Delta 9-09

[sculpin]

Great post Hairstacker.

[Tony Buzolich]

Hairstacker,
It sometimes takes me a while but I finally figured out how you got your name. Those are beautiful bugs.
TONY

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Those are $10.00 bugs.

[kokaneejr]

Mike,

As others have said, fantastic job. I had seen partial photos in your other posts but I new it wasn't flattery as you can just tie!

I have been experimenting with foam bass flies even making one out of a foam earplug.(a popper one way and a slider the other.) But my deer bodied flies have a ways to go. It seems like I either can't make it spin or I brake my thread in the process. Plus have you tried to find and old fashioned razor blade lately, it's tough.But I will keep trying. By the way I have sen a lot of your posts and your photography isn.t bad either.

Keep it up Craig.

[Hairstacker]

Thanks fellas!

Craig, I was having thread issues as well until I started tying with Wapsi Ultra 200 denier GSP. You'll never break this stuff and it works great for stacking and spinning deer hair. Here's a picture of the stuff:

http://www.wapsifly.com/gsp.html

As far as razor blades, I use the double-edged ones you find at Wal Mart. They're really cheap and you can bend them with your finger-tips to shave curved surfaces, like the head on that Blackbird Diver pictured above. They also work really well for trimming a flat bottom. For areas where the hair isn't tightly packed, though, for me, nothing beats a really sharp pair of scissors -- the Tap's Bug pictured above was trimmed solely with scissors.

Good luck with the spinning. All it takes is a little practice. Practice stacking as well, as that is the key to a really dense fly, if that's what you're aiming for. In fact, the Blackbird Diver pictured above was tied solely by stacking -- there is no spun deer hair on that fly.

Anyway, thanks again for the kind comments!

[kokaneejr]

Thanks for the link Mike. I will check for it in my local shop. I have never stacked hair before so searched out a youtube video of Ken Bohannon tying a Dahlberg Diver. Pretty nice tecnique. I will try it and let you know how I do. I appreciate the tips and encouragement from all....Craig.

Here is a link to the stacking and spinning section.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p272QK7BpU

[Hairstacker]

Craig, yep, you will definitely want to incorporate stacking into your deer hair bug-making. In addition to making patterns and spots, like it shows in the video, you can use stacking to add density to a fly by stacking on top of hair that has already been spun or stacked.

Additionally, although spinning works great on a bare hook, stacking is easier if you're adding deer hair on top of other materials, such as at the tie-in point of the tail of the fly. Just some other things to think about.

[Hairstacker]

Ok, here's a picture of the actual frog-colored Dahlberg Diver I used on the last 3 trips on the Delta. Now that I look at it, it is a little scruffy-looking after having been slammed against countless rocks, dragged through a ton of weeds and muck, and mauled by quite a few bass intent on killing it, but it is still very fishable, although the weed guard is pretty tweaked (there was a 3/16" or so gap between the hook and weed guard when I first tied it):



(By the way, the bit of line at the hook eye is what remained after snipping it off the leader after the last trip, it is not part of the weed guard.) Anyway, it is tied with a tail composed of yellow marabou, 4 yellow strung neck hackles (two on each side flaring outward), and 20 strands of "peacock/pearl" Krystal Flash. The rest of the fly is made of stacked green and yellow deer hair. I know it isn't actually the color or look of any frog any of us has ever seen but the bass seem to love it anyway. By the way, if anyone's interested, I'd be happy to post step-by-step tying instructions.

[Matt Frey]

Mike
Nice looking bug. If it is not too hard I would appreciate seeing step by step instructions.
Thanks,
Matthew

[David Lee]

Mike
Nice looking bug. If it is not too hard I would appreciate seeing step by step instructions.
Thanks,
Matthew

Better yet -

Why not a get-together at the shop next weekend ..... to go over Deer hair tying basics ???

Anyone game ?

David