Leisenring’s black gnat tying tutorial.

Being that I love wet flies, soft hackles, flymphs, and spiders, I thought why not have a tutorial on tying the black gnat.  The recipe I followed is the one the famous James Leisenring wrote and tied.  With the addition of a thread rib for extra protection. This fly is proven effective time and time again. The fly shows what the famous north country spiders of the u.k. show.  Simplicity for imitation is best.

MATERIALS 

HOOK: Wet fly hook 14-20

THREAD: Claret 

BODY- 2-3 black turkey tail fibers from the top of the tail

HACKLE: purple iridescent starling

RIB: tag end of tying thread. 

 Start the thread and advance down to the point.

Be sure to wax the thread and don’t remove the thread tag. 

This will be the rib. 

This is the section of tail used for the body. 

Tie in the turkey tail by the tip at the back of the fly. 

Bring the thread forward. Leave a hook eye space. 

Wrap the turkey towards you on the way up.

Catch it in, tie it down and cut the excess. 

Wrap the the tag rib the same way you wrap

the thread. 

Select a starling feather. (Purple is green! Depending on the angle)

Strip away the fluff. 

Leave a bit at the base for a handle. 

Hold the very tip and pull back the fibers

Tie in the tip of hackle on your side with the front of the hackle facing you. 

Wrap the hackle. Touching turns. 

Tuck the stem back and wind back over it. Cut or break it away. 

Whip finish, varnish and the fly is complete.

Tying a cow dung wetfly

The cow dung pattern comes from a time long ago. When people fished for food and survival not for sport.  That alone should tell you how affective it can be.  This one can be extra fun to tie because you get to whip up your own dubbin blend. The colors called for are orange, yellow, olive,and tan.  I mixed all those colors and through some tan U.V. Ice dub.  So let’s tie one up for that trout of a life time!

    Materials. 

 Hook: Your favorite wetfly hook 10-16

Tag: Flat gold tinsel

Thread: Orange

Dubbing: Cow dung blend(orange,yellow,olive,tan)

Wings: Cinnamon hen saddle tips

Hackle: Brown hen neck hackle. 

Start your tying thread 1 hook eye back from the hook eye

Wind back to the point of the hook. 

         

Tie in the flat gold tinsel. Tie it back to the bend.

Then advance the tread, touching turns, back to the point. 

Wind the tinsel back to to the point. 

Touching turns and tie it off to secure the tag. 

This substance is called cobblers wax. 

I know veniards sells it. But you can make it yourself as well. 

Just take some bees wax and resin and mix it together. 

This is the wax I use to make sparse dubbed bodies and dubbing loops! 

Wax the thread and then just use dubbin very sparsely. 

Just touch the dubbin to the thread and what sticks is good. 

Make a dubbing loop by placing your finger on the tying thread,

And bring the thread over the hook shank to form the loop. 

Now you can spin the thread to make a dubbing brush. 

You can do this with certain bobbin holders like Marc petijean bobbin. 

Or you can use the numerous spinners that are out there. 

Leave a comment with your favorite! 

Now it’s time to wind your dubbing loop forward.  If you use a dubbing tool. 

You will need to advance the thread back to where we started the thread.

Then wind your dubbing brush up touching turns and tie off once you’ve made to the front. 

Prepare your hen saddle tips. Cut off the fluffy part.

Place the good side of the feather away from on another in your fingers. 

Then while pinching the tips, pull back the fibers to get the size of your wing. 

I like a wing the same length as the hook shank for these flies. 

Then hold them on top, points facing the rear of the fly. 

Pinch and loop them on top.  This can be tricky, just take your time. 

Now tie in the hackle. Have the shiny side up. 

Wind the hackle, stroking the fibers back as you wind. 

Depending on how your hackle is will determine the amount turns. 

A good rule of thumb with hen neck, is two-three turns. 

Whip finish and cut the thread. Head cement if you like too.  

