May Fly O' the Month

**Rick Baerg** · May 6th, 2009, 01:29 PM

Seeing how it is May, I thought it would be appropriate for this months Fly O' the Month to be a Mayfly, adult or nymph!!

Remember you must post your picture in this months Fly O' the Month Gallery to qualify for the prize. Happy tying!

**btree** · May 6th, 2009, 02:13 PM

Originally Posted by Rick

Seeing how it is May, I thought it would be appropriate for this months Fly O' the Month to be a Mayfly, adult or nymph!!

Remember you must post your picture in this months Fly O' the Month Gallery to qualify for the prize. Happy tying!

Nice choice!

**Rick Baerg** · May 8th, 2009, 04:05 PM

here a couple to get it started! A Parachute and a small Drake.

**kssm** · May 12th, 2009, 06:38 PM

soo.. I vowed to myself that I would make an entry in this fly of the month. I must warn you, I have never tied a DRY fly before, and I wanted to give it a shot. I used grey thread for the body, and I noticed after the picture that I should have added a lot more to thicken the body. I used a little bit of mallard flank for the tail and the downy of pheasant rump for the hackle. all on a size 10 hook.

Now this was all I could scrounge up from my young collection of materials, and I tried to immitate a fly I purchased. I am suspecting the downy of the pheasant rump will suck up a bit of water and sink the fly, but I had to work with something! Maybe it can immitate a dead/near dead mayfly in the water surface? a couple things I would do differently with more appropriate materials next time: 1) use a smaller hook, maybe a 12 or 14? 2) use dubbing for the body 3) use different material for hackle (suggestions anyone?)
If any would like to suggest anything to me (such as materials to get moving on them dries!) I would greatly appreciate it. I'll keep working at it!

I also am having problems uploading so I just have it on photobucket right now and will add it to the gallery ASAP
Edit: it is added to the gallery sucessfully

**btree** · May 12th, 2009, 08:14 PM

Originally Posted by kssm

soo.. I vowed to myself that I would make an entry in this fly of the month. I must warn you, I have never tied a DRY fly before, and I wanted to give it a shot. I used grey thread for the body, and I noticed after the picture that I should have added a lot more to thicken the body. I used a little bit of mallard flank for the tail and the downy of pheasant rump for the hackle. all on a size 10 hook.

Now this was all I could scrounge up from my young collection of materials, and I tried to immitate a fly I purchased. I am suspecting the downy of the pheasant rump will suck up a bit of water and sink the fly, but I had to work with something! Maybe it can immitate a dead/near dead mayfly in the water surface? a couple things I would do differently with more appropriate materials next time: 1) use a smaller hook, maybe a 12 or 14? 2) use dubbing for the body 3) use different material for hackle (suggestions anyone?)
If any would like to suggest anything to me (such as materials to get moving on them dries!) I would greatly appreciate it. I'll keep working at it!

I also am having problems uploading so I just have it on photobucket right now and will add it to the gallery ASAP
Edit: it is added to the gallery sucessfully

I think your own insight into your pattern is accurate. It could work well as an emerger a-la the soft hackle (great fished swung slowly in streams or slowly retreived in stillwater)

This fly using CDC for the hackle may work as a nice emerger or cripple. Using dubbing for the body will help the tapered body shape, and it will trap some air to help it float. I tie may's on 10's down to 18's, but I usually stick with 12's and 14's.

The traditional hackle material is, well, hackle. It can be costly for quality hackle, but it's worth it. Most bags of saddle hackle will be more suited for larger flys and not may's, but getting a cape might be too costly as a first venture (~20-50$) but it will last years of casual tying.

Things to buy:
1) dubbing. You can usually find boxes loaded with 10-12 different colours in different compartments, or baggies - get a dark and a light green, a grey, a black and a brown to start.
2) smallish hackle - get the shop keep to help you if you are unsure of sizing. It can really suck to get a bag of hackle that will only do for size 8+ hooks and not size 12's if you want to tie mays.
3) hackle plyers for helping grabing and wrapping the hackle.

Things to try:
1) adding a rib on the body of a contrasting colour, either dark or light. This can be done with thread, floss or tinsle.
2) use the lightest wire hooks you can get - you will find that you will need heavy wire hooks for nymphs and light wire hooks for drys, doubling your needs for hooks if you used to only buy hooks based on size like I did. Making the change does cost a bit more initially, but it's worth it when fishing.

Good luck and have fun!

**Abbott101** · May 12th, 2009, 08:34 PM

Trout slayer

**kssm** · May 12th, 2009, 09:16 PM

btree: Thank you very much for all of the tips!

Sounds like I will be giving Fred a visit. Will get some dubbing. A little thing I am confused on is hackle.. It can be any feather, correct? I have a couple different types of feathers but many of them just didn't wrap very well at all, which is why I had to use the downy of the pheasant rump. Perhaps it was just to big, I will be sure to get some smaller hackle as you said.

Another thing is adding ribbing. My take on it is that you tie in the ribbing material to the butt end, same as you would with the tail- basically first thing you do. Next you wrap the body etc. etc. and then you wrap the ribbing over the body, and tie it in at the head? Is tying metal ribs, like copper for an example the same process? I will also look into the hooks.

Thanks again for your reply, it is extremely helpful!
and sorry if I am not making sense grammatically or literally, I took a drowsy benalyn to cope with a cold.

everything is hard to comprehend!

ps. nice tie abbott101!

**btree** · May 12th, 2009, 11:24 PM

Originally Posted by kssm

btree: Thank you very much for all of the tips!

Sounds like I will be giving Fred a visit. Will get some dubbing. A little thing I am confused on is hackle.. It can be any feather, correct? I have a couple different types of feathers but many of them just didn't wrap very well at all, which is why I had to use the downy of the pheasant rump. Perhaps it was just to big, I will be sure to get some smaller hackle as you said.

Another thing is adding ribbing. My take on it is that you tie in the ribbing material to the butt end, same as you would with the tail- basically first thing you do. Next you wrap the body etc. etc. and then you wrap the ribbing over the body, and tie it in at the head? Is tying metal ribs, like copper for an example the same process? I will also look into the hooks.

Thanks again for your reply, it is extremely helpful!
and sorry if I am not making sense grammatically or literally, I took a drowsy benalyn to cope with a cold.

everything is hard to comprehend!

ps. nice tie abbott101!

Hey, not probs.

You should join the fly tiers social group and pose these questions there, or start a new thread.
I dont want to hi-jack this thread since it's supposed to be for may flies.

I'm not sure if you have the dubbing thing correct...and it's complicated to explain the various techniques.

As far as hackle, usually it's rooster hackle, it's called hackle because of the kind of feather it is: hackle. For dries we use hackle, but for wet flies we can use other softer feathers as a "hackle". It's a bit of a jargon/semantics issue. Hackle can refer to a specific feather type as well as an anatomical part of a fly, but I tend to call "hackles" that appear on wet flies as a collar...and then there are "spey hackles" which are a totally different thing for a totally different style. Lots to learn and try. Keep it up!

Any way, back to tying up flies for a swap.

Also,
Nice "trout slayer" Abbott