Tying the Twisted Damsel

Due to the Covid pandemic, which has stirred the world a billion little ways, there was a delay in the printing process. But a print copy of the Summer 2020 issue of Fly Tyer magazine finally showed up in the mailbox. Normally getting Fly tyer in the mailbox is a little tickle of a thrill, seeing what the editor has been able to assemble and what new tricks can be gleaned is always fun, but this one was different, it featured my first published article in this Fly Tyer. Having seen it in the online version was pretty cool but doesn't compare to holding the cool, slick cover in your hands and seeing your work prominently displayed for the world to see. It's a GAS MAN!

It only took me a 5 years to get the editor, David Klausmeyer to let me submit it. I suspect he wondered what my deal was with tying tiny flies using marabou and finally thought, if I don't let this guy submit this thing I'll never hear the end of it. Or, who knows he may have forgotten the other half-dozen queries he'd dumped from his inbox over the past few years. At any rate, I'm happy with the end results and did I mention IT'S A GAS seeing your work in print? 

Okay, moving on.

Since the article cycled through Fly Tyer's Facebook page I've had a couple requests to do full tutorials on a couple of the featured patterns, the Shape Shifter is next up. This request came from Clay Williams. It's taken me a bit to get to it but I am glad to do it because it gives me a chance to further explain some things there just wasn't editorial editorial space to cover, so here it is, Tying the Twisted Damsel.

This is the first marabou fly I devised and tied using the twisted rope technique that really tripped my trigger, mostly because within days of tying the first ones I was catching lots of stillwater trout with it. The beauty and the point of it is that this things is quick and simple to tie once you have the sequence, additionally it doesn't have to be perfect to be effective. The main thing I try to achieve with the fly is a long, flowing tail and wide, dense looking body. Depending on the color of the local damsels I change out the eyes to compliment the color of the fly and still have some contrast.

The fly swims hook point up making it pretty weedless and the hook up rate on takes is fantastic. The hook usually ends up solidly in the front part of the mouth. It was designed for trout but has proved, somewhat to my surprise, to be a great fly for all manner of warmwater fish, sunfish, crappie, largemouth and even carp, go figure.

Enjoy the tutorial and if anyone has any questions please leave a comment here so everyone can share the answers. I will be doing more of the other flies as time permits between magazine work, tying and a tying book that seems to be taking forever.

For those who would rather buy that tie your flies I can generally whip these up pretty quick, I keep everything need on hand. Please remember though I don't have stores of flies lying around, they get too lonely not being fished.

Recipe

Hook: Standard dry fly hook, size 10.

Thread: 8/0 in a color that matches the marabou used for the tail and body.

Eyes: Small, 2.5mm, bead chain eyes.

Tail flash: 2 strands Krystal Flash. Use a color that compliments the marabou color.

Tail: A group of 12-25 marabou barbs.

Body: A group of 12-15 marabou barbs.

In the tying example I'm using a Mustad R50 barbless hook, black eyes, Uni olive thread and medium olive marabou. Vary your colors to match the the damsels in your local lakes.

The most important aspect to tying small flies using marabou is the selection of the right barbs from the right feathers. I won't go into all I've learned about marabou feathers over the last decade of geeking out with them, but here is an example of the prime feather for the Twisted Damsel and similar patterns. The Dr Slick 3 1/2" Razor Scissors are for scale

I've cut the feather to show the portion of this feather that's suitable for tying the Twisted Damsel. The butt of a big marabou plume has the overall length to the barbs and the barbule length that's needed to produce the profile we're looking for.

We'll use two groups of 12-15 barbs to tie this pattern. A simpler version, the Simple Damsel, just uses one group of barbs and offers a shorter profile, I use it when smaller damselfly nymphs are present, both have permanent places in my stillwater boxes, cold and warmwater.

Note the longer barbs on the left. Depending on where the feather was located on the turkey it came from determines which side will be longer than the other and the further it's located from center determines the length disparity between the barbs on either side of the quill (center stem).

Start the thread at the eye of the hook leaving a 3-4" thread tag which will be used later. Bring the thread about halfway back on the shank then bring it forward and build a substantial thread ball that will serve as the base for the bead chain eyes. position the tying thread in the center of the bump.

Tie the eyes onto the top of the thread bump using crossing thread wraps.

