# Fly Tying Shenanigans



## southpaw

This thread is meant for anything fly tying. Post up your flies, step-by-steps, tying desks, organization, tying gadgets, tips, tricks or whatever might be helpful to everyone else.

I'll kick it off. I had some spare lumber and time over the holiday so I decided to put something quick together to get the rib to stop bugging me about my fly tying stuff being all over the desk in my study. Came up with a quick and dirty plan and knocked it out in a few hours. I was going to stain it, but decided it wasn't worth it.










Next step will be I have an old rotisserie motor that's begging to be converted into a drying wheel. I'm planning on mounting that to the side of the desk. I'll also probably add some more hooks or nails to hang material along the back part. Right now it's all in that crate at the bottom of the picture. No way it'll all fit hanging up but I can at least hang the materials I use the most up.

I also built a little dubbing block to make brushes that you can kinda see on the bottom shelf. I need to add some finishing touches to it but I'll take some pictures of that and post it up when it's done.

After getting the desk all neat and organized I started knocking out some bonefish flies that I'm tying up for a buddy of mine that's going to Belize.

Tying #8s and 10s makes my head hurt idk how the trout bums tie on 20s and smaller. I have really started to like using 6/0 thread though. Much better precision and thread control with the thinner stuff, just don't pull too hard or nick it with your hook point.










#8 Squimp 









#6 CXI Special and Gotcha variations.

























Some unweighted schtuff for spooky tailers on a #6


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## Fishsurfer

Nice flies, looks like good marsh food. Good tying set up. I just have a big box I made about twenty-five years ago and set up anywhere i can but now you got me eyeballin a piece furniture my wife decided needs to moved.


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## southpaw

Fishsurfer said:


> now you got me eyeballin a piece furniture my wife decided needs to moved.


Post up a pic of it. Maybe we can give you suggestions on how you can modify it.


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## Ripin' Lips

southpaw said:


> This thread is meant for anything fly tying. Post up your flies, step-by-steps, tying desks, organization, tying gadgets, tips, tricks or whatever might be helpful to everyone else. ]
> 
> Man I love your creativity with the bobbin and scissor holder on the antler


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## southpaw

I wish I could claim that was my own creativity, but I saw a picture of one somewhere and I had that antler shed laying around.


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## southpaw

*For the creek bums*

A few flies I tied up for white bass & crappie in the creeks

No. 6 Craft fur baitfish pattern I've been messing with



















No.6 Blind Deceiver 









No.6 buck tail something or other that's heavy to fish on the bottom but rides hook up and won't hang on the riff raff










No.6 Attempt at recreating a panfish jig. I'm hoping that little tuft of rabbit hair will be enough to flip the hook over.










No.8 Clouser variation. I've had good success in the past with tube jigs so I figured the bug legs on this one might emulate that.










I also tied up a bunch of craft fur and regular clousers but those are nothing new.


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## Meadowlark

Excellent thread Southpaw.

Here's my set-up. The most important item is that light/magnifier. As one's eyes age, that becomes more and more important. 

Home made work area w/Renzetty traveler vise that has served me well for 30 years and materials stored above and below the work area. My favorite fly to tie is still the bully spider for blue gills. Only a Prince Nymph can come close to matching the effectiveness of that spider.


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## southpaw

That's a nice setup Meadowlark. Luckily I'm still able to get away without the use of a magnifying glass but staring at a computer screen most of my days at work has already quickly deteriorated my eyesight already so I'm sure I'll need one soon. You keep your tying area a heck of a lot cleaner than mine!


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## Ish

this one is great:










but it looks like it'd be prone to the craft fur getting tangled/wrapping around the hook...???

if you put some clear epoxy all around the eyes/head it'd be bulletproof, and with a loop knot ought to get down better.


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## JKD

Digging the eyes, similar to bruhy creek minnow. Throw some white under it


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## Fishsurfer

Here is my box. This is all I use but it has everything, built it about 1993. Some saltwater offshore candy in the vice.


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## southpaw

Ish said:


> this one is great:
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> but it looks like it'd be prone to the craft fur getting tangled/wrapping around the hook...???
> 
> if you put some clear epoxy all around the eyes/head it'd be bulletproof, and with a loop knot ought to get down better.


The head is epoxeyed, guess it's kinda hard to see in the original picture. Maybe this one shows it a little better










I didn't think about the craft fur fowling, thanks for the suggestion. I need to test it out and see if it'll be a problem. If it does maybe I can use some fabric glue on the front part kinda like a deadhead minnow.


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## Permit Rat

Southpaw, is that rabbit fur you're using for the wings of those charlies? Love the way you end the material close to the bend of the hook. Bonefish that have been pressured at all, will often bite short. Those flies in 4 and 6 will kill the Mexican bonefish. Great job!


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## southpaw

Some of the wings are rabbit and some are craftfur. The rabbit has some great movement in the water.


