Jock Scott 1/0

[s fontinalis]

A while ago I professed my desire to tie a Jock Scott before Christmas, and I managed a scruffy, 'already fished' looking effort which i posted in a thread in December

Today I finally got around to tying another.
The last attempt i posted on a number of different forums and got some great feedback, which combined with some background reading on techniques etc, enabled me to have a somewhat better second crack at tying this fly.

So here it is. (If you look at the first thread you can see how the first Jock Scott came out)




There is still a lot of work to be done; here's what I see 'not right' with this one:
1 - Body is too fat. It needs to be more cigar like in taper, rather than 'FAT' the whole way.
2 - Proportion of yellow to black in the body is not right, yellow needs to be a little shorter. Also, the ribbing in the black half needs to be more consistent in pitch.
3 - Need to work on the GP Crest in the tail. Less loose fibers would be better.
4 - I forgot to include the Toucan butting on top and bottom of the yellow half of body.
5 - The Married wing could be better aligned, and stacked on white tipped turkey rather than have that married to the wing.
6 - Shoulders are missing. I already had a lot going on at the head so i omitted them.
7 - Sides of woodduck and gadwell duck would be better aligned and married.
8 - I left off the peacock sword topping (normally under the GP Crest)
9 - Smaller chatterer cheeks, as well as better alignment side to side.
10 - Horn need to better aligned, although on this version at least they cross at the tips over the topping, rather than parallel on my first attempt.

Obviously there is still a lot of work for me to accomplish before I become really good and perhaps progress to blind eye hooks. But, given this is only the second time I've tied a fly of this nature I'm pretty pleased with the improvement from my first one.

[arkle]

As you're also on ftf, you may have noticed that well over 98% of the salmon flies are tied on blind/eyeless hooks. Apart from tradition, the reason for this is that it's very difficult to set the wing perfectly squarely when you try to tie on 2 different thickness of wire, one of which is tapered. It's a bit like having a foundation for a house being sand for the outer wall & granite for the inner cavity.

Having said that & your observations are quite correct, you've made a very good attempt at one of the most difficult salmon flies there is, no mean feat on a small hook !

[s fontinalis]

Blind eyes ordered....I realised when i was tying in the head that the cheeks and sides wouldn't tie in straight - turns out because of the bump from the taper eye wire.
Thanks for the tip.

I had thought blind eyes would be more difficult to tie on, but its seems it might actually be easier.