Let's tie up some Devil Bugs and post the images here. No contest, no winners or losers, just see how we can do in recreating this old piece of history.

Well I would but I have never spun deer hair in my life. If I tried I am sure it would not be very good at all...lol. You guys give it a go that have a little spinning hair experience.

Kelly, I just put my mini devil under the magnifier and there ain't no spinning. I don't know if there is anything under the hair, but it's just lashed lengthwise on the hook.

No spinning? I will have to look at those photos again. Thanks for the heads up on that.

On the photo TxRedRaider had...it showed clipped deer hair on the heads of the flies. I have not even made a Muddler yet...lol. If I see enough photos up close on how to do it, I may give it a whirl.

http://www.flytyingforum.com/uploads/img4995efb0063ab.jpg like this one?

No, like these: http://www.fishingcollectables.com/images/fl94.jpg

You can see what is probably the ancestor of the Gartside Gurlger in that one.

I could swear some of these guys are adding varnish to the tops of their flies. Maybe Sally's Hard As Nails. That one is different alright. I like it!

I will tie one up tonight and post up

not 'zactly, I tied something like that once, it spun around & twisted my line up good & the fish didnt like it either.

I have a newfound HATE for this pattern! it is really challenging to make it look like it does in the pictures. I guess the deer hair I have isn't long enough or I just suck. I cant get close on this pattern!

I'll guess that getting the longest deer hair you can find will go a long ways towards making it all better.

Here is my lame 2nd attempt. It needs another haircut.
Tough to get much flaring up front with 6/0 thread.
That is on a #10 hook - 1/0 would need real long hair.


Cool! The pic was posted from flickr's BBCode generater. Didn't have to switch to the full reply screen.

Fine start! Try some Danville's flat nylon. You can really honk down on that stuff!

I quit! I can't seem to tie a fly today. Can't tell you how much deer and elk hair is in the trash can. Everything is just exploding on me. I did tie one little one on a size 16 hook using the kids craft feathers instead of hair. Once again, if my phone decides to work right I'll post the pic.

You know, I thought they looked cunningly simple. Maybe the name really comes from the folks who had to tie those 50,000 that they sold back in the day. Or agreements made in order to be able to tie them....

I am gonna try when I get home. Might get a bit Blair Witch, we shall see.

I'm gonna have to give up for today too. Using Ultra 140 thread got more flaring. Then I covered it with the brown Uni. Number four looked half decent. Tied it on a #8 nymph hook. It passed the float test in a small bowl of water. Then it jumped into the in-sink-erator. Doh!

If you think you have enough hair, add more. The ID of my stacker is 7/16". Loosly packed, it was close to giving the #8 the correct plumpiness.

I could be wrong but try using that deer hair that you could not use for spinning at all because it would not flair.

Have fun with this stuff.

Big Dale

Do we need to moderate our humble moderator for inciting such discontent?

No, let's take deep breaths and move on through the barriers and come out the other side better edjumacated - we will all know why its called the Devils Bug at the end.

bwah hahahahahahahah

Getting closer. Number five on a #8 3906. Still need to figure out the wings. Perhaps they should be added after the tail is lashed down. I need to remember not to make the tail too long. Also need to watch a few deer hair trimming vids.

Another good trick is to trim the butts of the hair before tying it up front. Makes it easier to tie both the front and rear.

I have one that has a good head (broke out the razor blade) and i'm going to test it out on grapevine sandbass im my 'yak.

So, did anyone ever find the pattern for this fly?

I found it in two books and both them are the same. The body is chenille and the deer hair is tied in at the back so it forms the tail, then laid down on top of the hook and tied off at the front of the fly so that it flairs out. Trim the hair in front and you're done.

Both of the books show a fly that is much simpler looking than the link. Neither of them show the "wing" looking sides.

The books are "Tying Warmwater Flies" by C. Boyd Pfeiffer and "Flies for Bass & Panfish" by Stewart and Allen.

Have fun,
Rex

I found the same as you Rex, I believe the one everyone is lusting over is the commercial version made in the 1930's & 40's


this one has round eyes (possibly from pin heads?)
while this one (possibly manfct'd by Eppinger Co.) has eyes painted on.

it looks fairly straight forward...secure stcked deerhair to hook shank letting it flare at head & trimmed...its tough to handle that much deer hair at once...I tied one & the results pretty much sucked...I might try again (I have this goal of making replicas of all famous/important/noteworthy bass bugs ie; Henshall Bug, Messenger Frog, Tapps Bug, etc etc, this one fits in with that goal.

