Picture 15, shows the tie off of the tinsel. Taking extra turns of thread to lock down the tinsel I then cut off about an extra 1/2" , then take the tinsel tag end as close to the hook shank as possible in your thumbnail and forefinger ,yanking it to strip the metal off.(hold the hook shank with other hand to steady it) You can then take the the tag ends of the core in your hackle plier to hold it tight,unwrap the extra turns of thread and retye down only the core material of the tinsel. This produces a strong tie down and with less bulk. Dang!, time for a drink now I think and then we add collars,throats and other fun stuff.
OK, nuthin like a nice healthy snack of a frozen Salisbury steak to get one ready to finish.
For the collar on this fly I have decided to use black dyed peahen spey hackle. You may just wish to use more pheasant or other long fibre'd feather. Peahen can be expensive or hard to find and tricky to work with. It is a split stem and you get some that wrap left and some that wrap right. I like the stuff because it produces Zero bulk from the flat stem.
After preparing and adding four turns of peahen t is time to stroke all the fibres downward below the top of the hook. Any obstinent fibres can be plucked from their stem , use care and hold down the other fibres and the hook.Pluck each fibre individually. This is done since we will be using a down mallard wing. You need a flat area to lay the wing. If we were using a Dee wing style or hackle Tip Wing we would either omit the plucking or only very lightly pluck near the collar.
After I finished the collar I thought a little more black would be good and I just happened to have a useless Whiting spey cape laying near my bench awaiting the next firebuilding episode. Hmmmm? How about a throat of 6 whole hackle's? two below and two on each side. Dang!, I finally found a use for that seemingly useless (IMO) thing.
Continuing on, I prepped a freshly harvested Widgeon flank feather and added two turns. Carefull to use the thinnest part of the stem to avoid bulk as we are about finished.
Time for the wing. In the first "Mallard Pair" picture I have selected a pair of bronze mallard feathers , one left and one right. I then have cut the pairs into slips, matching them as best as I can. I don't count fibres on these or anything that fancy. One could tough. That would require more refreshment though. Maybe two.
Once the pair of slips are selected I grasp them in my right hand finger and thumb, each overlapping the other by about 1/2. maybe 3/4. I then lay the wing on top of the hook to measure for the length and look I want. Once I am happy and have decided on my tye-in point I place one turn of thread over the wing and pinch the thread on the par side of the hook with my finger, all this while also holding the wing in position to the hook and to to the tye in area with my left hand fingers.
At this point you can work the wing slips and the thread around to achieve the wing you want , you can pull the butt ends down the sides to kick the overall wing up or one could slowly tighten the thread and pinching and working the wing slips onto the top of the shank to lower the wing. It is all one decides to do -up to you. The thing is ,you can move and manipuate the wing so long as you do not tighten the thread. Once you decide to tighten the thread hold the wing tight and favoring pressure back toward you you can pullthe thread tight. Every subsequent turn of thread needs to be forwrad of this wrap, or your wing will move,change and/or be destroyed. All very bad things, cause's one to drink even. Now we know..:p
Here I have kept the wing pretty much on top with the wing low, but not too low, I wanted to kick the wing up just a little to expose the body.
Now, after releasing the wing to double check,, I re-grasp the wing tightly and take three or four more turns of thread very tightly.This locks the wing.
Now using my smallest pointed scissors I trim the butts of the wing and finish the head using 5 or six wraps and a 3 or 4 wrap whip. Whatever it takes to clean the head up.
I like to use 2 or 3 applications of a very very thin cement to soak in the head and then usually one or two applications of thick cement. Sometimes just one of nail polish will work as well.
At any rate- that's the Blue DeLe, and hopefully it will catch sumthin big, shiny and full of vigor.