Snaelda Orgy

[laffingravy]

Recovering on Boxing Day with a hangover from Christmas Day with my wife at my mother in laws brought on an unusual fly tying spurt. The subject of the morning session was of course Snaelda's for the coming spring.They are a bit of a banker pattern for me in Willie Gunn colours with either black or red bodies.












The Dressing

Tube: Veniard 1-1/4" Slipstream copper
Thread: Black for the black bodied version, red for the red bodied version
Tail: Blended fluorescent orange, fluorescent yellow and black dyed bucktail overlaid with strands of fine mother of pearl Kryastalflash or medium mirage tinsel
Tag: Large mirage tinsel
Body: Black or red granny wool wound with a forward facing taper and bound in open turns with tying thread
Rib: Fine silver wire
Hackle: Black or red dyed Chevron hen saddle doubled and wound.

[johnevs]

Very nice mate am hoping to try give these a go myself one day are they difficult to tie??!

[laffingravy]

Very nice mate am hoping to try give these a go myself one day are they difficult to tie??!

There are a couple of things to bear in mind. With this pattern as with the Frances which also utilises wool for the body when the wool takes in water it has a tendency to slip as you are producing a forward facing conical body. There are fly dressers all over the internet with some really odd suggestions about how to tie the body. I have tried them all and could never get one to work consistently. With this in mind I went back to basics, started using the same colour tying thread as the wool body and after winding the wool binding it down tightly with oprn turns of tying thread. Job done and the wool stays fixed forever. The other thing to consider is how you hold the tube. I have a HMH Tube Fly Vice which I use for most of my tube fly tying. When it comes to this type of pattern it is impractical to use the vice as it causes problems getting the buck tail to lie flat as the vice tends to make it splay. I find it better therefore to use a standard vice with a felting needle. There is a lot of tension applied to the tube as there is a lot if thread used in the pattern and it needs to be wound extremely tightly. The tube therefore tends to spin on the needle causing the body to undress itself whilst being tied. There is a trade off between just how much tension you can apply without the tube spinning. You can only gauge this by feel after tying a lot of them. If you tie some up for spring they are a killer of a pattern for early season fish. I would be very interested to see some of yours if you decide to tie some up and if you get stuck with any aspect please shout out and I will help if I can.

[johnevs]

Thanks will give them a go but not sure I could embarrass myself by putting a photo up of the end result:>::/ will try in the new year|\

[T7]

You can buy cone shaped tubes, which makes the tying much easier!

[Blue Jewel]

"Recovering on Boxing Day with a hangover from Christmas Day"
The slightest chance of a hangover would have been nice LOL, quite a lot of un-expected driving for me this year so a very sober one

Very nice tubes there I must say, and to tie em up suffering a hangover, I applaud you. They certainly look the business, the method you use with the open turns of thread over the wool does indeed work a treat, ive also found it to be pretty much the only way of putting a stop on the wool slipping around.

Look forward to New Years Day, when hopefully you will have another Hangover and a good tying session.

Mike

[laffingravy]

You can buy cone shaped tubes, which makes the tying much easier!

Not necessarily. What makes tying easier is more tying which provides more experience. Your suggestion is all well and good but the negative aspect is that with a conical tube you are fixed on body length and tube weight. If you tie them on parallel tubes then if you wish to use a long tube to go heavy then you can still do this and bury 3/4 of the tube under the bucktail, as I have in the ones I have shown. This method provides maximum flexibility and you can then tie the bodies as long or as short as you like. I personally find that at least for the rivers I fish, shorter bodied patterns seem to work better.