Now those flies look a lot cooler that what I found. They're more complicated too.

Thanks,
Rex

On the old commercially produced one I have, the wings are just some of the hair snipped by the back band. Might be a better way, but this one was

Here is another story about the Devil Bug.

I just noticed the name Tuttle, and sent the box picture and prior article to a co-worker with that name.

It says in that article they can be fished 1 2 or 3 to a leader. that's like casting a tennis ball! 3 2 inch deer hair bugs soaked with water are heavy!

Perhaps that was from the day when thin broom sticks were used as rods.

Austin, that was about the trout Devil Bug. Those were "almost an inch long."

Thanks for finding that article. From what I can figure, the one I have is probably a "Midget Devil Bug (a dry fly)." The guy that gave me the fly is in his late 70s. He and his father were avid fishermen from New York City. They took their summer vacation in the Adirondacks every year, so he or his father probably picked it up on one of their trips. If anyone comes across a pic of the Midget Devil Bug, please post a link so I can see if that's what this is. And to think I was tossing this little thing to bream this spring. I took it out of my wallet and put it with a couple antique fly reels I have on display in the game room.

Found it. Yep, the one I have is a Midget. http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/5131013 Says in the write up the eyes are painted, but they look like little wooden disks to me. I guess the paint is old, and probably lead based.

That's better. I can only imagine casting 3 bass devil bugs!

Y'all are doing so good on digging up stuff on that old Devil Bug fly. I am enjoying this thread.

OK, it's not anywhere near perfect, but as fellow instigator of this whole thing I felt honor bound to give it a go. Yes, Sundance, I think I used enough dynamite hook. That's a 1/0 3366 and it's too big, but I wanted plenty of room to work. I used a piece of foam about 3x the width of the hook to help give the body some bulk and add a bit of flotation. I also added a small bunch of the same deer hair at the front to help the density of the head.

I think it needs about twice as big a bundle of deer hair to start with, which, in this case, would be about two pencils wide. The head also needs to be shaped better, but I wanted to post it before I ruined it.

That is getting right up on it alright! To paraphrase Tommy Lee Jones,"if that ain't a Devil Bug it'll do until one gets here"

As soon as I finish these money making flies I've got the deer hair out to give it a whirl.

OK, here is go'round number 2. I used the same size 1/0 3366 hook and the foam, but this time I started with a bigger bundle of deerhair. I still didn't like the body shape, so I decided to go back and add more deerhair over the original bundle. I figured that would mean disaster, but it actually worked pretty well. I made one or two loose wraps over the second bundle and then manipulated the second bundle so that it was more uniformly wrapped around the first. All that goofiness resulted in a much better body for this version.

When I made the wraps to form the body/head junction, the body wasn't quite as puffed out as I wanted, so I simply pushed the wraps back on the hookshank in much the same way that you'd pack deerhair when spinning it. Pushing it back like that made a much more round body. I think a fish would find it pretty chewy.

I still didn't have enough flared hair at the front to make a good head, so I spun another bundle on again. Unfortunately, I got a bit wild with the superglue and that, along with my poor patience, is what caused the ugly head on this one. I don't think the fish will care though.

Yes yes lookin' fine!

Aw, shucks, Mike.

I agree with what Bass Bug was saying in this thread or the other one, it might be interesting to do one of these classic bass patterns a week for a while.

Devil Bug
Tap's Bug
Messinger's Frog
etc...

Should Kelkay be listed as an unindicted co-instigator for posting that bass bug article?

Foam? FOAM? Did he type "foam?" I thought this was 'sposed to be an exercise in "old-school." Did Orley Tuttle have any foam for extra floatation back in the day?

HA HA...I just posted the article for pure enjoyment. I had nothing to do with getting people to make Devil Bugs. They look tricky to me...lol...I do streamers alright...but poppers with buck tail are not my specialty. I do enjoy foam, and balsa wood so far...still thinking this Devil Bug thing over.

Well, he probably used Ford Model T seat foam. Just think of it like I'm Hollywood and I did a reboot of the original. I just didn't cast Shia Lebouff and have Michael Bey direct it. Otherwise there would have been more 'splosions.

They are real easy to make . From the article:

"He made it by laying a thick bunch of deerhair on top of the hook shank, lashing it down fore and aft, clipping the front into a stubby head, and leaving the rear tips of the hair to flare around the bend of the hook.

Looks better than anything I've done, Dusty. I think to get the flare needed we're going to have to try binding with wire like they did so we can really put some torque on it..

