Help tying Dhalberg Divers

[Clarence Fullard]

To those that can stack and twist hair well, can you show me how to do it? I've been messing around with Dahlberg Divers and just can't get it right. Tired of looking at pictures of nice, tightly packed hair that is perfectly groomed. You mind showing me? I can come to you.

Thanks!

[Miles]

Hi Clarence,

I could probably help you with that. I'll shoot you an email with details, but here's a couple of general tips for you and anyone else out there with similar concerns:

-The flies in those pictures don't necessarily fish better than what you're tying. Don't sweat it too much.

-The starting point for a really good deer hair fly is really good deer hair. For bass bugs especially (like size 4 and up), I find a lot of deer hair is too short and not thick enough.

-You probably have tools for stacking and packing the hair, but if not, that's important.

-A neat trick I learned from... maybe one of Charlie Craven's books? Anyway, the trick is to get a piece of heavy-duty plastic, like a quart freezer bag, and some soft wire. After you have stacked, tied in, and packed a clump of hair, wrap the plastic over it and tie it down with the wire. This gets all the hair on the hook out of the way of the next batch, and you can just work your way up the hook with the plastic. Kind of a hassle, but it does help.

-Lots of authors will tell you to steam your bugs and trim with a razor blade. I don't. That's too much of a hassle. I find that if I've done a good job with quality hair, the bug looks fine trimmed with scissors. But I don't tie for the kinds of pictures you're looking at, so you might want to steam yours.

best,

Miles

[namfos]

I agree with Miles that the "exhibition" ties don't necessarily fish that well. I'm reasonably competent at spinning hair for my own purposes (mostly Tap's Bugs), but I'm no Pat Cohen, Chris Helms or Steve Wascher by any stretch of the imagination. I'd be happy to show you how I do it at the next Beer Tie, which I think is August 11. Shoot me an email the prior week and I'll pack accordingly: (mark(dot)sofman(at)gmail(dot)com

Deer belly hair is sometimes too short, but it's often the best in terms of thick enough to get a good flare whether spinning or stacking. I also find having a good tool for packing the hair is a must. I really like Pat Cohen's Fugly Packer - it's really beefy and you can really jam the hair tight. I also have a tool I bought from Steve Wascher that I like. It sort of looks like a solid brass golf tee, but with a hole drilled through the center. I like using double edge razor blades for the initial trimming. You get a nice clean cut and you can trim things up with scissors, both straight and curved. This part drives me nuts at times, but the fish usually don't object to what we who walk on our hind legs find aesthetically wanting. 

Mark

[Clarence Fullard]

Thanks all, good information thus far! You both mentioned that many times deer hair is too short--do you have a preferred place to get your hair? I don't think I'm really knowledgeable enough to tell the difference myself, so I don't know if I'm buying bad hair or not.

I think I'll wait until the beer tie. I'll practice until then and then hopefully you folks can show me how it's done!

On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 6:37:29 PM UTC-4, Clarence Fullard wrote:

[Miles]

I don't know anybody whose deer hair is consistently better than average. It would be great if someone offered 'bug grade' deer hair for big flies. Earlier this year I was having a really hard time finding good white deer hair, so I ordered four packs through my favorite local fly retailer. I returned three of them -- only one was long enough.

-Miles

[namfos]

It was a while ago (15 years?) at the Somerset show that I listened to Chris Helm talk at some length about the difficulty of finding >2" deer belly hair. It seems things have not much change. Maybe the guys in  the genetic hackle business can apply their techniques to deer...;-)

Clarence, I don't know that it's so much "bad hair" as it is that the desired properties, and some consistency of same, is difficult to find.

Mark

[Clarence]

This is what I found on selecting good hair:

http://youtu.be/uNo-9A_QmFw

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