And this concludes the tying of the cow dung hackle wing. The original calls for turkey for the wing.
Have a wet fly you wanna see tied here on the fly corner? Just leave a comment!  Feel free to share this info.

question?..... sneak peak

Took a break from posting and taking pics of ties and flying. I've been thinking about getting back at it.  I've still been tying and flying, just the camera has not been in the picture.... lol   I need to reboot the blog here, since photo bucket decided to steal my images for some of the post and I know links are down on some topics on the side bar.  Ill have all these problems done soon. 

 So my question to my subscribers is, which flies or techniques would you like to see here? Leave me a comment and let me know! maybe the infamous golden oldie?

Tight ties
Johnny Utah

Best u.v. Resin on the block.

Deer creeks uv resins are bar none my favorite.  Been using it for a while now and I'm sold big time.  No tack no haze and diamond hard.  

  Nymphed with it on my golden oldie and high test hairs ears along with the diamond scuds and many other nymphs.  The resin didn't crack, scratch or even fog and held on to the patterns after many outings.  

   I highly recommend you pick some up. You can get it with free shipping from www.castersonlineflyshop.com. Be sure tell them Johnny sent ya!  

Tight ties! 

Johnny. 

A splinter mouse

Tied it small for smaller trout.  I also tapered the foam to give it a mouse profile for day time fishing on some local streams. I cut the rabbit fur on angle as well to give it more of taper. 

Hook- #4 stinger 

Thread- 6/0 uni black

Tail- zonker strip. 

Body- wound zonker strip

Top- evazote foam black. 

Small rusty hackle wing spinner video

Materials

Hook- Daiichi 1110 #20

Thread- Uni 8/0

Tail- Light dun rooster hackle

Abdomen- Tying thread

Thorax- Rust or rusty brown dry fly dub

Wing- light dun hackle. 

*** I forgot to mention in the video that I only use neck hackle on these. I find the saddle hackle barbs too large width wise.  Neck hackle is just a lot more supple and that's a great thing for a spinner. 

A great little fly

The hackle wing rusty spinner is a staple in my box.  Tied large to small. Pictured is a size 20. The small sizes with a simple thread body have served me well on many streams.  From the tough limestones to tail waters and everywhere in between. 

 The hackle wing spinner is an old spinner pattern that is hands down one of the most effective and durable ways to tie a spinner.  Quick, easy and few materials make this fly a no brainer.  

  

I'll be instructing how to tie this pattern at our up coming ridge and valley tying night on July 1st at the Musconetcong water shed association blg in asbury nj.   @ 730pm.  Come on out and learn to tie this deadly fly.   Also Utah's fly corners next video in the works is for the #20 rusty hackle wing spinner.  So stay tuned. 

Johnny 

Little black diving caddis tutorial

 Here is a tutorial for the diving the caddis wet fly. I always tie a few small black ones. They work really well on streams with good little black caddis populations.  The fly is effective almost all day long and is best fished down and across with mends to allow the fly to drift naturally or dead, then allow to swim when the mend straightens. 

Ready 2 Pop tying video

Materials

Hook- Daiichi 1180 12-18

Thread- Black Uni 8/0

Tail- Teal flank dyed claret

Abdomen- Teal flank dyed claret

Rib- Kreinik Metallics  Blending Filament 032

Thorax- Marabou butt material form the base of a claret teal flank feather, blended with STS claret 

Wing case- Evazote foam black

Diving caddis video

Materials

Hook- Daiichi Alec Jackson North country spider hook

Thread- Uni 8/0 Tan

Body- Polar dub Tan\

Wing- Mallard flank dyed wood duck

Wing topping- Antron yarn white/clear

Hackle- Hebert miner hen neck hackle  Barred dark ginger

The H.O.H. dun and the sulphur hatch.

   Ok, so I belong to a group on a fly fishing website called the fly of the month group. This months fly was any H.O.H. fly. H.O.H. meaning hackle on hook.

 My friend Tom tied up some duns in a variant style, with the trimmed hackle for bodies.  I thought they looked pretty cool. So I decided to twist up a thorax dun.  I figured why not do a favorite dry fly pattern of mine and seeing how the hackle was getting trimmed for the body the v cut hackle just made sense to me.

