Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Alpaca

Purchased a big bag of this material from an alpaca rancher recently.  It contains all-natural hair fibers (no dyes) in black, brown, beige, white, and gray colors.  Below are four of my jigs tied with the brown alpaca fibers.

This material seems much like wool roving.  The major difference is that alpaca fiber is hollow and water resistant, meaning it would tend to float initially.  Lambswool or wool roving absorbs water rapidly, making jigs fairly heavy.  All of the fibers mentioned move well under water.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Suede-Legged Green Crawler

Fish this one with fly or spinning tackle? Yes, definitely.

Materials:
  •  Mustad #2 Bronze Streamer Hook
  •  Coats Trilobal Polyester Embroidery Thread (40-wt.) - olive
  •  NY Yarns Fluff Print - avocado
  •  Orvis Marabou Plumes - olive
  •  The Beadery Suede Lace - brown
  •  Googly eyes (4mm)
  •  Dumbbell eyes (1/20 of an ounce)
NY Yarns Fluff Print is an eyelash yarn that is extremely fine, yet durable. It is made of 100% Nylon. I've stockpiled this yarn since I like it for both movement and color. Though, it's not easy to wrap without covering its own filaments (lashes).

The suede lace is cut in two to provide two pairs of thinned legs. Googly eyes are attached with super glue gel.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

More Yarn Ties

I really enjoy tying these on weedless sproat hooks.  Used Premier LashMax eyelash yarn to tie both of them.  Black felt cord comprises the legs of the Black-N-Purple Crawler pictured below.  Its hook is a 3/0.  The Electric Chicken Rat beneath it has a 1/0 hook.

Black-N-Purple Crawler

Electric Chicken Rat

These may be field tested on fly rods, in addition to light spinning, as I now possess 8-wt. and heavier rods in my collection.