Here's a top view of the eye position, Note how there is a slight gap between the front edge of the bead chain eyes and the back edge of the hook eye.

Catch in the Krystal Flash just behind the bead chain eyes and secure it to the top of the hook shank back to the hook bend. Keep the thread tag on the tyers side of the hook as you wrap the Krystal Flash down. The process is a bit tricky the first couple times you do it but it gets easier with practice.

Cut the Krystal Flash to a length equal to the hook shank plus the hook eye.

The shorter barbs will be used for the tail, these are about 2"long. These generally have slightly fluffier tips than the longer barbs on a mature marabou feather. This adds more bulk at the tip of the tail.

Measure the barbs from the back end of the flash to the front of the hook eye. Tie the barbs in at the hook bend using a couple tight thread wraps.

Palmer the bundle of barbs up the hook, making the last wrap under the bead chain eyes and immediately up and back over the hook shank. This will cover the space under the eyes where they were tied onto the thread bump.

Loop the thread forward in a single turn and catch the marabou butts with a few tight thread wraps.

Trim the marabou butts and bring the tying thread to about 3 thread widths in front of the tail tie-in point.

We'll use the longer, slightly slimmer marabou barbs from the other side of the feather quill for the body of the fly.

Strip the barbs from the quill and measure the tips to the length of the hook shank only. Tie them onto the top of the hook shank with one or two solid thread wrap exactly where the thread was hanging previously.

Without pulling on the marabou barbs (they'll slip from under the thread wraps quite easily), fold them back over their tie-in point and make one wrap back to just behind the tail tie-in point, then make 3-4 thread wraps forward over the fold.

A close up view after the marabou has been folded backward and the fold covered with thread wraps. This locks the marabou securely in place for easier handling.

Pull the second bundle of marabou upward, then bring the tread tag up, alongside the marabou and twist it into a snug, tapered rope.

****NOTE***

Twist the marabou bundle by the very end of the butts. As you twist the bundle you'll see the barbules flair outward from the center of the rope. This is what forms the taper in the body of the fly.

Begin wrapping the marabou rope forward just like you would a dubbed body. 

Beyond the first couple wraps stroke the barbules back, out of the path of the nest wrap in order to get the fullest body possible. Wrap up to just behind the bead chain eyes.

At this point you should have enough to make one half wrap of marabou then bring it forward between the eyes and still have enough length to tie it off and trim.

****NOTE****

If you find the length it is a bit short, unwrap the marabou rope and wrap it back onto the hook leaving a slight gap between the wraps. The gaps will be filled visually by the fluffy barbules.

Dampen your fingertips with a damp paper towel and stroke the barbules back and out of the way for the final half wrap of the marabou.

Untwist the marabou rope as you bring it up and forward between the eyes. This frees the barbules which will act as the legs of the fly when fished.

Catch the marabou butts with a pair of tight thread wraps.

Lift the marabou butts and make 3-4 thread wraps between the marabou and the hook eye. This makes trimming the butts cleanly much easier.

The thread you see going upward here is the thread tag that was twisted into the marabou before wrapping it up the hook shank.

Once the marabou butts are trimmed I rotate the fly upside-down. This makes whip-finishing easier and it reduces the chance of your tying thread from slipping off the eye of the hook and the fly unwinding.

View from the gap side of the hook. This will be the top side when the fly is being fished.

The view from what will be the bottom side, fish's view, when the fly is being fished. The tail and legs pulsate as the fly swims through the water.

As a final touch on dark colored eyes, I hit the hole in the steel eyes with a diamond nail file. I'm not sure this makes a difference to the fish but it makes me feel better forming a pupil contrast.

And there you have it. let me know if any clarifications are needed. And by the way I do have these bead chain eyes in several colors for a very reasonable price.

Birthday Surprise

You know your life is pretty peachy when an unexpected package shows up on your doorstep, a long, 4" square package. And, even though it's a plain, unmarked package from an unknown address, as an angler you know what's in it. That old familiar shape that says, "you've got a rod!"

My buddy Nick had been talking about the new Moonlit rods he's been testing out and catching a lot of redfish, speckled trout and bass with. He's also been testing, and catching the majority of those fish, with the steady stream of flies I've sent him, no strings other than some honest feedback.

