First Fly

[Pontus]

Anyone care to take a look at this for me? It's a Patuxent special, which is the woolly bugger with a fox squirrel tail tail. It's made to imitate a crayfish, and I figured since the Patuxent is my home water, it's a fitting first fly, especially because the Patuxent is overflowing with crayfish.

I can't get the hackle to really go out well. It's sort of bunching together. What can I do to stop this?

 

[Pontus]

Closer View.

 

[goodfortune]

Try twisting the hackle at the same time as you are winding the hackle up to the eye of the hook. Doing so will make the hackle barbs slant back more nicely. While it's possible to twist the hackle while winding it using just your fingers, it is much easier to do with a pair of hackle pliers.

Go ahead and fish that fly . In time, your ties will start to look better with more practice.

 

[jjsjigs]

welcome to the obsessive world of fly tying. There is no turning back now... it's even more addicting than meth.

 

[bam]

you may not be satisfied with the fly, but fish it. No doubt that'll catch fish of any species...

 

[FrequentTyer]

Welcome to the money pit :-D
I'm, not sure what you mean by bunching together, and it is a bit hard to see the body/hackle stem in your picture (try the macro setting if your camera has one). I think the most important thing with any hackle is to take your time. Treat each turn separately and brush the fibers back after each turn. You should be able to lay the stem where to want it to go, so if by bunching up you mean that the turns are too close to one another, you should be able to space them. If the body is chenille, then each turn should sink in a bit to keep it from sliding. I used to have a lot of trouble with hackle pliers either breaking the hackle or slipping off. this made me try and race to get the hackle tied off, and the results were usually awful. You can try a little shrink tubing over your plier tips if this is a problem, but I think wrapping the hackle by hand is actually a pretty good way to learn control.
Not a bad start at all. I wish my first ties looked as good.

 

[PatriotFly26]

switch what way you are starting the hackle tie it down with the bulk of the hackle to the front.

When I started tying a few years ago. My first fly was a wooly bugger, I tied more of those than I needed but it covers the basics in fly tying. Try some black, brown, and olive wooly buggers to start, then get yourself into other wet flies and if you have found you want to dry fly fish. LOOK OUT!

Try out a 4 pack of half capes if you want to get in to dry fly fishing. Whiting makes an introductory hackle pack. Those capes should last you quite a long time.

Start slow and don't burn yourself out, and remember that if it catches fish you did it right.