This is mostly a re-post of what I sent over my friends at FlyTalk last week, but I will be making some updates to what’s here, so check back again in a few days.

A little intro: There are several ways to go about making bendable bodies, but this technique allows the tying of fairly small bodies (and rather big bodies) all “on the fly,” so to speak. It’s really just a slight expansion of a dubbing technique that goes by various names, including “Extended Dub.”

If you’ve tied extended bodies (minus the bendable part) using either this basic technique or something similar, then this should be a pretty straightforward. If you’ve not done this type of extended body before, it may take a few tries (you may also want to look at a gallows-type tool as a “third hand”). I do so much of my fishing tying in vehicles/hotel rooms/campsites or at streamside, that my approaches to some of these techniques can be a bit “raw.” Thank the “Gary Borger school of fly tying” (i.e. learning the hard way) for that.

So do bendable-body flies catch more fish? That’s a good question—I suggest taking plenty of water-time to find your answer. But one thing that I do know for certain is that bendable-body flies catch more anglers!

Step-by-Step for a typical mayfly nymph (pix first, then the step-by-step):

1) Prepare the hook by wrapping thread over an area the length of the thorax.

2) At the rear of the thoracic region, tie in a three-inch-long piece of copper wire (of equal or lesser diameter than the hook shank). When preparing wire for tying in, first double it back on itself sharply. Then run your scissors into the doubled-section and clip the wire right at the apex of the bend. This creates a miniscule hooked end on the wire that prevents such an inherently slick material from pulling free of the thread wraps (see that first little illustration).

3) Once the wire is in place, tie in a three-inch-long clump of poly-yarn that is one to two millimeters in diameter. The poly-yarn should lie along the wire. This serves as filler material for the abdomen, adding bulk and a surface to which dubbing can better adhere.

4) On top of the poly-yarn, tie in a small clump (six to eight) pheasant tail fibers. The fibers will be the nymph’s tails, and can be trimmed back to three after the body is finished. Tie the tails in so that they are twice the anticipated length of the abdomen. This is easily done via an old trick for legging: Tie the fibers in with a wrap or two of thread; do not be concerned if the fibers are too long. Then, keeping tension on the thread, simply pull on the butt ends of the fibers to draw the tips to length. Once they are the right length, tie the tails down. The wire, yarn and tails make up the body “core.”

5) Apply a thin layer of dubbing to the thread, twisting it as tightly as feasible. It is important to make sure the dubbing noodle on the thread is long enough to wind over the length of the abdomen twice. When making the noodle I prefer to create an elongate, razor-thin dumb-bell shape. Ideally the waist of the dumbbell should be half-way down the noodle (the length required to wrap the abdomen once). This type of noodle will allow for a tapered body that also creates series of tight, core-locking wraps at the rear tip of the abdomen.

6) Once the dubbing is ready, hold all three body materials firmly between the thumb and forefinger of your materials hand, and begin to tightly wind the dubbing up the length of the core, taking each wrap next to the last. Once you get up to speed, you should be able to flip your bobbin over the core, catch it with the middle, ring and pinkie fingers of your materials hand, and then transfer it back to your bobbin hand again.

Note: You may find that you have to adjust the dubbing noodle a few times as you do this. That’s part of the game here. Once you have it figured out, you may be surprised at how quickly you can wrap the body.

7) Once you have wrapped an appropriately long abdomen onto the body (or used up half your dubbing), reverse your wrapping direction, heading back toward the hook. When you have returned to the hook shank (having used up the remainder of your dubbing), let go of the body core and you will have an extended, dubbed (and bendable) body. Trim the excess poly-yarn and wire at the end of the abdomen, and then prune the tails so you have the requisite three (or whatever you like).

Note: If you wanted to wind a rib over the extended abdomen, you could do one of a number of things. Perhaps the simplest is to incorporate the tag end of your tying thread into the body core (after wrapping the thorax, do not cut the tag off). After the body is dubbed, just spiral back down it with the thread.

8) Finish the fly as you see fit.

9) Bend the body up, down and all around as you admire your slick tie-craft.

10) Go catch something!

Just backed up the FF&W database, as well as the main theme, and then hit “upgrade.” The 3.0 version of WordPress is now running here and hopefully everything will continue without a hitch. I’ll have a look through things, but if something is really messed up for anyone, let me know.

No water-time for me today. It’s all blog maintenance, emails, and book illustrations. This coming week it is supposed to be h-o-t here, and I’ll try to make up for lost time!

