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.

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.

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.

Denier Discussion Paper

Click on paper's title below to read at its link.  Document is a PDF.

USING DENIER TO STANDARDIZE FLY TYING THREAD

By. Christopher Helm

I find articles like this one to be useful when choosing fly tying thread from various manufacturers.

The Original Disco Yarn

This is a pretty cool yarn, especially if you consider that it has woven-in flash that matches the yarn filament color. I began tying with this yarn nearly 9 years ago. My wife brought home a skein for me to figure out what to do with it and I'm glad she did. I practiced winding it around long hook shanks and, soon, ideas began to form.

The yarn's been discontinued for quite some time. Occasionally, it can be found on eBay. The bait pictured above is tied with two strands of Bernat Disco. The brown strand is called Mr. Brown, I believe. The green one is called Jungle Jive. I gripped the two together and furled them to create the tail. The remainder was palmered over the shank and combed back. Two pieces of boot lace comprise the legs.

Sparkletail

This is my latest tie. It uses Martha Stewart's eyelash yarn over gray chenille yarn and a 3/0 weedless hook. Its googly eyes are mounted on a 1/24-oz. dumbbell behind the hook eye.

Suede-Legged Leechy Kreature

A black and brown creature bait with light-colored rusty brown legs.  Its body length is about 4 to 4.5 inches long.

Materials:

• Eagle Claw Weedless Sproat Hook 249WA-3/0.
• Spirit River Real-Eyes 3/16" - nickel/pearl.
• UTC Ultra Thread 140 denier - rusty brown.
• Premier LashMax Yarn - Black Star and Caffeine.
• The Beadery Suede Lace 1/8" - brown.