Honey Bug Material

[JohnnyUtah]

Dupont still produces Antron. The original. Sandfly your thinking of z-lon and the Craig Matthews tail.

 

[sandfly]

sorry dude I am thinking of the original antron, i can get a copy of the paperwork if you would like to see it..Dupont changed the properties of their antron and my supplier bought the last R.R. car of original antron...

 

[JohnnyUtah]

I'll take your word for it. This has gone beyond mundane. I tip my hat to you, you do know your stuff.

 

[MKern]

Just a side note:
When worked at Hille's years ago the previous own tried to sell the remaining stock of honeybug chenelle.

There may be a few spools still around, probably in the store's tying desk.

The stuff in their Honeybug kits was the new version of cotton chenelle.

Sandfly has some of the last remaining original material.

 

[Foxgap239]

Of all the threads (yeah I have 40 some posts so the sample size is enormous right!) I've posted, I never saw this one taking on a life of it's own. Thanks guys. Not only is this informative but entertaining to boot! :-D

 

[shakey]

woooooohoooooo,i see big meadows has paypal now.last time i checked they didn't.what are good honey bug colors?

 

[shakey]

gfen wrote:

shakey wrote:
i'd love to see a picture of a honeybug .i don't know how it differs from a green weenie

All aside from tails, no tails, strands, and "translucency of cotton in water," well, the truth of the matter is tradition is tradition.

You're the sort of guy who I think gets that pretty well. Its a honey bug.

In addition to Sandfly's page, someone once sent me the original Honey Bug flyer.

If you PM me your address, I can email it. It would appear I cannot link it as a file to this post, but between that and Sandy's original material, you can be delightfully oldschool PA fishin' in no time.

FWIW, I received some of this in green from the Little Lehigh Fly Shop before it closed out. Its not the usual chenille, and I don't profess to know or care the difference between the stuff you buy in skein from the Internet and Sandy's stash, but this is a far cry from off the shelf rayon chenille. Sandy's samples seem to match up with mine quite nicely.

Frankly, this thread makes me inspired to order some as I only have the thicker one, and its just too much for the size flies I like to use.

somebody else emailed me the flyer!thanks!!

thanks GFEN,good cover for our relationship to act like you don't know my email,haha.

BTW,who is your avatar???my word!!

 

[Heritage-Angler]

shakey wrote:
thanks GFEN,good cover for our relationship to act like you don't know my email,haha.

Busted. :lol:

 

[gfen]

shakey wrote:
BTW,who is your avatar???my word!!

She's a young lady of questionable morals and career choice. I would heartily not recommend looking her up anywhere around your special lady friend. Ms. Grey's IMDB profile is relatively innocuous.

 

[troutbert]

Foxgap239 wrote:
I tie something that I call an inchworm with this material that I dye green. I tie hundreds a year because I tie for me and all my friends. People tell me I'm tying a green weenie but to Mr. Utah's point, a weenie has a loop but I use no loop. I also tie it much bigger than green weenie's I've seen used.

That's the way I tie them too. Don Douple is the one who popularized this type of inchworm. It is a very effective fly.

 

[Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah]

Cotton Chenille (Honey Bug Yarn) Cream
Cotton Chenille (Honey Bug Yarn) PINK
Cotton Chenille (Honey Bug Yarn) YELLOW

Does this stuff work? Is it the same exact stuff?
Do trout have a good enough IQ to tell that is a different yarn?

 

[FishOnCamp]

If you are near Phoenixville, French Creek Outfitters carries it. If they don't have the colors you are looking for talk to Jack and he can help you out.

 

[StaggerLee]

Do trout have a good enough IQ to tell that is a different yarn?

ROFL...It's all the same Doo-Dah-Man!

 

[MKern]

Again, sometimes fly tying isn't about fishing. Fly tying and fly fishing are two different hobbies; related and intertwind, yes, but the same, no. And sometimes the fly fisherman's confidence is what makes the difference.

For me, I look for substitutes that I already own.

 

[JeffK]

If you find a chenille or yarn material that works buy it up - there aren't always equivalents. Sometimes the substitutes do the same job - other times they don't. Many of these chenilles and yarns are low volume products made by specialty producers for something other than fly tying. These small specialty textile producers are fading away, so buy when you can.

A couple of sad stories from me. I learned to love Bill Skilton's egg yarn, especially in Apricot and Cream. I ran out of the Apricot and asked Bill about it at a show and he said the producer of the chenille went out of business and the original egg yarn was discontinued. Now I buy the egg yarn when someone has a card or two left, but the Apricot is terribly hard to find.

I used to tie a lot of flies with wool tapestry yarn and had some special colors. Could get wool tapestry yarn at local craft stores, but not any longer.

Finally, AC Moore had a variegated felting yarn that made on outstanding sucker spawn fly for the Salmon R. Of course it was made for only a year and I didn't buy enough to last me more than a season.

 

[Foxgap239]

I couldn't agree more with MKern. I find that I will catch more fish with my inchworm pattern than any other searching nymph I have. But to his point, I have confidence, so I always start out with it and if they hit on it, I stay with it. I have no idea most times if I started with something else would they have hit that too. I will also stay with it longer than I would with say a scud because of that confidence.

I will tell you a little story though. Many years ago I was fishing a spot of Penn's Creek that is fairly close to a road and homes. I was having incredible success in this hole on the inchworm. I'm talking like 6 or 7 fish in the first 15 minutes and some nice size too. A man sitting on his proch came down with another fly and asked me to try his because he wanted to know if it was the fly or the fisherman. I think it was a stonefly nymph but I don't remember for sure. Anyway, I went 10 minutes uisng it without a hit. I changed back to the inchworm and got a 16" bad boy on the second cast. I loked at him and said, it ain;t the fisherman!

Confidence goes a LONG way!

 

[Leteras]

I have found the best material to work is fresh strips of bacon and potato skins. Haha

 

[JohnnyUtah]

That would catch me for sure haha