With the Tour de France starting tomorrow (live report), I thought I’d do a little post relating cycling to fly casting. When I was road racing (i.e. when I was younger and faster), I paid a lot of attention to the more “advanced” aspects of things like pedal/cleat interface, body position, gearing, and of course, the fanciest Italian parts that I could afford. All of which did help me go faster, or at least take pleasure in my bike. Only one problem: I never had in-depth instruction on certain fundamentals and I never focused on certain fundamentals, either (“The basics? That’s for slow guys.”).

Then something happened. On a training ride, a rider I knew struck up a conversation with me about form. I don’t remember anything else about the discussion, but I do remember the key point. It was something to effect of “You’d be faster if you knew how to pedal better.” Huh? Know how to pedal? I thought I was already pretty fast. And what did he know about pedaling anyway? More than me, as it turned out.

Eventually, I got a lesson in pedaling. Yep, how to make my feet go in circles (and that was a big part of it—it’s a whole lot more than just mashing down on the pedals with youthful strength, trust me). Some might view pedaling as a no-brainer. Well my no-brainer training got me enough extra power throughout my pedal stroke to consistently get me into a higher gear. It changed my cycling forever, bringing me more overall speed and the ability to finally hang with faster riders (although it never quite got rid of the taste of blood in my mouth on grinding, big-wall climbs). I sometimes wonder about all my time spent with mediocre basics, and how much more I would have enjoyed my riding and racing if I’d known better (and been perhaps more willing to learn).

It’s sort of like fly casting. Get a bit of success fishing and suddenly working on one’s fly casting—especially the foundations—is for “noobs” and once-a-year “sports.” I say think again. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve practiced my foundations, and yes, I still do. You’d think that I would have sought real advice on my pedaling as a teen, having grown up with the concept of foundations being pounded into my fly casting. I didn’t, but I sure worked on my fly casting with some focus. And that focus really paid off.

People at my seminars and clinics often ask me what they can do to increase distance, or improve accuracy, or reduce fatigue, or…. The list is long. I’ll of course give my clients “quick fixes” which can help tune bits and pieces of the cast and garner some useful advances. But then, I tell almost everyone to work on their foundations—great casting comes from great foundations. If there are errors in one’s foundations, those errors can be magnified when extra skills are added. And errors in one’s foundations mean that one’s casting will never be as enjoyable and successful as it could be. Some people take the advice, some don’t. For those that do, it’s not an easy road to travel, since it requires altering possibly years of previous motion reenforcement. But, when the alteration does come, and the foundations are renewed, it changes things for people.

So whether you care much for cycling or not, at least take something from my youthful racing-days past. Give your foundation casting stroke some attention, and you may find that extra gear in your casting that you never even knew you had! (And if you are fan of “le Tour,” here’s to three weeks of the maillot jaune!)

Drawing Flies 52 Damsel Adult (in red, white and blue for the American Fourth of July holiday). I have been fortunate enough to have fished some of the most spectacular damselfly waters in the world. Seen hatches so thick that I can’t really describe the action, but a few epic emergences were enough to get bats out feeding during the day. One of my absolute favorite times to be fishing for trout!

Tech info: Canson tracing paper with Pigma pen and watercolor. Backer board underlay provides the tan color. Based on some preliminary “form test” sketches that I had made. Just laid the tracing paper over the form that I liked the best, and drew directly with pen in a loose hand. Then grabbed my paints and carefully added the color.

I’ve been using this perspective a lot lately in my book drawings, and I’m really liking it for many flies (some flies don’t work well with it, but the damsel does). The “form tests” I alluded to above are quick sketches that allow one to get a concept of how a fly might look from various angles and with various materials in play. I went with the form that had a deer-hair body and basic hackle. Didn’t want to try calf-tail wing or braided body material in the 30-minute DF52 time span. I’m pleased with what I got.

Jeff’s Damsel Adult is here. Jeff went more warmwater with his fly, and the plump foam pattern immediately gets me thinking of Northwoods bass. It’s a good thought!

Just a shot I pulled from the archives. Kel fishing a deserted stretch of a Montana river. Caddis adult + caddis pupa. Cast, mend, drift, swing. Repeat until it’s “fish on!”

Drawing Flies 52 Irresistible. Caught some plump brookies and gleaming little cutts on this fly.

Tech info: Pentalic paper with pencil, pen and watercolor. The drawing went so smoothly that I was done with a few minutes of reserve time on the clock. I forced myself to do a faint pencil underdrawing first, which helped me set up how I wanted the lights and darks to play out. I followed that with darker pencil and then pen, using the inky blank to give some overall depth, but also to create a nubbly sense to the deer-hair (which can be frustrating to get right sometimes). I finished with the water color and was pleased at how well the China White highlights built a sense of the hackle fibers. The hook got a little heavy for my tastes, but I am pleased otherwise.

