Hidy Style March Brown

[tie2fish]

Thanks for the encouraging comments, everyone.

Ray, I'll try to answer your questions as best I can. Unlike the commonly recommended practice of tying tail fibers in halfway down the hook shank and then covering the butts with thread wraps back to the rear of the body, I tie mine in right at the back. This allows me to crimp the tail fibers to the shank immediately adjacent to the final body thread wrap, and this by itself tends to tilt them up. Also, on Hidy's flies, he normally took a couple wraps of either the tying thread and/or the ribbing material directly under the tail fibers, further propping them up. And finally, I have discovered that it is important to maintain the relative positions of the individual barbs as you strip them from their source feather. I try to maneuver my grip on the selected barbs so that not only are they in the same order that they came off the rachis, but that their naturally curved shape is facing up when I position them over the hook.

The orange-brown wool that I blended with the hare's poll is from a small coil of yarn that I got in one of those material-sharing frenzies in Roscoe. I'm pretty sure it came from either you or William, as I can picture you guys wrapping little bundles of yarn around your fingers and passing them around the table. Anyhow, I cut the pieces in roughly 1/4" - 5/16" lengths and separate the strands before throwing them into a little coffee grinder and pulsing it until they are completely frizzed. I found that this material did not mix well with the hare's poll in the coffee grinder, possibly because of the large difference in densities. So, I put both materials into small jelly jar with a good sealing top, added a drop of hair conditioner and lukewarm water, closed it up and shook it for several minutes. Then I poured the result into a tea strainer, rinsed it under running water, shook off the excess, and plopped the whole mess out onto a folded newspaper to dry overnight. Just like the result when you process hare's ear clippings in this same manner, the next day I had a nice wad of perfectly blended dubbing.

[Mataura mayfly]

If that orange yarn came off of a 2lb spool about 10" high and 5" diameter, it is handy stuff- a blend of 90% wool and 10% nylon.
I very much like the dubbing blend produced from it shown here. The longer tail and hackle all good points, but the way the nylon rib compliments the natural silk and fibres surprised me. In no way does it look out of place on this pattern..... at least whilst dry.

[letumgo]

Thanks Bill. I think I still have roughly 3 miles of the orange wool thread left. When you run out, let me know and I will send you another few thousand inches.

[William Anderson]

Bill, your Hidy project is really a welcome sight. You and Lance have really dialed in the personality beyond the pattern that characterized the gent at the vise, with his own unique and evolving preferences. I still find it difficult to hide my own tendencies when tying and I'm impressed to see that beyond the material selection and construction, you've really captured someone else's style. Lance seems to have inherited it. That and his father's intense attention to detail that helped him arrive there in the first place. Thanks so much for sharing your ongoing project.

Thanks too for your detailed materials prep. Nicely done.

w

[tie2fish]

Thanks Bill. I think I still have roughly 3 miles of the orange wool thread left. When you run out, let me know and I will send you another few thousand inches.

I don't think we're talking about the same material here. I remember that huge spool of NZ wool sitting on the table in Roscoe and that was a smaller diameter yarn. Here's what I used for making the March brown dubbing blend ...

This photo has been lost.

[letumgo]

Thanks for the photo Bill. I think I have most of a skein of that yarn too, but only several hundred feet left. Speak up when you run out.

[Mataura mayfly]

That one looks to be a traditional hand knitting yarn, the big spool was a machine knit weight.
I believe I may have some of the very same here though, thanks to a return pack.

[Ruard]

Hi Bill,

Did not see this fly before today: This is really well done, like your description of making the dubbing by blending these two materials.

Greeting


Ruard

[Kelly L.]

I am way behind on this forum. Bill, this is just exquisite work. I adore this, I can't see it tied any better. Bravo Zulu my friend!!