When he mentioned I might like the 8'2", 6 weight model, there's been talk of a quick-shot streamer rod, I shrugged it off thinking "that would be nice, but a new rod isn't in my immediate future".

Then a few days later the box showed up. When I texted Nick his reply was "Happy Birthday".

Hot damn!

I got out and lawn cast the, sleek, burnt orange rod. I normally won't take the wrapper off the grip of a rod until I've had it for a while and feel like it's something I'll want to use. The wrapper came off the grip after 4 casts, the last of which I stepped off at 72'.

But then there's always the question of how it will handle casting with a heavy fly in addition to the line weight. This morning I got a chance to test that.

Living in the City of Billings has its perks, one of which is a surprising amount of bass and carp fishing for being within viewing distance of the Rocky Mountains, something that's a welcome perk when all the rivers in the vicinity are in the "chocolate milk" stage of run off. I chose one of the bigger ponds in the area because of the carp possibilities knowing a chunky carp would tell me what I wanted to know about how the Moonlit rod would handle a formidable fish.

I will admit that it didn't start out well. Graphite has been my fly rod material of choice for over a decade. My go-to 6 weight has been a self-built, 9' St Croix Legend Elite since 2010. It's a thunderstick with the power of a cannon, and the speed of a sling shot. Adjustment had to be made, but once they were I was firing 60-70 foot casts with relative ease, just at a slower pace.

The trick with a new rod, especially one with a completely dissimilar action to the rods you're used to, is to let the rod speak to you. Forget about the last rod you spoke to and just listen with your hand. The Moonlit spoke.

The outing was looking like a walk around the pond with a fly rod. The carp were in that ever too frequent F U mood, that mood when they seem to say "I've saw better than that from the 10 year old with worms man, come on!" they give you the fin and skedaddle for deeper water. 10 shots, 10 misses. That's fishing.

Giving up on the golden frustraters of freshwater fishing, I switched to my new old standby a Scimitar Minnow, it catches everything, except the F U carp. A couple small bass grabbed the 3/0 fly but couldn't quite get it in their maw around it. There had been quite a bit of commotion in an area of adjacent to some cattails all morning. I'd blown that shot the first time I approached by sliding on a substantial pile of goose poop, they're beautiful birds but man what a mess they leave! Anyway..........

With a "what the heck" attitude I laid the scimitar out beautifully, just to see if anybody was still home or they had drifted out deeper with the thinning of the clouds. Somebody was home, Mr Smallmouth. Unaware of the presence of smallmouth bass in this pond, I was surprised by the fight this fish put up, until I got a really good look at it and realized it was old Mr Bronzeback!

The Moonlit rod did a great job of handling what turned out to be a substantial smallmouth, especially for a shallow pond. Quite the extension to a great birthday. A new rod, another personal species caught on the Scimitar and my very first bass in Montana happened to be good sized and a smallmouth.

Despite what's going on across the country, life is pretty peachy, if you can just shut out the noise and get on with a little relief for a while.

Peace, Love & Fly Fishing,

J Wood

Special Requests

“All good things- trout as well as eternal salvation- come by grace, grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”            Norman MacLean

Things being what they are, I think we could all use a little art, grace and probably a hefty dose of salvation at the moment. With current events as they are, it’s hard to focus on the words I wanted to accompany this post; words about artistry, learning, growing, creativity and free-thinking. Words about taking the opportunity to escape from the norm, an escape from the invisible boundaries of fly tying, as well as life. In a certain sense it seems frivolous to be making a post like this, at this particular moment in time, on the other hand it seems a shame not to.

It pains me to think about some of the things happening in America over the last few days, weeks and months. I wonder how it looks from the other side of the Atlantic, the Pacific and all points between. I wonder what the view is from over there, where ever there is, outside America. I wonder if we’re starting to look like one of those countries we would rush into so we could rescue the citizens by removing a dictator from office, ending the violence and bringing in aide for the health of the country? But that is NOT what this post is about, it’s about shutting out the noise and getting on with what makes us who we are as individuals and feeding our souls instead of our anger.

I have welcomed the distraction, something to challenge an artistic focus that has been blurred lately. In the words of Agent K, “There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Korilian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable planet. The only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they "do not know about it!" I hope this post provides at least a hint of escape an opportunity to silence the noise, find an artistic refuge, if only for a few minutes.

