Apologies, JQ has asked that I amend the instructions.

Our FNQ branch member, JQ, volunteered to lead us on the Cormorant fly. Hmm, looks like it might be hard to cast but should catch lots of fish!

Basic Tools: Bobbin, whip finisher, sharp scissors.

Materials:

Hook – Any nymph/ lake hook size 12-18

Thread: 8/0 black or, **any colour depending on what colour people want their fly to be. And maybe a fluro yellow, orange, pink, red acting as a ‘hotspot’ or cheeks. Keep the thread small as the fly is pretty small. 6/0 is ok, but still pretty thick.

Body: Tinsel – Gold, silver, red, copper, blue, green (med) – Whatever colour people like for a body. Any colour thread even!

Body Rib: Small/ med wire – or stripped peacock quill.

Wing: Marabou or rabbit zonka – colour of people’s choice

Cheeks: Jungle cock or medium sized tinsel for cheeks.. Goose biots are very good too. We can even use fluro thread..

Varnish, nail polish or UV resin.. no preference. And BeesWax for thread

Notes/ Tips from JQ:
Below are some notes & tips from my experiences. – You might find them useful
1. We often buy tying gear because a recipe insists on something** but we can easily substitute that ‘something’ with an equivalent or like product. Our gear becomes more consolidated, reducing gear that we may only use a couple of times. Our money will go much further allowing you to spend more elsewhere! I will go through some flies where you will use these materials again and again
2. Buy a hank of Flashabou tinsel (Code: 6998) or, Polarflash (Code: 2015) rather than bobbins of tinsel.. Works out much cheaper and you get heaps of colours in your hank of tinsel.. You can use it for cheeks but it is pretty narrow. Buying hanks of flashabou etc. allows you the opportunity to use it in your wooly buggers, humongous, shreks etc, even collars, nymph cases, ribbing etc
3. SPOTLIGHT or Craft stores have Goose Biots and they have like a pack of 10 with 2x red, 2x blue, 2x yellow, 2x white and 2x green? If not, get on to Troutlore.com.au and checkout Rob’s Hareline range
4. Colours/ variants are endless for this fly. If you haven’t got the exact materials we can substitute it and it’ll still be a fish-catcher. We can go through some variants on the night
5. EP Streamer Brush is also very handy – Orange in particular is very productive in local lakes. Check out Craig Dawson write up in the book Australian Trout Flies ‘revisited’. And then the streamer brush is good for cod flies, salt and many other flies
6. UV resin is great for instant completion to your flies, but has a nice price tag and a UV light is required. Most of the time $5.00 Sally Hansens is more than fine and is as robust. Sally Hansens does smell and so do some UV resins. The choice is yours!
7. Jungle cock is difficult to obtain these days (limited supply), suppliers have plastic printed ones. Or we can use tinsel or biots
8. Fish these anywhere in your team of flies. Swing them, Tweak them

The real ones

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Evan taught us this very popular and effective fly.

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Our last virtual fly tying night with Evan from Create-A-Fly https://www.createafly.com.au was so successful that we asked him to host it again on Wednesday 22 April … and he kindly agreed.Evan tied the Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear Nymph which is one of the flies in the Fly Fishers International Bronze Fly Tying Award

The required materials are listed below:

• Hook: #10 1X Long Nymph hook, 1xL

• Weight: 10-15 turns of non-lead wire

• Thread: 8/0 Black Uni-Thread or equivalent

• Tail: Guard hairs from hare’s mask

• Rib: Gold oval tinsel over abdomen

• Abdomen: Blended lighter tan hair from the hare’s mask (or Hairline Dubbing # 4, Hare’s Ear – or equivalent)

• Wing Case: Mottled turkey tail feather over thorax

• Thorax: Blended darker brown hairs from the hare’s mask (or Hairline Dubbing #5, Dark Hare’s Ear or equivalent

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John tells us:

This month we will be tying a foam mayfly body, similar to the body Muz Wilson used on his Messy Dun fly.

The recipe includes:

• A long needle
• 2mm foam – colour of your choice
• Elk or reindeer hair for the tail
• Thread to match the foam.

In addition you will need to bring scissors or a knife to cut out the foam and your vice to hold the needle.

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Prepare for the Brogo Dam outing and tie a Cartside Gurgler:

Materials:
Mustad C52s, No.2 or equal
Bucktail – one or two colours
Crystal flash – pearl
2mm closed cell foam, colour of choice
Saddle hackle or chenille, colour of choice
Flash-a-boo jumbo size silver

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John and Claude led the ‘dubbing brush’ session on Wednesday night. Claude had a ‘home made’ dubbing brush maker and John had his fancy vice to demonstrate the creation of brushes on a different device. If you like Claude’s home made maker, he has promised to give those that attend the plans 😊.
Dubbing brushes can be used for a variety of flies from nymphs to buggers and the more talented tiers could use them for salt water flies. Below are some produced by Claude. He says it is quite quick to whip up nymph or bugger if you have a brush that is suitable – he demonstrated a quick bugger tie.
All you need is some copper wire, dubbing material (anything you have) and a bit of imagination to make the brush.

Just got this hint from Shaun. Will pop it into our useful links page in due course:

Bill – I just came a across a series of recently uploaded tying videos from Tassie, tied by Neil Grose. Really good production, and flies you never see in shops or books. Worth sharing as a blog item I would think. Cheers, Shaun.

Here

The Comparadun series of no-hackle dry flies were developed by Caucci and Nastasi in the 1970s using a hair wing tied in a 180° flair. They are very effective patterns in slow-moving clear water where an imitative (as opposed to impressionistic) pattern is needed.

Comparaduns are one of the most versatile mayfly patterns in existence representing a low-riding mayfly to near perfection. They are commonly used during a PMD (pale morning dun) hatch. The fly we will be tying is Davie McPhail’s ‘Double Decker”. This is a relatively straight forward fly to tie and wont break your budget ….you may have the material in your tying kit.

Fly:

• Hook – size 14
• Thread – 8/0 to match your dubbing
• Tail – Microfibets, antron or Coq de Leon fibres (use pheasant tail if that’s all you have)
• Body – Olive or any other natural dry fly dubbing
• Wing – Deer Hair

‘Special’ Equipment:

• Deer Hair Stacker – you can borrow other tyer’s stacker if you don’t have one

From <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EFL41PzmvY>

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The original plan was for exploring dubbing brush but this has been postponed to August.
Instead John will lead with a fly from the IFFF Fly Tying Bronze Award flies. Download the instructions here with the intention that the CAA tying program will slowly work through the collection. This month is the Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear Nymph Evaluation Fly.
Usual time of 7:30 PM at Raiders Weston.

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