First Attempts at Tying Flies

[rps]

I have tried jigs and spinner baits with deer hair several times. I have also done marabou. However, I had never done a trout fly before last night. I started with Wooly Buggers because everyone says they are very productive and the videos did not look too difficult.

The three on the right are tied on #4 streamer hooks and you can see that one is plain, one is a cone head, and one a bead head. The far left is tied on a #6 hook. All are wire wrap weighted underneath the chenille.

I used saddle feathers from a pack I have had for years to tie feathered trebles for walk the dog lures. As you can see the hackling is not as prominent or as dense as the pictures of flies made by others. Is the choice of hackle feathers the reason? Other suggestions are welcome as well.

 

[trythisonemv]

8 minutes ago, rps said:

I have tried jigs and spinner baits with deer hair several times. I have also done marabou. However, I had never done a trout fly before last night. I started with Wooly Buggers because everyone says they are very productive and the videos did not look too difficult.

The three on the right are tied on #4 streamer hooks and you can see that one is plain, one is a cone head, and one a bead head. The far left is tied on a #6 hook. All are wire wrap weighted underneath the chenille.

I used saddle feathers from a pack I have had for years to tie feathered trebles for walk the dog lures. As you can see the hackling is not as prominent or as dense as the pictures of flies made by others. Is the choice of hackle feathers the reason? Other suggestions are welcome as well.

 

Feather choice as well as tie on technique . they will still fish great from the look of them. 

[trythisonemv]

Watch Tim from tightlines on you tube. 

[tjm]

Different feathers have softer or stiffer fibers and tied in dull side up or dull side down determines whether the fibers slant towards the hook eye or towards the hook bend. I like my woolly buggers (and most wet flies) tied rather sparse, kinda like the one on the right. Others like them full. I don't think there is a wrong way to tie a fly, let the fish be the  judge.

Once upon a time I read an article that suggested using oversized hackle on woolies then using scissors to cut the hackle fibers to length, removing the tip 1/3 of all the fibers,  before tying the feather in, when wound on this made the fly appear to have stubby blunt legs. The idea was that it'd look more like the hellgrammite that Russel Blessing  intended it to be and less like a minnow. The ones I tied that way were ugly things but they caught fish. I tend to tie and fish them more as crawdads.

[Foghorn]

Those will work.

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

I was able to buy some kits from the local fly shop.  Orvis sells them online.   

[dpitt]

When you start wrapping the chenille forward towards the hook eye, take one wrap behind the tied in hackle, then wrap in front and forward, it pinched the hackle stem and makes a nice  rear end transition, keeps it from getting mashed down.