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"Willi" wrote in message
...
I tie quite a few quill bodied flies. I think they look good and catch
fish. However, stripping quills and dying them is a PITA. Bruce has
turned me onto thread bodies with some of his midge patterns. I find
they work great on flies up to and including a sixteen. Sewing thread is
used and it's important to unwind the thread to get an even tapered body
and then tightly wind it to get a segmented body. I little different
look than a quill, but it produces a well segmented, good looking body.

Willi




Ditto - I like quill bodied flies, but have not done a lot lately (one
exception: H&L variants - semi stripped peacock quills - they just look and
work great) because I hate stripping them and hate the cost of packaged
stripped quills (and the fragility). I have some beautiful 'hendrickson
pink' sewing thread I have used for nice looking light Hendricksons (an
important Spring fly up here). You would like these dyed peccary quills...
A bit pricy, but not more than stripped feather quills, and a lot more
durable. Tom, can I repost the photos you sent me to ABPF?
--
Stan Gula
http://gula.org/roffswaps

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I tie quite a few quill bodied flies. I think they look good and catch
fish. However, stripping quills and dying them is a PITA. Bruce has
turned me onto thread bodies with some of his midge patterns. I find
they work great on flies up to and including a sixteen. Sewing thread is
used and it's important to unwind the thread to get an even tapered body
and then tightly wind it to get a segmented body. I little different
look than a quill, but it produces a well segmented, good looking body.

I've done some work with a nylon mono underbody (that represents
ribbing) and then a nylon thread (similar to the old NYMO) as the body
material then placed a drop of acetone on it to "melt" the thread which
results in a pretty good quill body substitute.

Larry

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Willi writes:
Bruce has
turned me onto thread bodies with some of his midge patterns. I find
they work great on flies up to and including a sixteen. Sewing thread is
used and it's important to unwind the thread to get an even tapered body
and then tightly wind it

very good option for smaller mayflies....I use a similar technique for small
olives and tricos. As you know, we have quite a few species out here that go
from size 8 down to 14 for which I need larger segmented bodies. I have, at
various times, used stripped quills(PITA, expensive to buy), turkey
biot(alright, but sometimes fragile,sometimes too translucent) and stripped
dyed peacock(very fragile to tie with). One of the major reasons I have done so
much experimenting is the need for a segmented body that retains bright colors
when in actual use(ie wet or greased). These things I am trying seem useful,
will report back on the trout's opinions.
Tom

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repost away, Stan
Tom, can I repost the photos you sent me to ABPF?

Tom

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"Willi" wrote in message
...
I tie quite a few quill bodied fliesetc

I posted a picture of one of my test flies to ABPF and also at
http://gula.org/quill.jpg

Tom's are there too at http://gula.org/newquill.jpg

I messed up the hackle on that one due to running the quill all the way to
the eye. I had a gap where I went past the wing and it twisted the hackle.
For Tom: this is the dark stemmed natural dun hackles I got. Natural
mallard flank wing. The same thing with traditional dubbed body is what
worked for me at Uncle Tom's last May.

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In article ,
says...

I tie quite a few quill bodied flies. I think they look good and catch
fish. However, stripping quills and dying them is a PITA.

Moose mane works pretty good for quill bodies too. I don't know
if anybody sells it in different colors, so you still have the
dying PITA.

Bruce has
turned me onto thread bodies with some of his midge patterns.

I use thread bodies on all my small mayflies. I think the
body is probably the least important part of a dry fly.

Kevin

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Kevin Vang writes:
I think the
body is probably the least important part of a dry fly.

if said dry fly body ever touches the water, I could not disagree more. The
shape, texture and to a lesser degree the color of the body are critical, to my
mind. Fish have, over the years, shown me that they laugh at dry fly bodies
which are too fat, don't show segmentation, and in some cases they ignore color
variance from the naturals.
Tom
p.s above comments refer to what may be
called selective fish in clear, relatively
smooth water. Body shape and size
seem to be most important in faster,
choppy water, but sometimes merely
placing nearly anything in the right spot
will work.