What have you tied today?

[troutmaddave]

This one is a spey version of The Jock Scott

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First attempt, I'll try another one of the evenings

[corsican dave]

that's pretty Dave! very neat head; i'm suitably jealous  : what size thread do you use, btw? i'm normally using 6/0 or bigger. of course my monstrosities are so crude the finish on the head is irrelevant, but I can still appreciate a good one when I see it

[troutmaddave]

Thanks dave! All my heads turn out different, some are a car crash an some are good like the rogan style back up this page. I use 2 different threads for the salmon flies. If I have some I use the white dyneema from Steve cooper at Cookshill fly tying supplies, well worth a look, but at the moment I'm useing  utc 70 in black and white. This thread flattens out nicely, but I struggle with catching it on my rough stonemason hands and it fraying. Also keeping the number of thread wraps down to a minimum. I try to do 5 wraps on and then back off 3 for the next element. For my trout flies I always use pearsalls silk.

[Highlander]

Dave & others you want to try Benecchi thread. I stumbled across it some years back, it is an excellent tying thread. The Canadian UNI is probably the most used though worldwide.. Never been a fan of UTC, too shiny & slippy in comparison two the former. Nylon in my opinion is next to useless as a tying thread much preferring Terylene or Polyester based threads.
Pearsalls is a link to the past & is nice to work with but has been superseded by moderns for general tying. I still use it on occasion on my Clyde & Spider patterns.



A wee Pearsall's tied Clyde of my own. I used Black Naples here which if I was honest is a bit too thick for the smaller patterns, the herl hides it well enough & the head is adequate Benecchi 12/0 is ideal for smaller patterne, 14s & below


Tight Lines

[Lochan_load]

Lovey fly Alan, for what it's worth I use uni thread and have no real reason to change, I bought utc a few years back but didn't like it. I don't want my thread to flatten and split and it really felt like tying with a fine floss. Never tried bennechi but you never know....

Got the tying gear out this morning, tied up this sedgehog. Simple and dead useful, multi purpose kind of pattern. Used a mix of seals fur, Yellow, golden olive, fiery brown, white and a touch of claret. Trying to replicate the cow dung colour that I've used in the past, think this will work just as well.
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[Lochan_load]

Ps Fred it took under 5 minutes .....spent 10minutes mixing the seals fur though  :roll:  size 12

[Lochan_load]

And a point fly, black, gold orange and some peacock....can't go wrong can it??
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[Bobfly]

All you need are a dozen of those sedgehogs and a ticket for the Orkney ferry !!!   

[Wildfisher]

.....spent 10minutes mixing the seals fur though  :roll:

Best way I have found to mix fur is a coffee grinder. I mix a bulk load of it and keep it in a ziplock bag.  Brilliant for making good hare mask dubbing. The grinder also still makes great coffee provided you clean it out first.   :lol:

[shad]

All you need are a dozen of those sedgehogs and a ticket for the Orkney ferry !!!   

Or a dozen of the point flies and a ticket for the Vancouver Island ferry