Floss in tying?

[Joe Smolt]

How common is it for folks to coat sections of floss on the hook with a clear coat (I am trying clear nail polish) to reduce fraying in use?

I end up tying a lot of colored floss in my steelhead flies. I am now tying and under base of silver mylar to make sure the floss color doesn't become muted when wet on a black hook. I've noticed that the floss on my flies can get "hairy" after a period of use, and figure its occurring with smolts biting the fly. Any negatives for coating floss with clear nail polish?

Joe Smolt

[Don Stracener]

I now use Uni-Flexx instead of floss for my steelhead flies. No fray, no color change in water. Check it out.

[pintsize]

How common is it for folks to coat sections of floss on the hook with a clear coat (I am trying clear nail polish) to reduce fraying in use?

I end up tying a lot of colored floss in my steelhead flies. I am now tying and under base of silver mylar to make sure the floss color doesn't become muted when wet on a black hook. I've noticed that the floss on my flies can get "hairy" after a period of use, and figure its occurring with smolts biting the fly. Any negatives for coating floss with clear nail polish?

Joe Smolt

Always found that using Loctite Brush on Superglue (Cyanoacrylate) works far better and keeps the floss's colour without tainting it. Its a lot harder than nail polish too.

[Hywel]

Joe,

To answer your question; It's not that uncommon for tyers to 'laquer' a floss butt or an entire body. In fact, several professional Scandinavian tyers use this technique on any number of their patterns.

Personally, I like the appearance of a laquered (or highly burnished) butt, although I don't think it makes a great deal of difference in how the pattern actually 'fishes'. (I use 3 to 4 coats of 'Hard as Nails' and rotate the fly on a motorized dryer)

http://www.danica.com/flytier/showell/undertaker.htm

Another school of thought is this; E.J. Malone wrote (paraphrased) that older Irish tyers thought one of the shortcomings of English-style tying was the very smoothness of their silk butts and bodies - and went so far as to 'rough up' the floss using special tools. The technique makes great sense to me as the silk tiny fibers and frays will reflect or refract light.

Hywel

[Don Stracener]

I thought Joe is asking how to make floss work better for him while his flies are 'in use'. :confused:

If this is the case the best thing to do is throw the floss and use Uni-Stretch, UNI-Flexx or one of the other new products. Floss is great for show flies, nothing better, but for fishing flies why?

These new products don't change color when wet and are tough as nails. If you want to add 'flash' we have 100's of things we can use for that.

Enlighten me..... Why use floss on a fishing fly? You just like doing things the hard way?

[cabezon]

I tend to agree with Don. Floss creates a very sweet show fly, especially on traditional Atlantic salmon patterns, but modern materials have multiple advantages for flies to be fished. That being said, floss does comes in a wider range of colors than most of the modern materials and it does tend to tie in flatter/thinner than the modern alternatives, perhaps more an aesthetic thing. One of the local shops in Olympia doesn't even carry floss anymore. How can you tie a Royal Wulff without red floss??? [I had a great few hours fishing for brown trout last week on the middle Bow River with Royal Wulffs; it was the only fly pattern that I was carrying which would stay at the surface in the turbulent flows and still be visible to me because of the calf wings. As I NEVER fish Royal Wulffs, it was kind of a desparation ploy, but it worked quite well.]

When I tie flies with floss, I also tend to coat them with a light cover of thinned head cement. It doesn't make them bullet proof, but it can extend the life of a fly. In all honesty, I tend to loose the fly on a snag or in a fish before it gets that beat up.

Steve

[Don Stracener]

cabezon,

Nothing as pretty as dry floss!

The new materials are available in more colors all the time, Red is a givin. Durable is factor one, but as you say they can get lost before they get tore up. If the color is important floss changes color when wet. You can minimize that with an underwrap of tinsel, and a layer of clear coat, adding another two steps in the tying process. The new materials maintain their color, a plus if you want to fish a fly with red or whatever.

Think about this, for as long as we have used floss a Royal made with red floss isn't really red and it works! Maybe we should get our floss flies wet and see what color they really are?

What size Royal's are you fishing? I do well on rough water with a parachute humpy with a white wing. They ride high and I can see them. I am trying a Foam parachute humpy I tied up, I think it should be even better.

[cabezon]

Hi Don,

They were size 14 Royal Wulffs; they had been sitting in a forgotten corner of a miscellaneous dry fly box (some adams, yellow quills, humpies, quill gordens, etc. from my days fishing in Maine) and I just thought to give them a whirl. I did try yellow humpies when my supply of Wulffs began to run low, but the browns were not interested in them.

It has been my experience that floss tends to turn darker when wet. In the case of the Royal Wulffs, I would expect that the red floss would be deep red in the water, a great contrast to the peacock on either side.

I'm tying some parachutes myself, with high vis (red or green) polypro posts. In low water and bright sun as we have now, fish are sitting in fast water or feeding mostly when the sun is low in the horizon or dusk. The owner of the Crowsnest Anglers recommended some size 20 green-post BWO parachutes for the afternoon hatch there and they worked quite well. One of the pictures in my gallery shows the green post sticking out of the mouth of a rainbow that found the fly acceptable. I'm tying some similar patterns for use on the Yak in late afternoon.

Steve

[Don Stracener]

Hi Steve,

You're right the floss goes darker when wet.

I was trying a klickhammer type fly last month. Darn things sink like a rock in rough water. So I invented a foam post klinkhammer. It seems to work real well and I can see the post! Maybe I should tie up a foam post royal klinkhammer?

[Minx]

...in this thread pool. :hmmm: All y'all ever looked up at the surface in a swimming pool? See alot of color or just alot of shapes? Now imagine looking at it going by at zillion miles an hour. I kinda gotta believe the contrast, shape & motion have more to do with a fishes response than color shades or materials. BUT a fly has to catch the fisherman first before it catches a fish and ya gotta see it (most times) to fish it. :ray1:
Like that yellow humpy pattern, used it alot last year on the right coast trout streams, worked well & these old eyes could see it. :thumb:
My .02......chuck

[Toney]

The only reason I use floss on fishing flies is for the muted or translucent effect that I get. This is the idea behind the Colorado Miracle Fly. In my case, I tie an underbody of the main color, say yellow for a PMD. On top I wind white floss, but thin. Too thick, and the color doesn't come through. Then I counterwind with thin wire. The effect is a glowing yellow-bodied fly, just like the natural. The floss frays a bit, but the counterwound wire minimizes the fraying. The fraying that does happen actually helps to adds to the transclucent effect. This may not help with full-dress flies, but it may offer insight. Now, shellacking the fly would probably eliminate the translucent effect, which is something I wouldn't want anyway.

[SpeySpaz]

How common is it for folks to coat sections of floss on the hook with a clear coat (I am trying clear nail polish) to reduce fraying in use?

I end up tying a lot of colored floss in my steelhead flies. I am now tying and under base of silver mylar to make sure the floss color doesn't become muted when wet on a black hook. I've noticed that the floss on my flies can get "hairy" after a period of use, and figure its occurring with smolts biting the fly. Any negatives for coating floss with clear nail polish?

Joe Smolt

yo Joe-
I've wrestled with the same thing for years; you tie a pretty fly and then the floss furrs up and it starts to come apart. I used nail polish for a few years but found that water finally works underneath the coating and it starts looking crappy anyway, so I've pretty much gone back to letting it be without coatings. What the hell. I like tying flies anyway- here's an excuse to tie more!
I'll add to that that there's other materials that are more durable but that point has been made already- I sure wish uni-stretch came in a wider range of colors.
Bob