Bubbles

[haresear]

I read sometimes that we should imitate or encourage air bubbles in our imitations.

In the case of Corixae, caddis pupae or buzzer pupae I could understand that, but usually I try to avoid air bubbles in my dressings, by using tight dubbing or flexifloss for abdomens.

I rarely tie to traditional patterns and just roll my own, using pretty much whatever is to hand. A pretty lazy approach I suppose on the face of it, but what I do is to test each new fly in a clear dish filled with water. I look at it from below and from the side. I don't give a toss what it looks like from above. Fish look up.

When they hit the water, many hooks hold a great big bubble of air at the bend of the hook. Barbed hooks are worse for this (another case for barbless). I can't imagine that this in any way imitates nature, so I've come up with a simple solution when a fish refuses my standard parachute dry fly.

This ground-breaking development is that I simply grasp the dressing and twist it around the shank. Hey presto - an upside down fly with the bend clear of the water. I'm not a purist as far as fly tying is concerned.

Having said that, I do tie the occasional special USD for those occasional special fish.

Anybody else noticed the bubbles issue?

Alex