Spring ties

[jkilday4]

Some of my recent ties:

Wiggle minnows. 





The one with red eyes has a rattle inserted with eyes glued to ends of rattle.  The action sucks and I'm not sure if it was a bad tie or the rattle.

The one in front is bigger 7/16" diameter foam.  Action is good & ought to be good for night fishing.

When I would get done with a wiggle minnow, I would test it in the bath tub.  The action on them got better when I made the angle of the face slightly less steep than 45 degrees.  I also had to thin some tails out which was hurting the action.

The action on my best ones was still not quite as good as one I got from a shop.  I looked closely and realized that the length of the foam cylinder on the store-bought one was about 1/8" longer than the cylinders that I've found on-line and in the stores.  I would say that the extra length would help.  The cylinder diameter of the store-bought was also slightly larger - between the std 3/8" and 7/16" that I find.

Pink wiggle minnow and suspender:




More suspenders:




Clouser crawfish, which takes a while to tie...it better catch some fish!

[Curtis Martin]

I can't help with the wiggles, as I don't tie them. keep playing around with them and you will get the hang of it. The foam on the wiggles that I have been given looks a little different than the ribbed texture of your cylinders.

Those suspenders will fish though, and now is about the right time to be trying them out, but I suspect you have already been after the smalljaws 

Nice crayfish pattern but way too much time is required for me get that involved.

Let us know how they fish.

[grumpy]

I can't tell by the pics for sure, looks like the hooks aren't quite center of the foam. I'm no wiggler expert, try to make the eye come out dead center which requires cutting a lil deeper, i add a loop under the tail to keep it from wanting to tangle as well. I also tie them on with a loop knot.

Grumpy

[TheYiman]

Those look good to me.  Mind posting a little more info or side-view pics of the suspenders?  I'd like to work on some of those.

[jkilday4]

Sure:

Bob Clouser's Suspender - originally created for low, clear summer smallie waters when the fishing is tough.  He says it catches lots of different species like snook, reds, stripers, albies, pike and even a musky.  Designed to fish in the film; either a couple/three foot-long med-quick strips & pause or one to two longer slower strips.  Kyle put it on a 200gr intermediate and it works like that as well.  Color combo Clouser mentions is just the white/yellow which I show here but I've caught fish on white/chart & white/yellow/orange-red throat.  I haven't fished the other colors I've tied it in much at all.  I use markers on the white sheep's wool for different colors.



The fly does foul from time to time.  I don't use the exact hook he prescribes, but it looks really close so it must be just a drawback of the fly unless I'm doing something wrong on the tie:



Tie in yellow marabou underbody:



8-12 strands of silver flashabou, fold-over method:



Same of pearl flashabou on top of that:



White marabou overbody:



Extra-long or grande estaz.  Clouser uses metallic silver & says the silver in this fly is a trigger for the conditions.  I've used medium chenille until this fly; recently got this grande in pearl.  The head of the fly shrouds this underbody of estaz so I'm not sure I'm missing out on much by not having the metallic but Clouser says....



Reverse-tie in pencil's diameter of sheep or lamb wool just behind eye.  Bind it down the 1/4" back to where butts meet estaz tie-down:



Pull wool back, evenly distributing around fly.  Wrap several times creating bullet head.  Whip finish & do not cement for best action.

[grumpy]

Thanks for that tutorial, i'm liking that pattern & haven't even fished one.

Grumpy

[Gary]

Thanks for sharing. Good ties.

Gary

[Steve H]

Nice ties.

[TheYiman]

Thanks for the SBS.     Good looking fly.  I'm gonna give those a try.