When Mike Noffsinger contacted me with a photo and the message, “A friend asked if this is a possibility.” I jumped on it. Resisting a challenge is next to impossible for me, especially if it offers the chance to explore blending a few tying techniques in a new way. I asked permission to share the original photo but haven’t heard from the poster.

I didn’t intend to do this tutorial post until a Facebook post got such a great response. So, here it is, recipe, and photos accompanied by a few words.

Recipe

Hook:                    Tiemco 8089, size 2 (3/0 equivalent)

Thread:                Red, 6/0 Uni-thread

Tail:                        Red bucktail

Binding:                Red CCT fiber

Body:                    Red Icelandic sheep

Wings:                  Red CCT Fibers

Head:                    Red Icelandic sheep

Mask:                    Black rabbit dubbing

Beak:                     Tying thread and UV resin

Eyes:                     Gold 3.5mm epoxy eyes

Tying Instructions

 

1- Start the thread near the eye and lay a single layer base back into the bend. Stop at the point even with the barb point and make 3-4 over-lapping wraps.

2- Cut the longest hair available from a red, dyed northern bucktail. Even the tips as much as possible. Remove the hairs of less than 2.5” from the bundle and re-even the tips. Other than grooming this is one of the most trying steps on this fly. Evening long bucktail can test the patience.

3- Once the tips are even, tie in the bucktail at the thread stopping point. Use as much of the hair length as possible. The length of this fly is approximately 3.75” from the tip of the hook eye to the tip of the tail. Lock the bucktail down securely. Bind and trim the hair butts to get as smooth a base as possible. Though the shank won’t show on the finished fly, any stray hair butts make the continuous grooming of the sheep hair more difficult than it needs to be.

4- Cut one bundle from a hank of CCT fibers. Tie it in about where the bucktail butts were trimmed, then bind it on top of the hook back to the tail tie-in point. Move the tying thread forward of the hook point to make room for binding the tail in place.

 

5- Wrap the CCT fibers, loosely onto the tail so the bucktail is bound in a neat bundle on the bend of the hook. Using the CCT fibers keeps the bucktail from flairing. Wrasp the CCT fiber bundle froward to where the tying thread is hanging and secure it there.

6- Trim the CCT fiber butts and bind them down completely. Then using a thick UV resin formula create a "collar" around the rear of the CCT fiber wrap, letting the resin run, ever so slightly, onto the bucktail. This will keep the bucktail from going crazy during the rest of the tying steps. You'll thank me later for this little trick.

 

7- Cut a bundle of the Icelandic sheep fur, as close as possible to the hide for maximum length. Then separate out the course, extremely long hair from the shorter, more delicate underfur. We won’t use the long hair but don’t throw it out! This stuff is great for brushes and dubbing loops for collars and spiky bodies on patterns like leeches. You can use it to tie extra long flies but be forewarned, it tangles badly when it's wet. Separate the underfur into sparse bundles.

 

8- Starting at the point where the CCT fibers and bucktail butts are bound, tie in a bundle of underfur by making a single, very loose wrap of thread around the hook and fur. As the thread comes around on the second turn pull it upward, which will spin the hair around the hook shank. You’re looking for something similar to spinning deer hair.

Make about 6 very tight thread wraps locking the underfur in place.

Using a small comb (I use an eyebrow comb) and bodkin, tease out the fur behind the thread wraps. This will remove any loose hair fur and start getting it aligned.

 

9- Work the thread through the underfur on the front side of the thread wraps, then fold the underfur back. Make a series of thread wraps in front of the folded underfur to build a small thread dam. Using your comb tease and groom the second layer of underfur back around the tail. The underfur will be excessively long at this point, we’ll address that later.

 

10- Move the thread forward about 1/4" and repeat steps 8 and 9. Tie-in, groom, fold and groom with successive bundles.

11- Add 2 more underfur bundles. This should bring the body to a point 1/4” behind the hook eye. This is where the serious body grooming takes place. Whip finish and cut the thread so the fly can be removed from the vise.

**The tricky part of building the body is to get it thick and dense enough without going too far overboard. There are techniques that can be used to trim it down but they are very time consuming and can take the whole project right down the tubes with one wrong cut.**

 

12- Using a bodkin, comb and/or stiff nylon brush groom all the underfur straight out from the hook shank. Make sure all loose fur is removed and all the fibers are radiating straight out from the hook shank. This aligns all the underfur so it will lay properly for trimming.

