Some More Milton Wool Flies

[Mataura mayfly]

Just a couple of other ties with other colours of yarn besides the Orange.

Couple of Snipe & Purple



Starling & Olive.



Olive Nymph.

[DOUGSDEN]

JEFF,
This wool dubbing is really neat stuff! I like the tight look of the bodies with this dubbing. It makes them look smooth! I have some different wools that you sent over before Roscoe last year and Ray graciously shared. I am headed toward the den soon to look them up and then try them out. Yours look wonderful by the way!
Doug

[letumgo]

Jeff - These are all beautiful flies. I love the look of the wool bodies and their taper.

[Mataura mayfly]

JEFF,
This wool dubbing is really neat stuff! I like the tight look of the bodies with this dubbing. It makes them look smooth! I have some different wools that you sent over before Roscoe last year and Ray graciously shared. I am headed toward the den soon to look them up and then try them out. Yours look wonderful by the way!
Doug

Doug, this series of flies are wrapped yarn bodies rather than true dubbed bodies. Although the yarn could sure be cut for dubbing if you wished. The yarns I sent over in time for the last Roscoe get together were a bit thicker than the ones I have used here. The purple and olive are fairly weak in the twist used to form the yarn strand and seperate fairly easily under tension, the orange used earlier is the pick thus far (and the finest).
Perhaps more yarns required for this years meet?
Thanks for the compliments.

Ray, you had your glasses on? Very little taper was formed in these flies, but it would not be too hard to adjust taper with these yarns. Twist and they become thinner but taller as you wrap. Untwist and they become wider and flatter.
Fun stuff to play with.

There are some nice Adams grey toned yarns in the mix.

[letumgo]

Jeff - I was looking at the right hand fly, in the top photo. Now that I study the photo more closely, I see that a hackle fiber is running along parallel to the underside of body, giving the illusion of a tapered body. Fine flies, nonetheless.

[tie2fish]

All really fine patterns, Jeff. The nymph looks especially buggy to me.

[Ron Eagle Elk]

I've looked at these fine flies several times now and keep getting drawn back to the Snipe and Purples. They just look real fishy to me.

Ray, I thought it had a tapered body as well. Good eye on the hackle barb. (Yes, I had my bifocals on).

[Mataura mayfly]

Jeff - I was looking at the right hand fly, in the top photo. Now that I study the photo more closely, I see that a hackle fiber is running along parallel to the underside of body, giving the illusion of a tapered body. Fine flies, nonetheless.

Ray, of all of them the Snipe & Purples do show a slight taper. Was not intentional- I was just aiming at the simple spider look and trying to show the material more than the fly- but if tying something it might as well be a fishable something.
I also have to admit I do not spend enough time posing photos. More a bang 'em in the old vice- place the vice in the cardboard box diffuser and snap a frame- take it out and on to the next. There is a stray hackle barb on that right S&P laying along the underside of the abdomen...... good spotting.
Therein lays another property of using wool. Those errant fibres can be grabby little fellows. Add that to a hackle with lots of hooks on the sides of the fibres and you just about make natural velcro!

I might do a wetting experiment with these to see if the body traps the hackle alongside and does not let it pulse as a smooth body would.

[William Anderson]

sweet set, Jeff. I suspect these will be suitable in lots of conditions.