Jeff’s Irresistible is here. Seems like we both have had some good times over the years with this pattern.

Some FF&W readers may know that my “back-in-the-day” history involves a five-year stint working in the film and TV industry in L.A. Met a lot of amazingly creative and brilliant people in that time, and got work with a more than a few fellow fly-fishers on-set, as well.

In that vein, MidCurrent just posted a cool little interview with a photorealistic fly tier by the name of Graham Owen, who is doing insect props for films and TV. Have a read for an interesting insight into some of the less-obvious details of film-making on the Hollywood scale. And, be sure to check out Graham’s site, as well.

Drawing Flies 52 Gartside Sparrow. A little piece for an fondly remembered friend who also gave me the best tour of Boston that I could ever have hoped for (this one’s for you, Jack).

Tech info: Pentalic paper with pencil, pen and watercolor. I wanted a fly that reminded me of Jack Gartside. Not just the pattern (his sparrow), but the actual feel of the drawing. I think I got it. I especially like the bright orange thread at the head of the fly. If you knew Jack, I think you can understand why I would add a touch of slightly out-of-place brilliance to a fly dressed in well-worn tweed and corduroy….

Jeff’s Sparrow is here. Four minutes and some spit. I think Jack would have liked that approach!

The Hair-Wing Drake as seen outside, and at the edge of, the fish’s window.

I promised a tying piece that related to the “big mayfly” illustration in a previous post, so here it is: the Hair-Wing Drake. This particular pattern goes back a few decades, and has its roots in the Comparadun and various extended-body deer-hair patterns. Tie it in whatever color scheme you need.

Like some of the previous tying posts, this one is a cut-n-paste (from Designing Trout Flies). GB already wrote the tying instructions for this pattern, and I already illustrated those instructions, so why not just re-use them? Well, that’s what I’m doing, and here they are:

I have three things to do this weekend: Get some water-time, do about 3298479857454 book illustrations, and finish the May/June 2010 E-List (not necessarily in that order). I’ll be sleeping between the hours of 2 and 4 in the morning.

So, for those of you on the E-List, look for something in your in-boxes on Monday! Tuesday/Wednesday (Why the change? Well, a had a small nuclear meltdown with both the MySQL database and one of the blog’s php files. Don’t know how it happened, but it took a few hours to clean up the mess. Hopefully all issues have been purged…).

Want some meat to toss around during run-off? Try a big, juicy Strip Leech. If you’re a tier, Check out the recent “TieTalk” post I wrote up for my friends at “Field & Stream” magazine’s FlyTalk blog. The Strip Leech pattern shown is one of GB’s, and goes back to the days of bell-bottoms (I’ve been on a 70′s kick lately—I need to modernize!).

This fly traces it roots to the Matuka and the “Strip Fly” of Wisconsin-based tier, Royce Dam. It’s a pattern that I tied a lot when I was growing up and it’s also the fly that caught me my first two-foot brown trout (as a 10-year old kid, that was pretty exciting). If you have a vise and the right materials, go tie!

Note: It was nearly 1am when I wrote the post for FlyTalk. If I missed something in the instruction set, I’ll get the guys at F&S to update it for me.

Drawing Flies 52 Crayfish (or Crawfish, however you prefer). More specifically, this pattern is the Fleeing Crayfish/Upside-Down Leech. This fly can really do the job on smallies (and big browns).

Tech info: Strathmore paper with charcoal, Pigma pen and watercolor. Went for the same general technique as last week, but wanted to add some more deliberate cool tones. And like last week, I also used all 30 minutes right to the end. I did the underdrawing/painting first, then rinsed/wiped it, and then did the pen followed by the final watercolor. I found that 30 minutes wasn’t quite enough to get all the effects that I was after (this fly had more complex textures than did last week’s Sofa Pillow). Another 10-15 minutes would have been nice, but that’s part of what makes this project so interesting: You have 30 minutes max, and you have to live with that.

This fly is essentially a “pig-n-jig” when you really get down to it: super-heavy dumbbell eyes and a fur strip slipped onto the hook bend. It definitely has some motion! I also felt that the original pattern needed a bit of modern updating, so I added a few strands of eye-searing orange synthetic fiber to give it a bit more pop. I think the fish would approve.

Jeff’s Crawfish is here, along with a cool little story about how he chose this week’s fly. Check it out!