Quite a few flies call for the use of “5 minute epoxy”. There are many brands available some are dedicated to fly tying and are quite expensive. Alternatively there are equivalent handyman products that are very good and a lot less expensive. My preferred 5 minute epoxy is “Sellys 5 minute everyday Araldite”.
The word dubbing is used to describe the technique of attaching natural fibres such as animal fur, and synthetic fibres such as synthetic living fibre (SLF) or antron dubbing, to a thread before winding it onto a fly. The technique involves winding in, spinning in or rubbing in the animal fur or synthetic fibres onto the thread or threads so that they can be wound onto the hook to create part of a fly generally the body and or thorax.
The word dubbing is used to describe the technique of attaching natural fibres such as animal fur, and synthetic fibres such as synthetic living fiber (SLF) or antron dubbing, to a thread before winding it onto a fly. The technique involves winding in, spinning in or rubbing in the animal fur or synthetic fibres onto the thread or threads so that they can be wound onto the hook to create part of a fly generally the body and or thorax.
You can’t always have every colour dubbing on hand. If you don’t but have access to knitting wool of the right colour you can make your own dubbing. The conversion process is simple.
Most of the things we seek to imitate with flies have bodies that have some sort of segmentation. A number of techniques have been developed to imitate those body segments and often also to reinforce the fly.
Adding weight to flies is almost as old as fly fishing itself. The main aim is to get flies or teams of flies down to where the fish are holding. There are many ways of adding weight to flies and this post examines many of the most common techniques.
This is a great technique of representing legs and feelers on flies. It an extension of the loop dubbing technique that uses deer hair as the dubbing material rather than the traditional softer wool, fur and synthetic dubbing materials. Working with deer hair in this way to make hot legs can be a bit messy but its well worth the effort and the clean up.
My bullet nosed foam hopper has a general hopper type form and function and works well in smaller sizes as a representation of a Trouser-Brace hopper or Wingless hopper and in larger sizes with a yellow foam body as a representation of a Yellow Winged hopper. The incorporation of foam and deer make this a particularly good fast water fly or a fly that will support a wet fly quite comfortably in a dry / wet two fly team.
When a caddis fly hatches it rises to the surface of the water, shedding its nest and shuck as it breaks through the surface tension of the water so as to reveal its wings. Caddis flies often use surface movement caused by wind and currents to assist in this process.
A very popular technique for tying emerger flies. More recently brushes have been tied from CDC as well as deer hair and both work well. The secret of course is that both materials float well. Deer hair brush type wings are a very effective way of adding flotation to a fly just where you want it. As long as you have the buoyancy of the wing and the weight equation of the fly correct the wing will hold the fly in the surface film with the business end right in the trouts face.