13- Starting at the back of the underfur groom the fibers straight back along the hook shank, while keeping them in alignment with the hook shank. This is a slow and tedious process.

14- Groom and slick the fur until all the fibers are in place forming the body which should be bullet shaped. Once the proper shape is attained trim the fur to length by pinching the ends from the fur. Doing this instead of using scissors makes a more natural looking silhouette giving the soft appearance of feathers.

15- Once the desired body shape is achieved, cut 2 bundles from a the hank of CCT fiber.

16- Using a stiff toothbrush groom the CCT fibers until they are in a thin, wide ribbon of individual fibers.

17- Cut the CCT fibers, roughly in half and tie them in as separate bundles on either side of the top of the hook shank at the 10 and 2 o'clock positions.

18- Groom the wings up and back along either side of the top of the body. The wings are long at this point but will be trimmed later in the tying process.

19- Cut a sparse bundle of underfur in half along its length, then tie it in with the cut end toward the back of the fly, using the process described in step 8 & 9.

20- Groom this bundle of underfur back to cover the wing tie-in point and mimic the feathers on the shoulder of a live cardinal in a sitting position.

21- Tie in another bundle of underfur on top of the hook. groom out the fur behind the tie-in point and groom the fibers in front of the tie-in point straight up but DO NOT blend them with the fur to the rear.

22- Take a few wraps of tying thread just in front of the lifted fur, without building a large thread bump.

23- Tie in another sparse bundle of underfur on the bottom side of the hook. Groom the rear fibers into the breast of breast area.

24- Lift the fur forward of the last tie-in point, up and around the hook eye, blending it into the first bundle forming the crown of the cardinal's head. This is finally starting to look a bit like the finished product.

25- Tease the crown back onto the back of the fly without blending it into the body, then build a slight thread bump to hold the crown back.

26- Using your fingertips groom out a small bundle of black dyed rabbit fur, with guard hairs, so that the individual hairs are aligned perpendicular to one another. This takes a bit of time and can by slowly pulling on the tips, stacking the separated hairs and repeating a few times. It's a tricky technique but comes easily with a bit of practice.

Once you have the hairs aligned, tie them in by the middle, on the backside of the hook, immediately in front of the red fur. Use only 1 or 2 thread wraps to avoid building bulk.

27- Repeat the previous step on the front side of the hook.

28- Stroke the rabbit fur to the rear of the fly so all the hairs are pointed back ward along what will be the cheeks, then build a slight thread dam to hold the hair back.

29- groom the rabbit fur back to form the "mask" that is so prominent on the male cardinal. Then build the beak to a slightly smaller size than you want the finished beak to be. The beak will be finished with UV resin later on.

30- After the thread layer of the beak is complete whip-finish and cut the tying thread. Then separate out all the components that make this fly a bird; wings, body, crown. Groom the wings out from the body and trim them to length at an angle.

***Cut the wings long to avoid cutting them too short on the first clip. You can easily trim them as many times as needed but replacing them requires some serious disassembly at this point.

31- Groom the wings into place and tease the crown upward.

32- With the crown tease and groomed up and back, very carefully build and cure the beak with UV resin, starting at the beak/head junction. This will bind the fur back away from the beak somewhat. Keep rotating the fly and adding small amounts of UV resin, adding and curing the resin until the desired size and shape is achieved.

33- I'm using 3.5mm, gold epoxy eyes on this fly. My preferred method of attachment is with Gorilla Super Glue Gel. It binds securely to the fur with enough bulk to hold them in place under pressure. Tweezers with rounded and grooved ends are a big help in this process.

34- Eye placement is critical to the overall look of the finished fly. For this reason use the least amount of super glue necessary to hold the eyes in place. If you do need to move the eye after it's affixed lift it off from front to back to avoid displacing the black mask.

35- Groom, then trim the crown in stages to avoid getting it too short. View the fly from several angles through the trimming process.

Once the crown is trimmed to length, tease it out to soften the edges, groom it out and voila!

There you have it!

Enjoy.

If you have any special requests or would just like to see some J Wood patterns for fishing, check out my website at jwoodflyfish.com

Peace, Love & Fly Fishing!!