.

Hi Hubert
Congratulations on winning the league, I thought that I may have pipped you to the post this year, alas it wasn’t to be.
All the best.
Stuart .

Hi Stuart.Thanks for competing to you and every one that entered this year.The above flies arent mine,Donal`s I suppose but I will post my entries some time soon.
regards-Hubert

Hi Hubert
Apologies for that, I meant to post on flyltying competition post. I realised my mistake too late, but well done again.
Stuart.

Hi Guys, here are my completed round entries 1 to 4 in descending order. I hope we can get a few more of you to post your entries,  the more the merrier, any questions on any of the tyings, i will be happy to answer if requested. Lets make this forum do what it was intended to, as we can’t really expect Magnus to do it all, cos it must be a bit of a pain in the a***e!! from the Admin: end.

    Jimmy.

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Hi Guys,

Great flies.

Well done Hubert and well done to all who took part in the Comp., particularly the novice entrants.

Jimmy , can I ask , what material did you use for the bodies of the flies in Round 2
and how did you prepare the bodies and how did you tie in to the hook?

Tight lines and best wishes

Gavin

Hi guys.My entries for this years league

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Hi Gavin, no problem! the material itself is not new,the process may well be,but if i have learned one thing in this game,it is that there is not much new under the Sun. That great flytyer and fisherman Walt Dette once said,‘this is a college from which you will never graduate,because when you get to 80,you will be still learning’ a wise man! i have 5 years to go and i believe him. So to the material,it is plain old Copydex,which used to be rolled after spreading it out on glass thinly,then cured using a hair-drier,it was a messy process,and almost impossible to get 3 to look the same. The thinking cap went on,and i came up with using needles as a former,and the results are as you see. There is a trick to it (i’snt there always) and that is,before you apply the Copydex, lightly grease up the needle with hand creme then dip the needle into it so you get only a light coat on the needle,allow it to point downwards for about half a minute,then reverse the needle to point up,then stick the eyed end of the needle into a block of polystyrene foam,and allow to cure off naturally,this will take about 30 minutes or so,then it will become clear. At this point do as many as you like this way production-line stuff like!! Repeat this process at east 3 more times ,but use the hair-drier this time ,untill you get the thickness you require.When you get to this point after curing,and i should point out here an important thing,-always make the tubes longer than the actual fly-body,this will help greatly when you come to remove it from the needle.So,to the nitty gritty bit!,and this is where allowing the 1st coat or 2 to cure naturally comes in!!—Grasp the needle in the left hand,and with the right thumb & fore-finger,rotate the body gently round the needle & back untill it loosens then it should push off with maybe a bit more rotation. You may have a couple of disasters untill you get the hang of it. For the segmentation on the larvae fly,simply replace the body on the needle, put back in the vise,and apply clove-hitches down the body-but not too tightly,or it won’t come off. To put tails in,put a small hole in at the end off the tube,thread the tails through making sure they are long enough to make an adjustment for length,adjust to length,then put a small blob of copydex into the hole between the tails,then a blast with the hair-drier,then onto the needle, do the segments,when you tie the body in the long ends of the tails are tied in too,and that tail is going nowhere. How it is tied in? in the case of the daddy-longlegs, it was tied in 1st with 3 good solid turns of thread,and a drop of fixative,pull the waste ends of the body towards the eye so they stretch,then snip off the excess, job done-have fun.

        Jimmy.

Hi Jimmy,

Thanks for sharing that with us.

I’ve thought of using copydex in the past but as you say it looked messy and I never got around to
trying it.

I like your idea of how to form the tube body and using the hand cream is one
of those ideas which as a tyer you say ...‘brilliant , b******  simple….how come I did not think of that?’

I’m messing about at present putting together another style of fly and your idea of using copydex
for the body has got my old brain working overtime.

Again ,many thanks Jimmy

Tight lines and best wishes,

Gavin

Jimmy,Gavin,I`ve read an article about making extended body of silcone and they waxed the needle just to hit it up to slip the body off when cured.Hope you find this trick interesting if you didnt know it.