 The fly consists of only hackle and thread. So there is nothing on it that can absorb water, thus making it a perfect dry fly. The idea that Tom had behind the hackle cut body was for it to give the translucent effects that the naturals have to them.  Sounds reasonable to me, so I twisted one up in sulphur and headed on out to a local freestoner for the sulphur hatch. 

  So with my trusty 2 wt and H.O.H. I made my way to the stream at the last bit of twilight.  I went a favorite pool of mine. It consist of heavy riffle leading into and long tail out.  I can always find some trout sipping and gulping insects near or in the tail out. 
  On the way to the water I was being buzzed by sulphur duns and spinners flying about.  I just hoped the rain would hold out long enough for me to get a trout or two.

The clouds cleared a bit and the moon came out and bathed the pool in moon light. I could see fishy noses poking up from the water every so often. I made my first cast and landed a bit short of the feeding lane. The next was on point and the trout took the H.O.H.. A good fight later I had the hen landed.
   I hooked several fish and one was very large as i couldnt really move the fish with my 2 wt. haha. The fly popped on that fish and I remembered why I didnt use mustad hooks anymore...... I ran out of daiichi 1100 in 14! and had some mustad laying around.

I'm not a great photographer by any means! but I'm no photographer at all in the dark! But you can still make out the fly. The proofs in the pudding as they say.  I will do a tutorial of this technique very soon.  And my daiichi hooks should be on there way! Thank you J.W trout

Snowshoe cripple video

Hook- Daiichi 1180 #16
Thread- Uni 8/0 olive
Abdomen- Pheasant tail and brown marabou in a dubbing loop
Wire- xsmall utc silver
Thorax- olive super fine
Wing- Snowshoe rabbit
Hackle- Dun saddle hackle

Early season baetis

Here are the baetis aka blue wing olives, from yesterday when I was on the water. I am sure they were out by the hundreds on this rainy day.  I will try and get some photos of the spinners this week if I am lucky enough to be there when they come back.  The flies were a good size 16 and easy to spot on the water. Always enjoy watching a mayfly track down and into the mouth of a rising trout.   Be sure to note that the males are not olive. They are more grey and tan with a almost black thorax. The females are a deep olive.

March brown wetfly

 The march brown wetfly is an old wet fly, and very effective one in the mid spring right on through the season.  I like to give it a little more pop/flash/ with the u.v. high test dubbin. I also will tie them with the standard orange head. Winged or wingless, it's a great fly to fish, that will catch trout any where.

Materials
Hook- Daiichi 1560 #10-14
Thread- Yellow/orange uni 8/0
Tail- Bronze Mallard
Rib- Med. gold oval tinsel(lagartun)
Body- U.V. high test or hares ear
Hackle- Brown partridge
Wing- Hen pheasant secondary.

Catchem Flymph tutorial

 Here is what i call my catchem flymph. It is hands down one of my best producing flymphs i use in the spring straight through the season.

  It's a spin off from a hare's ear softy or flymph. But using the u.v. high test dubbing blend along with the rusty Montana fly co midge body thread in combination with the rusty orangutan ice fur and dark partridge.

 This fly is fine tuned, meaning each element adds to the fly patterns effectiveness. I have tied many different combination of this fly pattern. But this combination is the

 the golden ticket.

 If this fly is on my line in a cast of wets, I always know what fly the trout took as soon as they strike. I havnt really spoke about this fly here on the corner, as its been a little secret of mine.

Even if you dont fish wets, this fly can be fished dead drift on the bottom and it produces wonderfully.  From bottom to top, the catchem does what the name says.

Now lets twist one up already! 

Materials

Hook- Daiichi 1560 10-16

Thread- Montana fly co midge body thread, Rust

Shuck- Ice fur, Rusty orangutan 

Body- U.V. High Test Blend

Rib- Montana fly co midge body thread, Rust

Hackle- DARK partridge hackle

Now go catchem!  If your interested in some u.v. high test you can email me at www.jeuflies@gmail.com