I have been searching for a great fly, one that people will pay for, is so easy to tie that 30 an hour is a piece of cake, and nobody else ties it. My retirement would be paid for at as little as 10 hours per week, tieing flies while living in the Bahamas.
While searching for Berroco Crystal FX eyelash yarn to tie Singlebarb's Mutt fly, I bought a skein of Martha Stewart's Black and Charcoal eyelash yarn. The "eyelashes" are really long, much longer than on the Berroco Crystal FX, and I like the effect. A bottlebrush fly is the result, easy to tie (only marabou for the tail and a body from the eyelash yarn. I haven't seen it in the water but it looks like an extra long wooley bugger with a thinner body (and I'm a proponent of thinly bodied flies).
The variations shown, from bottom to top are: Two unweighted bottlebrush flies. The middle fly has the eyelashes cut shorter with a slight taper. The next fly is weighted with lead wraps producing a thicker body, but still less than a normal bugger, and with clipped fibers. The fly at the top of the screen is a weighted beadhead bottlebrush with the fibers cut.
The yarn is 100% polyester (78% polyester and 22% metallic polyester). It is best to trim the fibers with a regular pair of scissors as the polyester is tough to cut through -- and should be bullet proof against trout teeth.
I will be testing these on the lake this spring and summer -- maybe they will be great and I'll be the only one using the -- so be it -- but they look great!!
Take care,
Shane
Take care,
Shane
