Let’s talk seriously about dubbing. In fly tying, the word is both a noun (the material) and a verb (the act of applying the material) and is the cause of more headaches than it ought to be. The act of skillfully twisting fur and other fibers tightly around tying thread is one of the most basic skills of fly tying, yet one that few tiers have mastered. I have to admit, I often judge other tiers by their dubbing and I am often woefully disappointed. The best tip I can give right off the bat—before we even get into the details—is that you’re probably using too much. But before we return to that ..read more

As I get older, I’m finally realizing that things that seem simple on the surface are often more complicated than they appear. When editor Ross Purnell returned from a trip to Venice, Louisiana, he told me that schools of bull redfish had mangled a foam popper. He asked me to write about building a durable, functional foam popper, and I brazenly thought, “No problem.” As I dug into the subject a bit more, and enlisted the advice and experience of my good friend and foam popper tier extraordinaire Brian Schmidt, I realized how much thought and design goes into these things. Like many of us, I ..read more

One of the great benefits of fly tying for an audience is the huge variety of questions I receive. I've always believed the best way to learn something is to teach it, and so these demonstrations give me a great opportunity to hone my skills, both as a tier and as a teacher. Recently I've heard a lot of questions about dubbing loops—what they are, for starters. Many fly recipes simply call for a "body made from a dubbing loop," which begs the questions "How do you make one, how do you use them, are there any tricks or tips to make them easier, and where and why do you use them in the first pla ..read more

Working with a good piece of deer or elk hair is one of my favorite simple pleasures. A great piece of hair inspires me with the potential for beautiful flies, clean upright or downwings, and wonderful floatability, but many tiers dread the very thought of mounting hair wings, and are forever cursed to fish flies tied with cut-to-length synthetic wings that aren't nearly as pretty or practical. It seems most beginning tiers (as well as many of the more seasoned yet stubborn varieties) just don't understand the basic idea behind anchoring a clump of hair in place, but it's really a simple proc ..read more

Some new techniques and materials come onto the fly-tying scene with a bang, and others just materialize slowly over time, becoming more and more common until one day you look at something and say "Where the heck did that come from, and why didn't I notice it earlier?" Using jig hooks for flies has been around for a long time now, but there has certainly been a surge in their popularity in just the past few years. It seems this is one more thing the rest of us borrowed from the international competitive fly-fishing crowd, where beadhead flies with jig hooks have been trophy winners for quite a ..read more

It’s rare for me to spend a day teaching or working in the shop without some poor soul asking me to explain the merits of this hook or that hook, and the reasoning behind why I might choose one brand or model over another. There’s good reason for this. Like tying thread (see my story “A Tangled Mess” in the Feb.-Mar. 2017 issue), hook sizing and nomenclature seem almost purposefully confusing, so let me give my best shot at clearing up some of that confusion. To make sure I address all the right questions, as I write this article I have ten different size 14 hooks sitting on my desk. No two ar ..read more

I've taught a lot of people to tie flies, and whether they are brand new tiers or even fairly experienced, one of the biggest troubles I see and hear about is fly proportions. It's not always easy to gauge exactly how long a tail should be or where exactly the wings should be placed on a dry fly, and sometimes it's tough to even have a really good idea of where the abdomen ends and where the thorax begins on a simple nymph. Even when you follow the best directions, you can still end up with a fly that seems strangely misshapen. Luckily, there is a commonly accepted set of rules to follow for ..read more

Legendary Fly Tier Bob Quigley was clearly one of the most influential tiers of an entire generation. His trout and steelhead patterns, and his tying style, have been copied and revered for years. Honing his skills on such technical waters as Hat and Hot creeks, as well as the Fall River, Quigley developed a host of invaluable patterns that were a step above and beyond the traditional flies of his day. Quigley passed away in June, 2012, after a prolonged battle with prostate cancer, leaving a void in the fly-fishing world that may never again be filled. His list of accomplishments is lengthy a ..read more

By now, we're all pretty familiar with the use of cul-de-canard (CDC) on dry flies and emerger patterns. This magical, nondescript feather is found near the preening gland of a duck, and has become a common, practical feature of many modern patterns. This inherently buoyant feather gets its floating qualities more from its structure than its often-credited oils, and has become the material of choice for many low-floating emerger and cripple patterns. While CDC has no doubt revolutionized many floating patterns, this odd little feather has yet another unexpected trick up its sleeve when it come ..read more

It is often assumed that I, as a fly shop owner and all-around big-shot fly tier guy, get preferential treatment by suppliers, and receive only the highest grade materials for my personal use. The reality is, I buy my materials straight off the wall of my shop, from the same suppliers nearly everyone else uses. But that doesn’t mean my flies are destined to be average. All flies are made up of the sum of their parts and it doesn’t take many years of tying to figure out that material selection and preparation are keys to producing exceptional flies. I’m often asked what I look for when I sort t ..read more