What have you tied today?

[Malcolm]

Scott, It's yellow tying thread run through beeswax. For me the important thing with the LDO is to make sure the wing comes in contact with the water. LDOs seem to me to be very vulnerable to the wind in early season and a lot struggle to get off the water. Having a totally smooth body means than it, hopefully, will sink leaving the impression of being stuck. That's how I see it anyway.

Anyway - here's my version of the March Brown. The tail is dark brown sparkly material. The same is used for the Dunkeld sparkler - basically a Dunkeld with this dark brown sparkle wing - The body is dark olive glister dubbing and the wing is heavily mottled coastal deer hair I like the dubbing to be very tight on this pattern so I use a dubbing twister. Sorry about the picture but you will get the idea.

By the way I almost always use Kamasan b160s for my dry flies - as these are 3x shortshank you tie on larger hooks.

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[scotty9]

It will certainly sit low in the water I imagine. Thanks for the explanation, makes good sense to me and agrees with something I read recently, might have been Wyatt's book actually.

[Malcolm]

First a better photo, I hope, of yesterday's March Brown. I've decided Compara dun styles don't look too good with a three quarter view

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This one is a simple generic spinner pattern but there is a little experimental touch here which may or may not work. I've made the tails  and the end of the thorax out of a luminous material so once it gets dark I have the option of shining a torch on them to get a bit of a glow. Apart from that at the fly is a standard pattern with combed poly wings. This is tied on a s14 B160 - about size 16 equivalent in a normal shank.

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[scotty9]

What's your reasoning for the short shank hooks? A wider gape? I do the exact same with my nymphs preferring a the shorter shank hook so I can either stick a dirty big bead on a small fly and still have a decent gape or tie it standard and have a nice wide gape. Have had great success with the short shank/wide gape nymphs here...

[Malcolm]

It's because they hook and hold so much better than anything else I've tried. That's just my experience of course. I'm gradually switching my flies to these. Some flies of course don't work terribly well with short shanks. The mayfly for example and also I have a penchant for tying mating flies - by that I mean tying two flies on the same hook. I'll put some up later.

[davefromtheattic]

Malcolm, I'm by no means a fly tier(?), but I've been looking into tying imitations of mayflies and wondered what your opinion on using turkey biot for bodies instead of dubbing. I watched a Davie McPhail video the other day and thought it looked closer than dubbing.

[davefromtheattic]

Nice flies, Buzz. I'd eat them myself!

[davefromtheattic]

Cheers Mark  :lol:

[Robbie]

Trying to get the tying mojo going...







Robbie

[Malcolm]

Heading up to Sutherland for the mayfly this year so I've been playing about with a few variants.

First a mayfly emerger with a plastazote thorax and a sparkle shuck

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Next almost the same fly but tied with claret thread and a turn of claret hackle as a hot spot. I like a touch of red or claret in flies and put this in as a variant. Also left off the tails as any tils can cause the admomen to float. I'll try this anyway along with the other emerger and see which work better

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Lastly a simple palmered adult for windy weather. My standard Mayfly adults are the Shadow May and the Edie Variant that I put in the fly database and this sits somewhere between the two

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