Early season flies.

[Traditionalist]

Yes, the wings are delicate.  Sometimes you will only get a couple of fish before they break off, on occasion only one good fish, as larger fish can "chew the fly up", although some will work for a dozen fish or more.  However, they do work very well indeed.  Using fuller wings makes them less effective.  They are easy and quick to dress, and I think if you get a good fish on a fly like that then it has basically done its job.  I have tried various things to make the wings more robust. Dark grey antron works, but the flies are not quite as effective.  Some materials work very much better than others for specific purposes, but some are by nature delicate. Not really much one can do about it.

TL
MC

[Traditionalist]

There are a couple of points here.  You will hear time and time again that sparse raggy flies will catch fish better than most others.  The softwings are an attempt to emulate flies like this to begin with, ( along with some other considerations), and they work.  Adding more wing or other material makes them less effective although they will still catch fish, just not as well or as many.

Much the same applies to hackled spiders, if you put too much hackle on them they wont catch very well until they have been well shredded by the fish.  I prefer my flies to be optimal immediately and not have to wait until a few ( often smaller) fish have savaged them before they work properly. Most of my small spiders have a maximum of eight hackle strands.  They don't last very long but they catch a lot of fish, and they work immediately.  Flies with a lot more hackle wont.

I think you have to view flies generally as basically "disposable" items.  Trying to make them indestructible also often makes them less effective.  Adding more material is a very bad way to do this anyway. You can reuse hooks if you want, so all you "lose" is a very small amount of material.

TL
MC

[otter]

I have been using Mikes Waterhen Greenwells Softwing for three seasons. For one reason or another I have not had that many opportunities to fish it on the right water at the right time which funnily enough is important when evaluating a pattern  , just as important is fishing it in the right way. On the occasions that I did fish it, it took fish, more importantly , it was taken confidently and by good trout.
As a dead drift style it would appear to be quite optimum for many of the olives. I gave one of these a few seasons ago to an excellent angler that I know, earlier this season a good friend of mine showed me the fly stating that the other angler reckoned it was the best spider type pattern he had ever used for LDO's. Like many optimum styles , if you dont fish it correctly and at the right time it can appear merely average.

Another pattern that I have only used this season and also passed on by Mike is "Baillies Purple - seems a sensible name for it",  basically a Sterwarts Black spider tied with purple silk rather than the brown. I can vouch that it is a good un when iron blues are on the menu and works quite well as a general dead drift pattern.  Early days for me , but given my limited use of it so far,  like the softwing, the takes were very confident and that is always the sign of a better than average pattern. I look forward to trying it next season during a decent IB hatch. I had a double hookup during one such hatch this season and during one mixed hatch of IB's and Small Spurwings they wanted it before it even hit the water.

[Malcolm]

When I posted this I expected that this year would be the same as last with the drowned adults being a mainstay. Instead the dry fly did it for me this year but I still had a good few to the clyde style flies.

I've now got a 12ft 3/4 blank arriving this week, specifically for short line wet fly fishing and am hoping to do much more clyde style wet fly fishing and will be using these style of flies early next season.

[otter]

That's what keeps us going Malcolm

[bibio1]

Whose blank is it as a matter of interest? I'll be interested in hearing how you get on.

Cheers

Paul

[Traditionalist]

When I posted this I expected that this year would be the same as last with the drowned adults being a mainstay. Instead the dry fly did it for me this year but I still had a good few to the clyde style flies.

I've now got a 12ft 3/4 blank arriving this week, specifically for short line wet fly fishing and am hoping to do much more clyde style wet fly fishing and will be using these style of flies early next season.

That's basically what I use for spider fishing, although I use "converted" match rods as I had trouble sourcing the right blanks for a long time. Actually works well for a lot of stuff, including dry fly work as long as you have the room. Can be awkward on some very overgrown streams though.

[Malcolm]

Whose blank is it as a matter of interest? I'll be interested in hearing how you get on.

Cheers

Paul

Paul,

The description is absolute nonsense I believe but at the price I'm taking the chance. If it is unsuitable I'll make something else out of it.

http://theanglersroost.com/products/graphite-blanks/im-6-12ft-4pc-34wt-dark-brown-graphite-blank/

Cheap and cheerful. It's ages since I built a rod looking at the bumph it seems that the new polymer whipping coatings need to be rotated for hours so I'll just be using some lo-build varnish and putting lots of coats on.

[Traditionalist]

Good price that so you aren't risking much, but I think the IM-6 in that configuration might be a little softer than you want. Only way to tell is to try it of course. I discovered a long time ago that somewhat stiffer rods are better for upstream spider fishing among other things, they are a lot more responsive and that is often critical.

For the price of the finished article;

http://theanglersroost.com/products/graphite-rods/4-piece-12-foot-34-wt-im6-graphite-rod-with-2-tips/

I wouldn't bother building.   

You can use such a rod single handed of course but it can be punishing for your arm, shoulder etc.  I have mine set up as double handers but I do use them single handed as well.

[bibio1]

Good luck. I have a rotar if you want to borrow it.

Cheers

Paul