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## Ish

southpaw said:


> The head is epoxeyed, guess it's kinda hard to see in the original picture. Maybe this one shows it a little better
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> I didn't think about the craft fur fowling, thanks for the suggestion. I need to test it out and see if it'll be a problem. If it does maybe I can use some fabric glue on the front part kinda like a deadhead minnow.


or tie a mono loop at the bend of he hook...


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## JKD

Loading up


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## southpaw

Tied up some Drew Chicone Contraband Crabs. Really easy little pattern. Using the scotch brite pads for the bodies instead of furry foam, wool or mcfly foam is super handy and cheap. Seems like it'll hold up better than those materials too.


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## southpaw

*Simred SBS*

Never done an SBS but last night I was doing some tying and figured I'd give it a go. So here's an SBS for my Simred (tentative name) fly.

*Material List*
Hook - No. 2-4 Mustad 34007 or similar long shank hook
Weight - beadchain, brass or lead dumbbell eyes (4mm brass dumbbell eyes shown)
Tail - Red american fox (shown), arctic fox or craft fur
Flash - Crystal flash or flashabou 
Under body - Senyo's Fusion dub
Wing - EP brush (variety)
Thread - Whatever you have handy










Start with laying a thread base on the hook. Bring the thread back to the point of the hook, x-wrap your dumbbell eyes in and cement. You can use beadchain, lead or brass depending on what scenario you're tying it for.










Next cut a clump of red american fox equal to about 1.5x the diameter of the hook shank. Measure the clump with the hair pulled tight and measure the diameter from the middle of the clump, not the base where all of the under fur is.










Clean out the under fur with a dog brush or similar tool. The underfur makes for pretty good dubbing so you can save it if you'd like.










Once all the underfur is removed, pull ~1/2 of the longer stiffer guard hairs out and trim the base of the fur so the length of the fur is slightly longer than the overall length of the hook. Tie the clump in so the butts of the material are just behind the dumbbell eyes. I like to start with looser wraps at the start of the butts and progressively get tighter as I move back. This limits the amount of stray hairs and will keep your material where you want it. Wrap the fur in slightly past the bend of the hook. This will help turn the hook over and make it ride hook point up as intended. Tie in some crystal flash on the bottom side of the hook and splay 2 strands on either side of the fur but still slightly to the bottom side of the hook.










Tie in your EP brush from back to front and secure it just behind the dumbbell eyes. Once you have that secure, make a dubbing loop and walk your thread up to the eye.










Place your fusion dub or similar flashy dub as evenly as you can into the loop and spin it to your heart's content. You can dub it directly onto the thread or split the thread and dub it that way if you want, but making a dubbing loop is the most durable and I've found flashy dubbing materials just don't dub directly to the thread all that well. As an aside, if you're going to use a dubbing loop for your EP in lieu of using an EP brush, I would recommend splitting your thread and putting dubbing in that way so that you're not having to create two dubbing loops.


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Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
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Wrap the dubbing rope up the body forward to the eye of the hook and tie it in. X-wrap the dubbing rope around the dumbbell eyes as your move forward, this will help to minimize the splash when casting. 
Pro-tip: Put some cement down on the thread before wrapping your dubbing rope. This will make it even more durable.










Use a super high tech took like this to lightly pick out some of the dubbing


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## southpaw

*Simred SBS Cont...*

Now palmer your EP brush forward making a full wrap behind the eyes before advancing forward to the eye of the hook. You don't want to make your wraps too dense bc you want the fly to have some translucence. It should only take 4-5 wraps total.










Use your bodkin and fancy velcro spoon to pick out your EP fiber and free up and trapped strands. Once it looks like Buckwheat, divide the fibers up so that you have roughly half of them combed up and half combed down.










Trim the top half of the EP fiber, angling your scissors slightly up as you move back. Not shown the best below, but you can play around with how much you trim. Also trim you crystal flash to roughly the length of the tail. I also cut one strand from each side shorter to roughly half the length of the tail. Lastly use your velcro spoon to tease out some of the underbody dubbing and any trapped EP fiber and trim any stray hairs.










Cement the head and go catch fish










It's really a pretty simple fly and has proven to be fairly durable. Using craft fur for the tail will get you longer life over the natural furs but the natural furs still last a long time (10 or more fish easily). You can add a weedguard if you want but it's fairly weedless unless you're fishing in heavy grass or there's a lot of floating grass. I've tied several variations of this with rubber legs on either side of the tail and mono eyes but the simple version shown above seems to do just as well if not better and is quicker to tie. Give it a try and put your own spin on it. Here's a few variations I've tied of this fly.


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## CroakerChoker

I just stared tying a few months ago and I?m hooked.


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## southpaw

Slider variations

Fiddler crab










All Olive










Another blue crab variant of the fly in the SBS above


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## Popperdave

*a day of fly tying*

As you can see I have a "state of the art" tying table (dinning room table). So I do a batch of tying at one time. Here are a few of my recent flies.


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## karstopo

These two colors of redfish crack have been producing lately. I checked a couple of the red's stomachs and there's been a mix of little crabs, shrimp, and fin fish like mud minnows. To me, I think redfish crack can kind of move and resemble all of the above.
















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