Crystal FX Yarn, the latest in oddball yet compelling fibers
Roughfisher, knowing your compulsion for glimmer products – I was wandering around on eBAY and saw a really grainy picture that showed promise. I took a flyer on a couple skeins ($3 each) and this stuff is way cool, right up your alley.
The bad news, it ceased production in 2007 – doesn’t have more than a dozen colors, and of those only a couple are the earthen stuff we’re looking for for trout/carp/?? flies. The other colors are magentas, reds, and in the steelhead “bright” spectrum.
As the label says, it’s 100% nylon so the sparkle isn’t mylar – although it sure looks like mylar – and it lacks any opalescence. It’s shimmery sparkle of varying color, quite soft to the touch – and the yarn weave it’s attached to is stretchy and flexible.
I’m thinking a lot of nasty when I look at this – everything from leeches and your scorpion style flies to steelhead and shad stuff.
I’m thinking you may want to score some off of ebay. I googled it as available at some stores – but it’s $8 or $9 per skein. This is shade #4866, the seller listed it as the “amber mix”. It’s another multicolored mutt yarn.
For ZAK, the Golden Mutt, Step by Step
I’m using a Togen 3X Long #8 streamer hook for the fly. The bead is a 4mm faceted gunmetal craft bead, you can use any bead style you wish, these were close.
Pinch down the barb and slide the craft bead onto the shank. Fill the balance of the shank with consecutive wraps of 1 Amp fuse wire. Attach two brown goose biots for the tail.
Attach the yarn and bind it down the hook shank to the tail. Covering the entire body adds bulk to the fly – and we’re looking to build a tasty morsel – not some anemic looking Supermodel. Take extra turns at the junction of the tail, this is the stress point for the yarn and needs to be attached securely. Move the thread back up to the halfway point.
Take the first turn of yarn behind the tail to lift the goose biots up and out from the plane, then spiral the balance of the yarn to the midpoint on the shank. Secure the yarn at the midpoint and sever the remainder.
Take some velcro and rough up the Mohair body, we’re looking for a nice nap on the fly that’ll trap air bubbles and add to the mix of colors the yarn has … it’s a MUTT, make it look like one.
Note the mix of colors – this is the value of “mutt” yarns, no single monotonous pastel shade, more like a riot of earthen tones with tinsel and white cotton visible. From the Bernat Boa, clip about 3/8″ of the brown and grip it by the tips.
Lay the Bernat Boa fragment on the top as a wingcase and tie it down with gold thread.
Trim off the tips and lay in a large dollop of the “sympathetic” dubbing blend. To make the blend trim the gold mohair portion of the Moonlight Mohair “Safari” color into 1″ chunks. Blend the chopped mohair into a mix of red fox squirrel body, woodchuck (for the long guard hair) or Hare’s Mask. Use whatever is available to you with a light gray base. The Yellow mohair will tint the result with a hint of gold after the fur’s blended. If you want more gold, add more chopped mohair.
We’ll be combing the hair so add plenty – perhaps double what you think is needed. The Velcro will remove a lot of the bulk when the hair is combed.
Add a second wingcase to the fly, same method as before.
Dub more fur in the front of the second wingcase and cut a third segment from the Boa. I’ll wax the tips of the third piece to get them to glom together nicely, this will be tied in as the hood over the bead and third wingcase – so reverse your grip and hold the piece by the braid. Lay it in at the front of the dubbing and tie it in – braid over the eye.
Dub some more fur over the thread “neck” area and whip finish. Velcro the abdomen to pull the fibers out from under the wingcases and distribute them on the sides as legs.
The completed fly. If you can describe it one color, you’re a better man than me. Moonlight Mohair is a pleasure to work with regardless of the tinsel and bright colors – all the flies emerge as a mixture of color that defies description and is buggy as hell.
ICE sparkle eyelash yarn
Hey Roughfisher,
What would you these for …
It’s another Turkish ICE yarn, has a fairly thick braid and is infused with a a half dozen colors of fine mylar throughout. It screams “big snakelike tasty animal here” – and probably has severe underwater motion.
The below shows the filament length – I’d call it 1″ from the braid to the tip…
The second photo shows the skein itself – both photo’s don’t do justice to the colors. This looks like some killer steelhead sparkle or large minnow imitation …
What think you?
It’s another eBay find – ICE is only available from Turkey via their eBay outlet.
The chenille used for the cased caddis
Doug,
The chenille is length-wise variegated brown – it changes color every 3 inches or so. I found it available on eBAY from a vendor, available in only green and brown multicolor.
The vendor was “Susan’s Yarn Barn” and the chenille is pictured below. The green is available for $2.00 per skein, ditto for the brown. Both are 1900 Yards Per Pound (YPP) which equates to “small” in the fly shop sizes.
This is cheap as dirt and the colors are really useful.
Step 1 – Wax some chenille
I used a mottled brown millinery chenille because it’s flat – but any type of wool yarn or chenille can be used. Pick the material based on its color – which you’ll augment with all the fibrous materials you’ll add on top. Run the yarn or chenille through a cake of wax.
Take small amounts of the dubbing you’ll use and daub in onto the waxed chenille. Pick two or three materials like feather fibers, chopped deer hair, or scrap from your tying area and press it onto the chenille. Lay a simple “mist” of materials – don’t expect a small amount of wax to stick an entire cow to the yarn…
Step 2 – Spin the chenille and forming the body
Grip the chenille with both hands and spin the material in opposite directions. You’ll see the matted fiber begin to adhere to all sides of the chenille. You can roll the material down your pants leg to tame any unruly fibers – it’ll assist in distributing the dubbing onto the available waxed area.
Once you’ve formed a tight spiral draw your hands closer together, this’ll cause the chenille to roll up into a tight nubbin somewhere between where your fingers grip the chenille. I didn’t have enough hands to show the process and snap a photograph, so you’ll have to bear with me.
Step 3 – Secure the spun chenille body
Keep the spun “nubbin” of chenille gripped firmly so it doesn’t unravel. Determine how much is needed and secure it to the hook shank. Trim the ends of leftover material behind the eye and cover the area with a generous amount of thread. This area is the only real attachment to the hook shank and if you don’t secure it well the chenille portion will spin around the shank later.
Step 4 Dub some worm color
At the end of the secured body, dub a small ball of contrasting color to represent it peeking from the case. Pick colors that’ll stand out – they’ll be partially obscured by the other materials that we’ll add, with only a hint of the color actually visible.
Step 5 – Add Mallard or Partridge fibers
As most of the materials are quite soft and will likely mat down when wet, I’ll throw in a handful of bronze mallard or Partridge hackles to give some contrasting motion and color. If you’re tying a variant of the fly using your own colors, insert something similar with the appropriate coloration.
Step 6 – Add a tuft of Ringneck Marabou to the top
To offer additional motion I clipped a small tuft of Ringneck Pheasant marabou from the base of a feather. The scud hook and bead combination will “keel” – flop over and ride upside down. The top of the fly will become the bottom when fished, and I want to add some form of leg motion in that area.
