Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Fly tying and physics

Photo by Matt Wirt at http://saltwaterflytying.blogspot.com/

Check him out....he's the man!


Physics and fly tying never cease to amaze me.

Recently, i was tying the EP style baitfish (Greenie Fly) and after testing in the pool, found out that it wouldn't sink. After a few modifications and gleaning advice from the message boards, i was able to tweak it enough to have it do what i need it to do.

I usually tie flies at home but am fortunate enough to have a job where i can tie flies at work when it's slow (more about the job in another post). When i tie a new pattern, i usually test it in the pool to see how it lands and to see how it performs in the water and tweak it if need be.

Yesterday, i was tying a new zonker strip "Flats Bunny" type of Seaducer with a 2 inch zonker strip, palmered rooster hackle, krystal flash, bead chain eyes and 1/0 Mustad. When i tie flys, i usually make 2 for me, 2 for Mama and 2 for the Suncoast Fly Fishers. So i made 6 of them as well as some cockroach tarpon patterns (not for tarpon). When i arrived home last night, i tested them in the pool and to my dismay, they would only sink about 6 inches.....which would be great in skinny water.....but i was hoping for a little more sink. Didn't realize just how buoyant rabbit fur is.

So now i'll have to use either wire on the hook shank or switch to Clouser eyes Like Matt Wirt does http://saltwaterflytying.blogspot.com/ . It was just my version of it and i thought that the bead chain eyes would suffice.

3 comments:

  1. thanks for the tip on that tying blog! i would suggest you might try a soft hackle for the body like pheasant rump or something that will give you similar bulk, but have less matting properties than rabbit does. that fly looks great dry, but when wet it becomes a solid bullet of fur up front with very little pulsating/breathing action when sitting still or falling. the rabbit strip tail has awesome wiggle when being stripped that is terrific for triggering strikes. i love the stuff. a marabou collar with also tend to foul on the hook when stripped and during casting. but pheasant rump feathers tend to work pretty well. the problem is colors. white is hard to come by. gray is not so rare though.

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  2. Hmmmm....Thanks for the advice....i'm not sure i can get the pheasant stuff here or not but i'm sure i could get it off of flyshack.com or somewhere.

    When you're here next month, we need to take you to Bill Jacksons....it's a shop for outdoors....guns, kayaks, backpacking gear, fishing gear, fly tying gear....you name it.

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  3. check out the beach bunny i just posted on my blog. it's a variation of this fly and the double bunny with a couple of improvements borrowed from other streamer patterns thrown in for good measure.

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