Braided Wire Bodies

[Red.Fly]

Any of you guys ever braid wire for nymph bodies? I know that braiding floss is the norm, but I thought I'd try wire and see how it looked and I have to say they turned out pretty damn sexy! It seams like all of the natural nymphs that I've pulled up are darker on top than bottom. I guess there are probably easier ways to accomplish this, but it is mid February and it's not like I don't have plenty of time to tie right now.

I'm not much of a photog, but here's a couple of examples. Don't know if the fish like 'em yet.... Maybe tomorrow I'll find out.

Have others tried this?

[chanceb]

Since I'm nothing new to stupid questions; how do you braid wire like shown in your pic?

[cje04]

Never tried it or heard of it. Looks pretty sweet though. How hard was it to braid the wire?

[Red.Fly]

I'm pretty sure I can't explain how to braid the wire. It's one of those things that I had shown to me in person and it still took a while to figure it out. You have to tie in both wires, tie off your thread and remove it to get it out of the way, then turn your vise towards you to braid. Once you figure it out, you can take a spool of wire in each hand and one hand goes back and forth across the top and the other goes back and forth across the bottom. Neither has to be let go and you end up with a pretty cool effect.

It's quick and relatively easy. Each fly takes me about 5 minutes. It's not production speed, but I'm not a production tier....

I guess it's called a shuttle weave and not a braid. Here's a link. http://www.flyguysoutfitting.com/shuttleweave.html

[wildnative]

I've taking some heat for being the guy that has done everything first so I'm a little leery of responding. Yes, I've seen braided wire flies before, but with the advent of the new colored wire, the neat possiblities such as you have created are expanded. Thanks for sharing.

[Red.Fly]

Thanks WN. I know what you mean about the color possibilities. I went out yesterday and bought some more colors of Ultra Wire. I've been using the Brassie and Small sizes and tying on mostly size 16 hooks. As you can see from the picture, some flies didn't have the correct taper and that took some time to play around with. I like the fact that the bodies are not round, but wide and flat like a real nymph.

[wildnative]

Nice flies. You could taper them a little with a pair of smooth pliers. Maybe just enough pressure in the right spot but not too much.

Those look like they would sink down to the fish pretty good.

Let's see what's a good name for them "Braided Johns?"

[Grizz]

Let's see what's a good name for them "Braided Johns?"

I was thikin' "Nappy Ass Weave". ;-)

nice looking bugs redfly.

peace

[Biggie]

Great Minds must think alike. I was sitting at the vise tying up a commercial order of Soft Hackle Copper John's and I took an interlude from the monotony. I had done well fishing a Pat's Rubberleg on the Gallatin the week before. My fishing partner for the day was the Idylwilde flies rep and we said we needed to tie the old George's Brownstone with the Super Floss legs the Pat's has on it. This lead me to the inspiration of weaving and since I had two spools of wire on the bench I decided to try the weave with wire as well. It does come out looking rather nice but it is hard to get the wire to bend enough so that you don't leave gaps in between wraps. The technique needs some more work for me but now I have something to obsess over for a while.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd158/biggiesbugs/DSCF0623.jpg

[Red.Fly]

It does come out looking rather nice but it is hard to get the wire to bend enough so that you don't leave gaps in between wraps. The technique needs some more work for me but now I have something to obsess over for a while.


Nice fly Biggie! The blue is hot.

I know what you mean. I've definitely gotten better. I've been wrapping an underbody of wire from the front to back on mine, then using that as the underbody color as I weave it and the top wire back forward. Adds some bulk to the fly and lets the underbody color peek through the braid on the back.

I've also learned that all wire is not created equal. I have some silver and gold wire (size small) that is not Ultra Wire and it tends to break at the bends when weaving. I'm not sure the brand, but it's on wooden spools. Cheap stuff.

[the icon]

Wire, even though it doesn't cover the underbody as well as floss, is easier to weave because it stays put when bent. The easiest material I've found to teach the weaving technique is vernille or velour types of chenille. Make sure to always build an underbody first or the weaving doesn't look good. It's not necessary to turn the hook upside down unless you want a wider back and narrower belly like on the polish and chech nymphs.
Mike

[cheech]

good work. Nice ties...