Some Crack





some sliders



Some crabs



My fiancee said these were all terrible and she could do better, so she came up with this



I'm not sure how much action that will have in the water, but you never know



The sliders are pretty much standard, barred craft fur tail, flash, palmered saddle hackle, then a deer hair head and collar.
The crab is the same tail, but then a merkin style body using Senyo's laser dub
The crack is a little modified, mostly because I'm kind of horrified at the idea of spending $10 on an 8" dubbing brush. So I've got the normal tail, then a couple wraps of palmered marabou, then I just did a dubbing loop with some combination of EP fibers, SF blend, fuzzy fiber, ice dub, and craft fur depending mostly on whimsy. They're definitely not as neat and consistent as they would be if I used a brush, but this way is more fun .

I'm not sure about the marabou, it seems to kind of eat the tail, but I know it'll give a lot more movement in the water, so we'll have to see some day.

Hooks are mostly #6 B10S, dumbbell or bead chain eyes.

Dubbing brushes go a little ways depending on the maker. I've been using the ones from Sightcast Flies; they're local out of Houston. The bluecrab, and purple colors go a long way and only take about two wraps. The B10s is an awesome hook scary sharp and a great hook gap for buggy flies. Could go with a standard Mustad 34007 or the eagle claw from Basspro as the B10s aint really salt friendly unless you rinse them after each trip.

Wish I could make those Borski Sliders that pretty and consistent. Great job.

You will have some fun with those.I don’t much like the expensive store bought brushes either when it’s so simple to do what you want in a dubbing loop. Plus, you can lengthen, shorten, make them thinner or add in stuff. Like the colors on the Borski sliders.

Yeah I have some proper saltwater hooks for like, production flies, but when I’m doing new streamer patterns I start on the b10s because they’re good enough that I don’t worry about losing fish but cheap enough that don’t worry too much about messing up.

I had to recycle about ten of those deer hair heads before I started getting results I was at all happy with. I don’t love those, but I think they’re probably good enough that the fish won’t mind and they’re at least not embarrassing. Spinning and stacking deer hair is a whole world of tying I’m still not that comfortable in.

Same thing honestly goes for the dubbing loops. Getting them to spin up correctly without all the material binding down into a rope is not trivial, especially with kinky fibers like EP, SF, and even the fuzzy fiber (though that’s stiff enough that it does better). Ultimately they generally come out at about half the density they are before I start spinning, but it’s probably good enough. The BULKhead on my last pattern uses the same technique and I threw out a LOT of those before I was happy with it.

Steve Farrar blend is really tough to make a into a decent brush. I haven’t tried it for the collar on redfish crack. I do occasionally use SFB for the tails. I like having the finished flies come out a little different. Ones with a little extra EP might sink a tad slower. I don’t do many with bead chain, but I’ve done lots of different dumbbells from mini sized lead, small brass, x-small lead, small lead, the heaviest I do is small tungsten dumbbells. I think about sink rate of patterns a lot when I fish. I fish over shell a lot and am always trying to get the right sink rate, but the right sink rate various from shell patch to shell patch and water level changes. I’ll pull out some of the EP collar when out on the water to get a little faster sink or for a little sleeker, more flashy look.

Borski sliders are kind of the same deal, but maybe even more pronounced. More deer hair, more tendency to float or resist sinking. Some might come out a little more trimmed, those become the fast sinking models, bushy ones the slow sink ones. I do most of mine with small tungsten dumbbells. Small brass work too and leaving the deer hair less trimmed will produce a finished fly that may not sink at all or very slowly.

But since I’m not a commercial tier, I can exploit whatever inconsistencies I might get in the finished product. Seems like commercial ties and the whole commercial tying business values uniformity over any other consideration. But, where are conditions and situations out on the water exactly uniform? Some flaws aren’t good such as ones that might make a pattern helicopter or foul, but varying up the density and weighting aren’t really flaws, just smart tying, IMO.

I've tried to keep my weighting system consistent so I can just see the weight at a glance without having to remember exactly how I tied that particular one.

I have med bead chain in silver, big bead chain in black, x-small lead dumbbell in grey, small lead dumbbell in chartreuse, and med lead dumbbell in red. Past that I can't really throw them with an eight weight, so I haven't bothered.

Obviously the exact pattern plays into the overall sink rate, but it's nice to know that the red eye clouser will always be heavier than the green eye clouser, for example. I haven't fished them enough to notice a difference between individual ties, but I'm sure that's in there too.

I want to see a redfish with one of those in its mouth!

Me too

Dunno when I'll make it down to the beach again.

Nicely done. Good job.