After seeing the excellent beetle produced by Naisreka it prompted me to show this simple beetle tying.
There is nothing complicated in the tying and is easy enough for beginners to tie.

Righthanded tying assumed for this effort.

Materials -

Hook - Kamasan B830 size 10
Thread - UTC black
Body - 6 or 8mm booby eyes, black preferable but can be worked on
Abdomen - Black UV micro straggle fritz


Thread up your hook to the end of the shank



Select a booby eye or piece of booby cord slightly longer than the hook shank



Carefully split it in two with a craft knife or single edged razor blade



Tie in your fritz at the end of the shank



Then catch the end of the foam by about 1 mm with the thread and pull in tightly giving 3 or 4 turns



Raise the foam and run the thread up 2/3rds of the shank and follow with the fritz and secure it there



Fold the foam back over the shank and secure with tight loops holding the foam in place with your other hand to prevent it spinning on the hook



Run the thread and the fritz to behind the hook eye leaving a little space that you need to secure the head



Bring the foam over again and secure above the space you left with tight turns before whip finishing



Trim the excess foam carefully at the rear and head of the beetle



If you have used black foam here then miss this step. Colour the foam with an indelible black marker



Not forgetting the underside!



Finished under view



To increase the attractiveness of the beetle, give it a single coat of SHHAN, this will slightly melt the foam and will give a better colour spread as well as a gloss finish

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Roddy

"Sod it! I am going out to sink a klink!"

Cheers I'll give that a go. I liked the SHHAN tip.

Thanks again.

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[COLOR="Blue"]"A fish seen is a fish nearly caught"[/COLOR]

Loopy,

The SHHAN I use for this is from an old bottle that has lost some of the solvents by evaporation, a brand new bottle does a bit more dissolving before giving the shiny effect to the beetle. Sometimes it gets a second coat to make it more glossy and durable.
If you use markers to colour the foam you will find that the colour bleeds on to the SHHAN brush and can contaminate the rest of the contents so it is always best just to keep an old bottle specifically for this task and the good stuff for your real flies!

TLs

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Roddy

"Sod it! I am going out to sink a klink!"

thank's Albannach cuileag for that i will be tying a few of them soon

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David (little machin)

Thanks for the idea of using straggle fritz for the legs / underbody!

On my beetle pattenrs, once I had wound on some peacock herl for the body, I used to tie in a couple of strands of herl from a pheasant tail for the legs - only for them to break off.

Now the fritz will do for both the body and legs!

Guess I should think outside the box more as to what I can do with my materials

Thanks again for the idea of using straggle fritz.

Looks good,

I tend to tie my beatles slightly differently.

I use black foam (its actually pipe lagging) but i like the shiny effect you get.
and i dont tie in a head, i just leave a little tag and trim a bit off it. they only tend to last one fish anyway so dont want to spend too much time on tying them.

I like the fritz too mind. quicker and easer to tie than herl IMO.

Might give the SHHAN a go. Cheers

You're welcome!

I was looking for a way to avoid making legs and the straggle was at hand so that solved that problem. If you use straggle that has longer fibres, there is no need to wrap it around the hook shank - just stretch it along the shank and secure with thread at the start of the thorax and the same for the head position. The next problem is to find a way that makes the foam more durable to trout teeth! I have been experimenting with compound materials made up from stuff in my tying box and have a few ideas on the back burner that need a bit of time to try out. Will see what happens for the future.
One problem with the foam is that if you tighten the loops too much you can cut through the foam to the hook, I could avoid this by adding a polythene skin over the foam but that would just complicate a simple dressing that works as it is - just tie up a few more when you go beetle fishing!

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Roddy

"Sod it! I am going out to sink a klink!"