16-08-2007, 08:38 PM
|
 |
Member
|
|
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: A Scot in Naas, Co. Kildare, ROI
Posts: 996
|
|
Headlamp Damsel Nymph
After fooling around with the other stuff for the Bead Swap I started in on these as they have been working well this year for me when fished deep and slow, so get yourself at the vice and we will get it on.
Materials -
Hook - Kamasan B175
Thread - UTC 140 Olive
Tail/Body - CDC Medium Olive feather
Rib - Fine Black Holographic Mylar
Hackle - Olive ****** Hackle Tips (left overs from Murragh!)
Eyes - Small Silvered Light Green Seed Beads
Before starting on the tying it is advisable to prepare the headlamp eyes first for as many as you are going to make up.
Take two of the beads and slip them on to some fine nylon, in this case 6lb Drennan Double Strength, and tie an overhand knot pulling it tight to place the beads side by side, follow this with another two overhand knots making sure each is as tight as possible without breaking the nylon. If you are making a few, just use one length and keep adding pairs of seed beads leaving a gap of about 1 1/2" between each pair.
Prepare the thread on the hook taking it about halfway down from the eye and trim off the tag
Cut a set of eyes from the prepared string by cutting in the middle of the gap. Catch these in at the end of the thread by holding the nylon tags and wind your thread towards the head
Adjust the position of the eyes backwards by pulling the nylon tags or forwards by pulling the eyes before lashing into position with a few figure of eight turns. If the eye is not level, level it up now before returning the thread down the shank to the start of the bend
Catch in the mylar for the rib with a couple of turns
Pull your CDC feather through your fingers to draw the fibres back towards the tip
Place on the hook and catch into position with the thread with a couple of turns that are not too tight
Pull the feather through until you get the desired tail length and secure with two tight turns then return the thread to behind the eyes under the feather
Wrap the feather up the shank to behind the head and secure with tight turns (you could leave it like this and whip finish for an interesting parachute fly!)
Cut off the excess feather and then with a couple of turns of the mylar over the thread, run the rib up to behind the head and secure in position
Catch in your hackle tip and run the thread back down the body for a couple of turns, this helps ensure the fly does not fall apart in use!
Wrap the hackle round the body with about 4 - 5 turns to produce a reasonable sized thorax
Trim off the remainder of the hackle tip and whip finish the head from above the eyes before cutting the thread. Now you can get rid of any straggly looking bits before varnishing the head by just pulling them off in the case of the CDC or trimming with scissors if you want a perfect looking nymph.
Taking your dubbing needle, as I do, dip it into the varnish and let the first big drop fall off back into the bottle and then apply the second between the eyes, the varnish will soak back and then add another droplet that will seep into the hackle base giving a better thorax definition. Job done!
__________________
Roddy
"Sod it! I am going out to sink a klink!" 
|
Oliver 
Linear Mode
