Hare's Ear Variation

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joaniebo
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Hare's Ear Variation

Post by joaniebo » Sat May 09, 2020 8:24 pm

Normally, I tie a Hare’s Ear and Partridge soft hackle with either Pearsall 6A gold or a Hot Orange thread and no tail.

But yesterday, I decided that I would tie a few with some red thread and include tails using some some pickings from a nice brownish / honeyish colored feahters fro the very backside of a Whiting brown dry fly cape.

Tied a few, actually a little over a dozen, and was pretty happy with myself, thinking I might have come up with a Hare’s Ear variation that I’ve never tied or fished before.

Then, as I was looking a some YouTube videos, I stumbled on one of Rob Smith’s videos showing some of his lovely fly dressings. Low and behold, there’s a “Trout Fly” video of his (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHrteeN-GQ4&t=32s) with a fly called “Rob’s March Brown” that sure looks quite a lot like my Hare’s Ear variation, except his fly looks one heck of a lot better than mine does.

So with deep and sincere apologies to Mr. Smith, here’s a pic of “MY FLY”!
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letumgo
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Re: Hare's Ear Variation

Post by letumgo » Sat May 09, 2020 10:04 pm

The red head should serve as a hotspot. A nice attractor variation.
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bocast
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Re: Hare's Ear Variation

Post by bocast » Sun May 10, 2020 1:36 am

The trout will love it. On some of my wets, I use 12/0 or thinner red thread and leave a small red thread tag. I touch the tag with a very small amount of head cement. Fishing the same fly with and without a red tag on the same day or on the same cast reveals that the red tag does catch better, at least for thin bodied soft hackle wet flies. I haven't tried this on a flymph.
I fish wet flies with faith and hope, faith that trout don't require exactitude and hope that when my time comes, God will explain why wet flies work...
Fishnkilts
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Re: Hare's Ear Variation

Post by Fishnkilts » Wed May 13, 2020 6:31 pm

I started using a red hot spot on some of my flies and I believe they do catch more fish. I have a book where the author was talking about buying a fly that had red in it, I believe the book is The Dry Fly & Fast Water, and the author was talking about two flies, the Queen-of-the-Water and the King-of-the- Water. He explains that he was a wet fly fisherman when he used these flies.
He didn't have a Queen-of-the-Water fly, so he went to the fly shop and they hadn't any, but he was talked into buying a dozen King-of-the-Water flies.

I found it, it is the book I mentioned, pages 144 & 145. This is how it reads:

The following day, upon the stream, my cast of three flies ( I was a wet fly angler then ) was never without a King-of-the-Waters and not a fish did I take with it. I attributed my non-success to the pattern of the fly, and it never occurred to me at the time very few fish were taken at all that day, although many anglers were on the stream. The next morning, when I opened my fly book, I found that a great deal of the red dye used upon the silk body of the fly had come off on the drying pad. The body of the fly was now a beautiful pink. Out of curiosity I wet the fly, and the pink body turned a brilliant red. I thought the thing over, and decided that I had stumbled upon an explanation of the failure of the fly to take the day before. The body of the fly originally was red and was evidently meant to appear so to the trout. When wet, however, it had turned a muddy brown. With most of the color washed out, the fly turned a darker shade when wet, became really red, and stayed red. I determined that if this was the color the trout wanted, they should have it, and I soaked a half dozen flies in a tumbler of water, pressing and squeezing every bit of dyestuff out of them that I could. They were all pink bodied when I had finished with them. Recollections of the following day are still fresh in my mind. The fish seemed frantic to get my fly.

This fly he used soon became the Pink Lady.

So this has led me to wonder as well, would the color pink be a better hot spot than red? I plan on getting some pink thread and try it out myself.

Joaniebo, your fly should do well for you.
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letumgo
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Re: Hare's Ear Variation

Post by letumgo » Wed May 13, 2020 6:52 pm

Bob - I tye a soft hackle pattern which is the ass-backwards twin of this fly. It works a charm!
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Mike62
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Re: Hare's Ear Variation

Post by Mike62 » Thu May 14, 2020 6:50 am

Fishnkilts wrote: Wed May 13, 2020 6:31 pm I started using a red hot spot on some of my flies and I believe they do catch more fish. I have a book where the author was talking about buying a fly that had red in it, I believe the book is The Dry Fly & Fast Water, and the author was talking about two flies, the Queen-of-the-Water and the King-of-the- Water. He explains that he was a wet fly fisherman when he used these flies.
He didn't have a Queen-of-the-Water fly, so he went to the fly shop and they hadn't any, but he was talked into buying a dozen King-of-the-Water flies.

I found it, it is the book I mentioned, pages 144 & 145. This is how it reads:

The following day, upon the stream, my cast of three flies ( I was a wet fly angler then ) was never without a King-of-the-Waters and not a fish did I take with it. I attributed my non-success to the pattern of the fly, and it never occurred to me at the time very few fish were taken at all that day, although many anglers were on the stream. The next morning, when I opened my fly book, I found that a great deal of the red dye used upon the silk body of the fly had come off on the drying pad. The body of the fly was now a beautiful pink. Out of curiosity I wet the fly, and the pink body turned a brilliant red. I thought the thing over, and decided that I had stumbled upon an explanation of the failure of the fly to take the day before. The body of the fly originally was red and was evidently meant to appear so to the trout. When wet, however, it had turned a muddy brown. With most of the color washed out, the fly turned a darker shade when wet, became really red, and stayed red. I determined that if this was the color the trout wanted, they should have it, and I soaked a half dozen flies in a tumbler of water, pressing and squeezing every bit of dyestuff out of them that I could. They were all pink bodied when I had finished with them. Recollections of the following day are still fresh in my mind. The fish seemed frantic to get my fly.

This fly he used soon became the Pink Lady.

So this has led me to wonder as well, would the color pink be a better hot spot than red? I plan on getting some pink thread and try it out myself.

Joaniebo, your fly should do well for you.
King of the Waters. I'd forgotten about that fly, it used to be one my grandfather fished. I haven't spent a lot of time with patterns in pink, hell, I've spent no time with them; maybe I should tie a few Pink Lady's and see if the northern Maine brookies like them.
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