I've had one or two people asking me how I tie my wings so I thought rather than explain it I'd do an SBS and here it is. This is the technique I use, you can tie the wings in at the start if you wish but I find they get in the way when tying the body etc although I do tie dryflies wings in first. here I have used woodcock feathers for the wings. Incidentally I nearly always use pearsalls silk for tying wings in, don't overwax though as too much can cause the fibres to come apart when performing the winging loop. This fly was tied on a size 12 hook but you might be better off useing a size 10 to start with as it will be easier.


Select 2 matching feathers from the wing of the bird, I have already clipped away a good part of each feather for previous wings


Cut a pair of wingslips from the feathers and match them up so they have equal numbers of feather fibres, you can maybe do this by eye if you find it easier. Use your nail to carefully remove excess fibres from the slips until they are both equal and to the desired width.


Tie in the body and tail, ribs etc and come back up to about an eyes length from the start of the eye.


Position wings along the shank to gauge length needed


Next hold the wings over the shank roughly where you want them to be, pinching them between thumb and forefinger


Pull thread up and pinch hold of it between thumb and finger. The position of the wingslips should be right on top of hookshank (the photo is showing slips too far above where they should be...whoops).


Then perform the winging loop. Take thread under the hook with the other hand useing the bobbin holder while still pinching thread with the other hand and pull upwards firmly letting go of the pinched piece of thread at the same time keeping the wings pinched in place with your fingers, but not too firmly just enough to hold the wingslips tight to the shank. Don't wind thread backwards over the wing after the winging loop but wind away from wings towards the eye, locking in the wings.


Trim off excess material with sharp pointed scissors, cut with angle of the hook-eye (some tiers put in a half hitch before they trim in case the slips come loose).


You should end up with something like this


Winding the hackle tends to give a more pleasing effect than useing the throat technique, I use both but tend to prefer the former as its less fussier. If your'e going to wind the hackle I suggest that you do it before you tie in the wings or else you will probably spoil the wings.


The finished fly


Hope this might help some people struggling with wings, a bit short and sweet I know but this is how I tie them. Good luck.

Thanks for reading

cheers

mark

Excellent SBS Mark. I do tend to over tighten the pinch and loop and then don't always get thread wraps going towards the eye afterwards. I need to take more care. Great photos again.

Mark, Very nice work and very helpful.
The bad part of all of this is that great wings takes lots of practice and the willingness to bin the bad ones and start over.

Thanks for that. I didn't know about winding forward after the wingloop.

__________________
"Take not out your 'ounds on a werry windy day" Surtees.

Thanks wobbly darwin and bill, yes its really about pactice, believe me I couldn't tie wings to save my life but perseverence does pay off in the end
If anyone has any queries about this SBS don't hesitate to ask by the way.

Spot on!!!!!!
Wish i'd seen such a great example 12 months ago.

Rod

Great SBS thanks Wingman!! I have been making a mess of winging until the critical detail of wrapping only towards the eye, and now it seems to be working better.

Much appreciated!

Pure classs is that, you make it look so easy.
Really appreciate you taking the time and effort to do this, it helps massively thanks.

You never know I may post one of mine eventually after many hours of practice.

Cheers
Tony

Excellent SBS.

You make it look so easy.

Kind Regards

Thanks again everyone, glad it seems to have helped a few of you. There are little points that could still be added like putting the wingslips together, making sure wings are in the correct position/aliignment after the winging loop etc etc, but I can add these points at a later date sometime.

Very nice wings there lajolla keep em going like that and your'e there. Mallard wing feathers are good for practicing with to start with but I can see you know what your'e doing.

Your'e welcome Tony, hope to see some of your flies on here when youv'e mastered the technique. Ofcourse learning to tie wings is not compulsary, there are many great flies tied and shown on here that havn't got paired wings but its an extra string for your bow so to speak and gives you more scope for allsorts of patterns. Plus you can showoff a bit/lot


Its certainly not easy bamboo-flyfisher, its just a question of learning the right steps and then performing them correctly, a formula so to speak, once you know the formula you practice it until you get the desired result and hopefully repeat that everytime....simples but yes hard at first...remember riding a bike for the first time....same principle.