He's On Strike. It's Fredericks Fault

[Festus]

OK....so Frederick's said he ain't posting anymore music on the OT Friday Jam until I post a tutorial. He makes some good music finds, so here I go. This is a very simple but effective fly. It was featured in Fly Fisherman magazine once and was originated by either my good fishing buddy Karl Gebhart, or his buddy Jim Serio. I can't remember anymore. But Karl is a CDC nut, so I'm leaning towards him.

Anyway, with the exception of the Z-lon, CDC and deer hair, you can pretty much use your imagination on the body material. One thing you want to remember is that the idea is for the Zlon and body to suspend just under the surface. The CDC creates a nice air bubble, and the deer hair provides visual contact and floatability. Last year, I tied some up using a biot body, and a neighbor had real good success on it. Let your imagination run free.

I hope I have these sequenced correctly. I'm sure Jack will set me straight if'n I don't.

 

[Alpabuck]

Sluphur?

 

[Festus]

March Brown. The Sulpur version can be tied either with a reddish brown body with a copper rib, or half reddish brown with a pale yellow thorax.

 

[jrcll]

I was tying some march brown spinners this evening and i had one that i bought from jonas at last yrs jam, it has a biot body,and is wrapped about two thirds of the hook, i`m using the same hook size 10 2x long I tried using turkey bioy but its not long enough , it only gets me about half way, also i noticed the biot on jona`s spinner is wider than mine, are there different biots that are longer ? the turkey biot i`m using is from hareline so it should be good material

 

[jrcll]

ok that should have been a new post, sorry about that i got caught up looking at the tutorial that festus posted, maybe the mods can move mine ?

 

[afishinado]

Nice Festus. I tie an emerger basically the same way, minus the CDC. I'll give it a try with CDC.

jrcll wrote:
I was tying some march brown spinners this evening and i had one that i bought from jonas at last yrs jam, it has a biot body,and is wrapped about two thirds of the hook, i`m using the same hook size 10 2x long I tried using turkey bioy but its not long enough , it only gets me about half way, also i noticed the biot on jona`s spinner is wider than mine, [color=990000]are there different biots that are longer [/color]? the turkey biot i`m using is from hareline so it should be good material

Turkey biots are usually longer than goose biots, but like any natural material, it varies, and some turkey biots are longer than others. A 10-2xl hook is really long, and you may have to sort through a bunch of biots to find one long enough. Biots work very well for spinners, but so do quills. Maybe try a quill for such a large fly.

 

[blueheron]

Nice tie Festus. I tie a similar emerger with a little different head.
Man you're giving away all the secrets, the CDC really keeps it in the film.

 

[Festus]

I was tying some march brown spinners this evening and i had one that i bought from jonas at last yrs jam, it has a biot body,and is wrapped about two thirds of the hook, i`m using the same hook size 10 2x long I tried using turkey bioy but its not long enough , it only gets me about half way, also i noticed the biot on jona`s spinner is wider than mine, are there different biots that are longer ? the turkey biot i`m using is from hareline so it should be good material

I know EXACTLY what spinner you speak of. That spinner in Jonas' shop is tied with a turkey biot. It's mottled right? Those biots aren't your typical biots found in the fly shop material. They actually come from the tail of the wild turkey. And they aren't found on every quill from the tail. Generally there are only 2 quills on each side of the tail that have the mottling effect. They are almost impossible to come by unless you have a friend that hunts turkeys and doesn't mind giving up the tail, or go to a fly shop and sort through the tails until you find one.

Not very good pictures, but they will do.

 

[afishinado]

Good stuff Festus. Looks like your tying desk is too cluttered! I can take that tail off your hands to clean things up...... ;-)

 

[Festus]

HA! You should have seen it 2 days ago! Now THAT was a mess!

 

[jrcll]

thanks festus !! I do have friends that turkey hunt, looks like they will be getting a call from me...again sorry didn`t mean to hijack your post

 

[Festus]

The biot that you speak of should be one of these.

 

[GoBlue]

Looks great. What sort of floatant would you use on that, or do you just rely on the CDC-hair combo to give it adequate suspension?

 

[afishinado]

GoBlue wrote:
Looks great. What sort of floatant would you use on that, or do you just rely on the CDC-hair combo to give it adequate suspension?

I would guess those wings are Z-lon or antron. Knowing the Ol' Festus is a Z-lon man, that would be my guess.

That fly will float just fine with a little dab of floatant worked in to the entire fly.

 

[GoBlue]

afishinado wrote:

That fly will float just fine with a little dab of floatant worked in to the entire fly.

I meant to be a little more specific: I was thinking about the type of floatant with respects to the CDC. Specifically, would a typical gel floatant gum up the CDC and ruin the desired float? I'll probably give it a try without and see how it rides.

 

[Heritage-Angler]

GoBlue wrote:
Specifically, would a typical gel floatant gum up the CDC and ruin the desired float?

Using typical gel floatants on cdc ruins the effectiveness of it. If you carefully apply the gel on just the deer hair, it'll help float the fly. I wouldn't apply floatant anywhere else on that fly, as it is meant to ride low, like a dun emerging from the nymphal shuck.

There is a gel floatant that works very well on cdc - it's called Tiemco Dry Magic. It's not the easiest stuff to find, and it's around $10 per tube. It does work well though, and seems to float a fly longer than the usual gel floatant types.

Tiemco Dry Magic

 

[afishinado]

GoBlue wrote:

afishinado wrote:

That fly will float just fine with a little dab of floatant worked in to the entire fly.

I meant to be a little more specific: I was thinking about the type of floatant with respects to the CDC. Specifically, would a typical gel floatant gum up the CDC and ruin the desired float? I'll probably give it a try without and see how it rides.

GoBlue,

I don't see any CDC used on that fly. As HA said regular floatant shouldn't be used on CDC. That's the one thing I really don't like about CDC, it's tough to dry out and clean once it gets slimed up when you catch a fish. I don't use any floatant on CDC and use Frog's Fanny powder to dry it off.

 

[mcwillja]

I've had great success with using frogs fanny on CDC and rabbits foot hair.