Tying Dry Fly Wings

Posted by Cameron Larsen on: 2005-08-01 21:31:01

I stumbled across an old fly box the other day, a very old fly box. It must have been some twenty five years old when I had first begun tying dry flies. For those of you who don't tie flies or are just beginning to learn how to tie flies, the tying of a dry fly is a very exacting thing to do. While I looked at this fly box, I could see I was in the beginning stages of fly tying, at least dry fly tying. Proportions were out of whack, and hackles were poorly wrapped, but what stood out the most was the wing construction. Lopsided wings will cause your fly to list on the water. And wings not secured tightly will cause them to twist around the body, making your fly not float upright.
It is a thing to be learned slowly, patiently. Tying on the wings of a fly will make one feel all thumbs, incompetent, and clumsy to say the least. Materials will become uncooperative, impossible to handle, and just plain too small. They won't secure properly, even though you are sure they are, they will spin when you add dubbing or hackle. In short they will frustrate you to no end. But alas, you can learn to do this, it can be done. It shouldn't be the first fly tying procedure learned, but once you have obtained a fair grasp of fly tying, you too, can learn this procedure.
For this article we are talking about the wings tied upright and divided. Patterns that use these include Humpy, Adams, Light Cahill, Wulffs, and many, many more. In fact if you can visualize classic dry fly patterns you are generally talking about upright and divided wings. The materials vary from hair, to hackle tips, flank feathers, and these days synthetic fibers.
To begin, it is easier to practice on a large hook. Some tiers think of this as a waste of material, but consider it as an investment in your fly tying education. Tying wings on a #4 hook is several times less frustrating when learning than on a #18 hook.
After the critical thread base, take your material and measure it to the hook gape. It should be about 2x's the hook gape, from the tie in point of the material to the tips. Now take your material and secure it to the hook, at the 70% mark of the shank (about 1/3rd of the way down from the eye.). If using hair (Wulffs), you will need quite a few turns here (8-10), less for hackle tips (Adams) or flank (Blue Dun) (2-3 turns). The tips should extend forward past the hook eye, if the right pressure has been applied the tips should be at an incline from the hook shank, (practice here). Trim the butts off behind the tie in, and wrap the thread down the hook shank and back up the tie-in spot. Do this now to avoid your wings rolling on you.
Now you should have a nice tapered underbody, and wing material extending at an incline past the hook eye. There should be no gaps in your thread underbody. With your left hand grab your wing material and pull it upright, place a wrap of thread directly in front of the wing, to stand it up, again more wraps for hair less for feathers. Once it stands vertically, (it doesn't have to be perfect here). Split the hair in half with your left thumb and fore finger (all instructions are for right handed tiers). The bobbin should be hanging directly behind the half of the wing closest to you. Wrap the thread through the divide of the wings and in front of the further half. Then place one wrap behind the wings and around the hook shank.
The wings are now separated by an 'x'. Bring the bobbin up and begin wrapping a small base of thread around the far wing. 5 or so wraps for a hair wing and only about 2 for feathers. Then bring the thread back through the divide and wrap a base around the closer wing. Your direction will be reversed. After wrapping the close wing bring the thread between the wings from front and rear, it goes down the far side of the shank, and your thread direction returns to normal.
All of this about thread direction is easily understood once you are actually tying. And all this x, and base wrapping becomes easier with the bobbin in hand and you are actually working. The concept is fairly easy to grasp, once the problem is right in front of you. Control your frustration level, and face it with the idea of learning a skill, not tying a fly for this evening's hatch. Remember it takes practice, practice, practice. But it CAN be done.

About the Author

Cameron Larsen is a retired commericial fly tier and fly fishing guide. He now operates The Big Y Fly Company. http://www.bigyflyco.com/flyfishinghome.html He can be reached at info@bigyflyco.com. This article will appear in the Big Y Fly Fishing E-Zine at Http://www.bigyflyco.com/Bigyflyfishingezine.html