Digging around I found that our friend Orley used twine to build up the body. No wonder one article said it was designed to sink or float depending on how it was fished.

In the spirit of inovation, and because I had already wasted a ton of hair, I tried to tie one using some Christmas tinsil as the hair and My Little Pony tail as dubbing under the hair. I was hoping the synthetic dubbing would float it, but it sank like a rock in the cereal bowl test.

Need to work on the head, but here it is.

TXRR may have hit the nail on the head with the Ford reference. The flys we have pictures of were made, or at least designed, in the early days of the assembly line. IneptAngler said that his "factory made" devil looked like a mini bailer might have been used.

Were these factory made flys hand tied or machine made? Insert a hook and some deer hair, STONK. The head is attached. Turn it around, STONK. There is the tail. Off to the trimming line. Was there a machine for that?

Just wondering if our attempts are closer to the "lashing it down fore and aft" orinigals than to the factory made units. Perhaps the fish know the answer.

I'll think about pausing until I can get a finny opinion on this one. #8 3366. Dagnabit! Too much tail again.

is there really such a thing as "too much tail" ?

Something tells me that, if we get a fish interested in one of these, the short strikes that result from too much tail are not going to be an issue?



Also, Devil Woman is SWTRHWMBO's other, older nickname.

Those Californian's have already gotten to you, haven't they?

At least I haven't broken out the Rainbow Brite yet.
Using the tail from a dog chewed toy headed for the trash was just an extention of my natural New England frugality.

OK, couldn't give up on the hair just yet. Used a chunk of foam for body above the hook instead of twine, but tried to stay with more traditional materials. Hook is a 200R size 6 3x nymph/dry hook. Poorly shaped wings come from touching the razor just above the tail lashing and bending the newly freed hair out. I think I'm going to do a little field testing on this one.

Grashpr. That is looking good, too mu h fail or no.
BassBug, I wonder if the depths of YouTube could ever be plumbed?

Somebody stop me!!! This is all your fault Robin! I just lashed another one, same style hook but in size 16. Oddly enough, I found the little one easier to tie and the hair didn't twist like it did on the bigger one. If my phone decides to cooperate and send the picture I'll load it up.

IA, are you making your first two or three wraps around the bundle of hair (front or back) fairly loose with not much thread tension? Once you make those loose wraps, you can then gently pull them tight and they should flare the hair nicely. Also, if you aren't already, you might want to try holding the hair still with your left hand while you pull the thread tight with your right.

Glad to be of torment. I just now finished off the money makers and will have a shot at Devils Bugs after dinner. What could possibly go wrong?

Your wife could come home from working all day outside the home to find tiny pieces (and not so tiny ones) of deer hair all over her beautiful dining room table?










...but honey, look at these Devil Bugs...ain't they purdy?

I did it! wings and all. on the 1st 11th try

little better pic

Nice work, Austin, especially the wings. Did you use anything under the deerhair to bulk up the body?

Dry fly dubbing. I didn't have any yarn and i thought it might positively impact the buoyancy

I hope my work here is appreciated this may very be well the greatest assemblage of "devil" themed music videos ever posted on a fly fishing forum (in amerika)



by the way, great job Austin & everyone else...these things are harder to make than they look which may very well account for the devil moniker.

Great job Austin (I hate you :)) Looks like you flared in some extra hair for the wings. Good idea.

As promised, here's my #16 Devil Bug. This is a no wing version. I think they'd come out better if I wasn't using 3x long hooks, but that's all I have right now.

dude, dont feel bad...I dont have the huevos to post pics of the junk I've been tying onto a hook

PondBass that is art jumping off the vise! A+!

I hit upon something that I want to share with you all. Let me get some images shot and posted. It's devilishly simple. BRB.

But you have been doing a wonderful job compiling Devil music. Dusty, I did do 3 wraps and hold hte hair while tightening. Doing and doing well are two different things. I do collect VA disability for a partially paralized left hand, I'll blame that.

Mike, did you miss this one, or did I miss the post?

My first attempt; ugh


Second attempt: Kinda Muddlerish


Then my Muse, who had been hiding up in the ceiling fan, hopped down and smacked me in the back of the head. Why not give the fly a little push? Move some more water? And simpler to tie to boot?

Tie in the tail, come forward and snip off all but a little bit and then tie it off and you get this:





These are on #10 Mustad 3366s. So easy to tie, and they ought to be great panfish flies.

Now I will try again to do a real straight up Devils Bug.

