Winter is surely high season
for a fly tier. When the weather turns bad, and the rain
starts to hit the windows, it feels good to sit inside, in
front of your desk, and tie some flies. The worse the weather,
the more flies that can be tied, as well as developed! A lot
of my wintertime is devoted to improving old patterns and
devising simple, effective and quick tying techniques that
will not alter the floatability, mobility and durability of
the fly. With the many flies I have tied over the years, I
have always tried to improve the dressings while keeping these
three important aspects in mind. When I roughly sketch a fly
after a good idea, or quickly put something together on the
riverbank, it sometimes takes me hours to properly work it out
at my tying desk. It feels good to be busy and watch the
improvements. At home, with many materials available, I always
try to improve any fly with which I haven't been 100%
satisfied. When I am fishing, I usually fish for many hours at
a time, and therefore the durability and floatability of my
flies will always be of the highest priority.
A FEW EXCEPTIONS
The mobility and action of a good looking fly is a completely
different. While often fishing for sea trout in the coastal
waters of Denmark, I previously discovered some serious
problems with ordinary streamers. Most of the problems
concerned "foul winging" (the wing slips around the hook
bend), as well as unsatisfactory movement in the water. Some
of these patterns were gifts, and great looking flies as well,
so I made it a priority to improve their mobility and action.
Since I made a lot of important discoveries about the
silhouette that flies produced while viewed from below,
especially against bright sunlight, I also spent much time in
the improvement of the shape of certain flies. Notes in your
fishing dairy made while fishing are indispensable in
perfecting those patterns later on.
THE USE OF SYNTHETICS
I love tying with natural material. To make a fly more
durable, however, I usually grab some synthetics as well. I
like a good combination of natural and synthetic materials,
but only if they can be used together in perfect harmony. When
I tied the first parachute flies from my large L.T. (light
tan) series, I used mostly calf tail or reindeer hair as
winging material. The calf tail was too bulky when tied on the
hook shank, and thus prevented me from making slim and tapered
bodies. These patterns sank rather quickly as well. The
reindeer hair was too fragile, and also made the flies more
difficult to cast with an extremely fine tippet. I was not
satisfied with it, so after a search, and I exchanged both
materials for poly yarn and Organza. My Organza patterns were
just experiments in the beginning, and I mainly tied them for
enjoyment. Some of the resulting patterns, however, turned out
really nice. In this article, I want to tell you about how I
started to work with organza, and found some nice tricks to
handle it. I think organza is a wonderful material, and
because I use it in a unique way, I'm sure that I can give you
some valuable tips. I will also tell you something about my
tying techniques that developed spontaneously during the long
winter evenings, (with perhaps a little help from a good glass
of fine malt whisky)!
SIMPLE AND CHEAP
Organza is very cheap and a well-known product to women as a
raw material for wedding dresses. Unfortunately, it becomes
very expensive when sold in small sheets fly tying! It is not
a new material, and it has been used for fly tying in the USA
for a very long time. In Central Europe, it is better known as
Magic Spinner Wing, and was made popular by Roman Moser
several years ago. In the Scandinavian countries, I saw it
used on flies for the first time in the early eighties.
MULTI-USE PRODUCT
Organza is a multi-use product especially in the skillful
hands of a creative fly tier. It can be used for almost all
types of flies, but I use it mainly for all types of wings on
dry flies, or sides on streamers. I am very fortunate to have
some good friends in the States, who keep me well supplied.
Organza is very simple to work with, and the fine, extremely
durable fibers have a nice sparkle and glow to them. It is
available principally in white, but it is easy to dye in any
color without losing its sparkle effect. You can work it with
scissors, wing burners and even by hand. It is neither
affected by acetate, wing cement, varnish, Permaflote, nor
many other chemicals.
CUTTING AND STORAGE
When I get a large piece of organza, I usually cut it into
smaller sheets (10 by 15 centimeters), so that I can store it
much easily. I dye several of those sheets in my favorite
colors in order to match the hatch as closely as possible. I
also dye some of the sheets in fluorescent or bright colors,
in order to create special effects with organza fibers on the
sides of my saltwater patterns or hairwings. After dying and
drying, I store the sheets color by color, in airtight plastic
bags.
To keep the tying procedure as simple as possible, I use three
simple methods to prepare the organza sheets. These are
explained in the accompanying drawings.
Drawing 1:
PREPARING ORGANZA
A sheet of organza 15 by 10 centimeters. The fibers are
enlarged in the drawing to give an impression of the structure
of the material.
HOW TO GET LONG SPARKLED FIBERS FOR SPENT FLIES, STREAMERS,
SIDES OR HAIRWINGS
Drawing 2:
PREPARING LONG FIBERS
(Method 1)
How to get long sparkle fibers for spent flies, streamers,
sides or even hairwings for salmon flies. This is the basis
for my first and simplest technique. You just pull away the
fibers from the edge of this sheet, and when you have
collected a small bunch of fibers, you can then do lot of
interesting things with them.
A large bunch of lose fibers can be burned at the end to keep
all the loose fibers together easily.
A good tip is to use a few bright colored of organza fibers
and mix them with the other winging material to get a very
fine sparkling effect in a wing. This can make your fly more
successful in certain circumstances. It has the same effect as
using fibers of Kristalflash, Spectraflash or Flashabou, but
less shiny because organza is not as bright and flashy, and in
my opinion, better suitable for waters where fish do not like
patterns which are too bright. The other reason that I prefer
organza is because the fibers are much finer, and they not
only impart a good action to the fly, but make it much easier
to tie a fly with a head which remains intact.
To make a spent fly, delta wing, or bunches for parachutes or
Wulff variations, I take a bunch of long organza fibers and
fold them together to get as many fibers as required for the
wing type I prefer. I then cut all the fibers the same length
on both sides, and tie them on the hook shank as spent, sides,
delta, bunch or Wulff wing.
THE MAKING OF A REALISTIC WING (Method 2)
Drawing 3:
Cut a small piece of organza from the larger sheet. This is
the method to make small realistic wings on spent flies.
Place a small piece of organza between a wingburner (3a). This
makes a half wing (3b). Replace the piece in the burner (3c),
burn again and the wing will be perfect (3d). Finally cut out
two small pieces in the center of the wing (3e).
The realistic wing can easily be tied on the hook shank, and
secured with Super Glue, poly yarn, dubbing, floss or tying
thread; whatever you prefer. This burning technique makes the
wings extremely durable. It is one of my favorite tying
methods for realistic wings.
Drawing, 3A-3E:
PREPARING FIBERS
WITHOUT WASTE (Method 3)
I created this method when I first bought the small expensive
sheets from tackle stores without knowing that it was organza.
Even now, when I have many square meters of it, I still use
this technique, especially for small flies. It is the quickest
and most effective way to get the fibers loose from the sheet.
Cut a small piece from a larger sheet. Pull out some fibers
from one side of the sheet (4a) Turn the small sheet in your
hands and pull fibers from the other side (4b). Pull off more
fibers from the other side and repeat this until you have
enough to tie your fly (4c-4d) If you put the loose fibers in
a hair stacker (4e) they can be leveled before tying in.
Drawing 4a-4e)
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