Stan Gula wrote:

(actually I just use half hitches a lot of the time...)

Thank goodness I'm not the only one. :-) I can tie a decent whip
finish on a bare hook (without a tool), but when it actually comes to
doing it with hackle and such in the way, I inevitably screw it up.

I finally just gave up and now what I do is put a couple of drops of
flexament on the thread itself and then drop three or four half-hitches
on. The cement seems to work itself nicely into the head/thread, and I
haven't noticed any thread coming unraveled since I started doing this.

I forget where I picked up the idea (maybe Morris' book on foam
flies?), but it works for me.


Chuck Vance (of course I usually lose my flies to trees well
before they would start to unravel anyway)