Excellent post, now time for your whiskey medicine

First attempt


001 by Drok1, on Flickr

003 by Drok1, on Flickr

002 by Drok1, on Flickr

004 by Drok1, on Flickr
On a Tiemco 5262 2X size 10. Added some ice dub for the belly, needs a little wild hair trim too.

I tried one with the rear tied first. I prefer starting at the front - better to know where the eyes is.

I can see how that would work a little better, as I was just following the herd.

Care for an olive with that?

Consider using a different patch of deer hair. I tied another in olive and got the same nice flaring as above. Either the hair might make a difference, or I passed a few speed bumps on the learning curve. Guess I'll tie another in golden brown.

What size hook again?

That is a #8 3366.

The deer doe indeed make a difference. The olive flares back much better than the golden brown.

Reckon we could get them to put tracking numbers on the 4 sq in patches of deer hide? Hello, Mr. Metz. Do you have anything from hide B29-Z-23819 in mauve?

Would that it were so I expect that Chris Helm could look at the photo and sell you just the right patch of hair.

Tied around 9am of 15Aug2010:

The result a little later in the morning:






Is this a Tilapia? caught on a bead head prince nymph that I used this morning?

Nice adaptation to the "hair along the hook" theme, and the fish seem to approve.

This is so cool! This thread is turning up some deer hair innovation.

Is that a bald joke???

Nice looking fly TCarp. A producer too!

I tried using elk hair, but didn't like the flare. Got carried away when covering the white thread - turned into a solid bodied sinker. Reminds me of old school jigs.

I'm proud to be hair free

I'm proud to claim being folically challenged!!!

that is a Tilipia, good catch, they are notoriously picky eaters & mostly vegetarian (although I read that are really omnivorous)

Came up with these. I am thinking about lead wraps under the body, an underwater deer hair bug.

What I was doing was tying in fail first, stacking it on hard. Then paltering thread forward, collecting all the flared tips back forward and tying in further toward the hook eye. Holding on to body section tight so that the ends flare on hook eye side and no torque gets through to the body. Leaving enough raw, un- thread covered shank to spin on the head. Trimmed that in the manner seen in images.

I bet I could tie in rubber legs between body and head. I'm gonna work on some of this with legs at lunch tomorrow.

I always make sure to tie in plenty of fail on all my flies.

Robin, look how much havoc you've caused with one near century old fly. I hope you're happy with yourself, mister.

This makes moderating worthwhile for meccgetting to see all the creativity. Not that this is at all moderating; just makes the moderating worth it.

If no one else will, I'll step up. Robin, I hereby moderate thee. There!

Thanks for starting a great thread, even if it did cause some frustration.

Here is one with a bit of wingage. I added them after the head and tail were secure.

It might violate the old-school theme, but the super-glue knot is handy when lashing down all this deer hair.

Well, I gave the poor excuses of Devil Bugs I tied a whirl today. We may not have liked the way they looked much, but the fish gave them two fins up. Not a whole lot of action on the size 16, but I couldn't keep the bream and little bass off of the size 6. No pics because I didn't catch anything worth taking a pic of, but lots of action.

I have no idea what this fly is all about but based on that description alone, perhaps this is close enough. Supposed to be a simple tie based on that description, correct? I'm sure I'm missing something so go ahead and bash away. Small bass, bream killer, in size 8?

That's it alright. At least to the best of my knowledge.

As for being a bream and bass killer, I'm 99% certain and will know 100% some wee hour this week.

Wee Hour Mouse....

Foam inside instead of chenille, in big size 2.


Just goofin around.

That looks close enough.

I tied one with chartruse hair the other day. Caught two bream before decorating underwater limbs. I tied it on a #8 with too little hair. It tended to sink, but came up on the strip.

Horn, I like that one with the chenille. Gives it a little more action and a "leggy" look. The antique commercial one I have is actually just a cylinder of hair with something under it to make it bulge.

That mouse should drive the bass nuts. What did you use for the tail?

Its a prototype needless to say but I think it does have potential. It sure is bouyant. I used a thin strip of suede leather for the tail.

boiling back to the top, from the depths of TFF, the Tuttle Devil Bug!

Robin, are you trying to stir things up again? Looks like you almost got lynched the first time around.

Kirk

That I am, that I am...

Rhyne those baby foam frogs in your photo stream are insane. Although they seem simple enough, please point me towards a thread or how to video on their creation. I must have a box of those. Thanks in advance.

Thank you!
I'll do a photo tutorial as soon as I can get set up.

Gah i'm glad this post got brought back, what a flood of memories. I need to get back to the vise soon, it's been too long.