herring/ bunker

[wendell]

Here are some hollw/flatwing things that were fishing pretty well a few weeks ago. Most are between 7-14". Usually swing them over or around rocks. While some look a little bit like bunker, the next set will have way more yellow/ lavander in them. Fun to tie but time consuming. A little bit of me dies every time a blue chops 5" off the back of the fly so clean I don't feel it. . Mybe I should color in back of the fly with a red sharpie for a chum fly?

[wendell]

Looks like I sized the pics all wrong. Sorry about that.

[Jim Miller]

Great looking ties!
What's your source for the 14" hackles? :)

[wendell]

the hackles come from scott from bearsden dot com. Tell him what you want to tie and he'll pick out some great hackles for you. Scott's a class act.

[notime]

Nice flies. I started tying flatwings this winter. Beautiful flies with lots of life. A lot easier to tie than I thought, but definitely time consuming. Also more expensive with the hackle and jungle cock.

Looks like mostly white bucktail for the belly and throat. Is that correct? Did you beef these up with more bucktail than a standard flatwing to provide a more bulky profile? I haven't tied any bunker flies yet, mostly razzle dazzles and L & S special and was wondering about the bulk of big bait fish flies.

Thanks.

[wendell]

The bellies are mostly white and the bodies/backs are a blends that usually include pink and yellow that blend to blue or brown depending on what I'm looking for. While the flies look bulky they are tied "hollow" style. This gives them more volume with much less mass than a traditional tie. They wet out to be really thin out of the water and cast easy with a 9wt. Folks like Ken Abrams will tell you that you can get the same effect with traditional ties and they are right. For me the hollow style works better. To each his own.

These flies are expensive and time consuming to tie. But it's part of the gig for me. With in salt water fly fishing there is an esthetic that really appeals to me. It's a specific type of location, style of fly, method of presentation... that really resonates with me.

Lets see some razzles and L&S's!

[bonefishwhisper]

I like that pattern a lot...never fished them before...they look great...nice work

[twizzler]

Your Flies Look Alot Like The David Nelson Flies , He Uses Alot Of
Albino Peacock In Lieu Of Bucktail And Rhea Feathers , It Cuts Down
On Bulk And Really Keeps The Fly Light. If Your Looking For These Type
Of Feathers Contact Siskyou Aviary In Oregon

[wendell]

David who? Give me a little credit. A lot of his stuff doesn't even look like fish.

[flatwingflinger]

Give Dave some credit. Those flies that don't look like fish are shrimp or squid. My one gripe about David's tying is that he took an exspensive concept (flatwings) and made them even more expensive.

Wendell,

I'm diggin the flies and am impressed with the quality of those saddles. I think that tying the hackles in at the bend of the hook insteas of the eye will mechanically make things easier for you. One technique usefull in displacing torque on your hackles is to lay the feathers down with the stripped stems extending 3/4 of the way up the shank. Then, instead of cinching down on the pillow, gently wind the thread forward. Then wind tightly back and then cinch down on the pillow.

Another good trick is that the softer and finer the bucktail you use the less bucktail you'll need. It's hard to avoid overbuilding the fly, but you need to resist temptation. When you tie big flies you give a fish more to look at and therefore more to like or dislike. The less you give him, and the more you let him imagine/assume the better off you'll be.

[jazzman]

Nice full-bodied flies, Wendell, and great color combos. For what it's worth, having played with the various styles for about 5 years years, I've learned that flatwing saddles tied at the bend do swim a lot more freely than those tied above the bucktail collars, whether conventional or hollow, although the saddles do add great color and move the color towards the front of the fly. I know that BobPop likes to drape different colored ostrich herl over the various hollow collars, so that might be worth a try. I'll try it myself, in fact.

By the way, why the swipe at David, who's not only one of my best friends, but someone whose flies you've seemed to admire in the past on other boards?

[wendell]

The David Nelson "swipe" was a joke. While I've never met him, David is almost singularly responsible for the direction of my tying. He and the Abrams Pose exposed me to the side of fly fishing/tying that resonates with me.

As for the location of the saddles; I completely agree. These flies have tails comprised of traditional flatwing (on the shank) saddles that behave like flat wings. The remainder of the saddles are there to build size and provide color. The only attribute that they share with a flatwing is that they're tied in horizontal.

While nothing is ever sparse enough, most of these ties aren't too bad. I also like to think that anything they lack in sparseness is made up for by sublety and range of color. There are a TON of different BT colors in these flies. Regardless, I'm new to tying and am grateful for the feed back. Eventually I'll branch out into different materials, rhea, peacock, pocket fox...

Can some one resize these pics? It might help these discussions.

[jazzman]

Wendell --

The flies looks sparse enough to me. They're herring, and using supersparse flies to represent bigger baits hasn't always worked that well for me, especially in turbid or roily water, like we have in NY harbor. Adult herring and bunker are actually opaque, although I do understand that things can look more translucent in water. Lots of other times, sparse is great, but I don't think it's the all purpose solution for all flies.

Jonny

[twizzler]

The Reply To Your Tying Techniques Was Not To Ridicule But To
Compliment Your Skill . David Nelson Is A Inovative And Accomplished
Tyer That Your Skills I Was Comparing To , I'm Sorry And Apologize If
I've Hurt Your Feelings.

[NE Sportsman]

Wendell,

Great Ties. Is the middle fly on the left column, of the first photo a Sept Day Fly? I used that pattern last September off of Salisbury beach and had a great time. The stripers just inhaled that fly. The white, lavender, blue combo works for me in the fall.

-ed

[mgustav]

"...I've learned that flatwing saddles tied at the bend do swim a lot more freely than those tied above the bucktail collars..."

The majority of my flies use a saddle tied flat in the wing like the original flatwings. I find them to be highly productive and very easy to tie. I discovered this from the great success the September Night Fly brought me. With bigger flies I will tie saddles in the tail and tie the longest saddle in at the wing.

http://www.panix.com/%7Epg/flyfishing/olivesblues.jpg.

You can't beat that silhouette for a silverside.

http://www.panix.com/%7Epg/flyfishing/inletflysm.jpg This is my take on the L & L Special to give it a bigger profile when 7" bunker are around the inlet. There are a few changes to Ken's fly, one being the chartreuse saddle is tied in at the wing. I find the profile and movement to be better.

[wendell]

Sharp as always. For my money, the single feather flatwing is the single most effective silver sides/ sand eel/ anchovie pattern around. Tough, easy to tie, hard to foul. can't beat it. Spent most of yesterday bailing schoolies with one. It survived two 10#+ blues and around 30 stripers. After the second blue it achived the much talked about "sparcity" that fish love!

I basically tie three types of flies. The little flats as mentioned above, larger but still traditional flatwings like the L&L bellow and then the big bulky stuff in my first post. Those three sizes/ styles cover all the bait I see in the north east.

[mgustav]

According to Dave Skok a fly should last about 40 stripers. You are in line!

[wendell]

I like Dave's stuff. The Mushie is a work horse of a fly. Epoxy, wig hair, mylar and softex= 40. I'm happy with 30.