No stopping me now!

[robbie]

These are 2 "Dogs" I was experimenting with. The Green Highlander style is not quite Green enough!
Still I am having fun! Comments,criticisms welcome please

[juststartedagain]

Man with a (new) Vice or what

Like the bottom one...

[robbie]

Thanks JSa,
Sadly I have discovered that in 12 months my close eyesight has gone from perfect, to blurry, it really affected my tying and paricularly close trimming, Looks like age is catching up with me. Off to Specsavers methinks ( who knows I might have a nasty shock/nice surprise when I next see Mrs Robbie )

[rpsalmon]

I can see that the bottom fly has a long upper wing to provide a "kick", but the top fly doesn't. Surely one of the elements of a templedog pattern is a necessity to have the upper wing mobile and moving with every movement of the current.

I don't see the point of having the jungle cock pointing up, though nothing necessarily wrong in that.

Is there a competition to see who can post the most flies? ...During the salmon season...?

[ibrox]

Nice flees Robbie


I take it you'll be making me redundant now. ;D ;D

[robbie]

Thanks for the Critique/
RPS - No competition, just seeking guidance and advice while at the Tying table anyway to quote you :

"Sorry, but am I missing something?"

"The medium of this internet forum already allows fly tying sessions to take place, no need to worry about everyone trying to meet at the same time and in the same place as each person can do it in their own time. Even fewer ozone/azone/bzone/czone/co 2 emissions/no room hire charges/petrol costs/don't have to travel etc etc etc "

You love it really. !!

You are right about the wing length, I cocked it up!! (and the J.cock)

ATB
Robbie

[hornet]

Mike,

Remember to bring along some of your finest for me to lose, i mean to try and catch fish with.

H

[salmondan]

Nice work Robbie

[rpsalmon]

Dear Robbie

Sorry, sometimes it looks as though I would beat Willie Gunn to the title of Mr Grumpy.

[stu47]

Robbie,did you brush the underfur out before tied the hair in? tie the first wing shorter and a bit thicker than the top wing this helps stop it tangling your hook,the top one looks like the wing will do this

[robbie]

Many thanks for your replies:

RPS. Accepted, and with good humour ;D

Stu. I did brush the fur out, I have an old toothbrush, which i trimmed the bristles down close. I take your point about the wings also. Do I need to brush out more?
ATB
Robbie

[billytheghillie]

Robbie buy a nit comb from Boots the chemist excellent for removing underfur

[stu47]

Brush it all out,the wing just clogs up when its wet.Dont know about a nit brush,i use a peice of velcro glued to an old pen.works a treat

[billytheghillie]

try it stu you will be amazed

[Speyducer]

billytheghillie said:

Robbie buy a nit comb from Boots the chemist excellent for removing underfur

Why not use what the good Lord gave you - your fingers?

Worked OK for me for the past xx years of tying.

BTW - great flies Robbie.

Mike

[robbie]

Hi Guys,
Below are 2 Dogs that I tied today, 1 is on a loop bottle tube and the other is on a 2 step Frodin plastic tube
with an X Small turbo disc. I did as Stu and Billie suggested and brushed out the fur and it made a big difference.




Comments/critique please, Are these colours a good combi for autumn? should I look at different sizes?

[rpsalmon]

Most of the points I could make with these flies will be largely seen as matters of personal preference.

The Templedog's underwing consisting of orange and red hair looks too bulky, and each of these look too long for the length of overwing, with the result that the end of the overwing (black hair) will not flutter as much in the current. This can be resolved in two ways, either reduce the amount of hair and length of the underwing, or simply lengthen the overwing. I would just lengthen the overwing. I would also add a few pieces of peacock, or black crystal flash on top of the black overwing in order to provide an extra material at the rear of the overwing that will wobble and represent a "life form".

I prefer to work these templedogs without the added weight of a conehead or other object, as I think they work well enough on their own. If that is a turbo disk then I can’t see how it would be effective with the materials/dressing. I do not like the bright green extension tubing to the red body, I don’t immediately recall green even appearing on any autumn flies and would change this to fluo orange tubing. I would prefer your body ribbing of wire to that of oval tinsel, but the wire is almost hidden and results in quite a plain body. If you used flat metal tinsel for the body ribbing I think you would create a “feature” of the body that enhances the fly. For spring/autumn/coloured water flies I tend toward tinsel bodies rather than floss, so I think I would probably prefer a red holographic body. I like my Templedog hackles to stick out more, I’m not sure what is supporting the area underneath the hackle but suspect there won’t be much movement from that hackle.

The bottle tube’s orange underwing looks twice as thick as it needs to be, also this orange underwing looks a mite too long. The result of the thick orange underwing has probably had the knock on effect of causing the wing to sit very high, but because of the thick underwing and once the fly is in a current I don’t think the upper black wing will reduce to a level close to the plane of movement and therefore look “sleek” or seductive at any point.

The only thing that would prevent me from trying one of these flies is the green extension tubing!

(If you used the resizing feature in photobucket for the last picture, the screen would appear as normal.

[robbie]

Great critique, thank you. Your point about the tube body is well made. I will add some red holo tinsel to my shopping list. The "thick" appearance of the underwing is a bit decieving. I have attempted Stu47 suggestion of 3/5ths 1/5th 1/5th. The hair is actually not that bulky, but I have teased it "up" for viewing purposes.. You mention supporting the hackle, do you refer to dubbing?. There are in fact 2 hackles, 1 fore and 1 aft. The turbo disc was a bit of an afterthought. Silly really as the head was neat, small and v.tidy! . Frodin told me that his formula was that the diameter of the disc, should be a fifth of the length of the fly. (mine probably isn't). Just like my old school reports "could try harder" ;D

[rpsalmon]

If you look at T&S Dec 06, page 38, Frodin mentions a factor of 10 and not 5. I like the thinking behind the turbo disc but you have to have the pattern/materials in the fly to take advantage of it, otherwise it just becomes a fancy sort of bead head.

I could see something else under the hackle, just couldn’t tell what it was. For this autumn fly I would have tied an orange hackle first in order to provide a support the red hackle (resulting in the red hackle sticking out a little more to cause the hackle tips to flicker) but also add a touch of similar autumn colour to compliment the red hackle.

We can all try harder.

[hornet]

Nice flees Robbie.