"Soft-hackle" wrote in message
...

Hi,
You have touched upon a subject I'm very happy to discuss. The
Leisenring method of dubbing is very similar to the dubbing loop,
however, it is a method of creating dubbing brushes off the fly itself.
As mentioned above by James, Leisenring made the bodies ahead of time,
stored them on slitted cards and would then sit and tie the flies.
What is particularly nice about this is it makes your tying session go
a little faster and makes for a very durable, thread under-colored body
that can be very buggy or softly dubbed.

Snip

30 or 40 years ago I bought a tool from Orvis (called the Dubber) for pre-
tying Leisenring type dubbing loops. I still use it whenever I plan to tie
more than just a few dubbed bodies of the same pattern. If I'm just tying a
few flies of the same pattern I find it easier to just dub directly at the
vice rather than dig out the tool.

The tool is simply a plastic box about 2 1/2" X 6" X 1/2" deep with a
couple of thread clips on one side near the top and bottom of the long axis,
two short pegs on the centerline of the long axis located directly opposite
the clips, and a crank with a hook on the end with the hook about 1/4"
from the upper peg towards the end of the tool. The back of the box opens up
and holds several pieces of thin cardboard - slotted on both ends- for
storeing made up dubbing yarns.

With this tool I can turn out a dozen 5" long dubbing strings (each good for
1-4 flies each - depending on fly size) in less than 5 min. I don't think
this tool is still commercially available, but it would be rather simple to
make your own in less than a half hour with readily available materials. If
anyone is interested I could email them photo's of the tool that show its
elements & how its used.

Bob Weinberger La Grande, OR