you need to bend your propellers to put more pitch in the blades so they will spin more easily with less forward speed of the lure.

Txred, thanks for saying so. For everyone else who groans whenever they see me abusing my bandwidth privileges, please know that I only get on these fly tying tears for about three or four months out of the year, then go dormant until the next winter season.....

On another thread someone was saying they'd never heard of the H&H Cutie Pie, one of my favorite ultralight spinning lures. Well, here's a veteran example. On the package they call it a "Spinno Fly", and while I have no idea what that's s'posed to mean, I can vouch for the fact that it's dang near a fly. Anything more than 4-lb test and you ain't casting it too much past yer gun'ls.



After about 700 fish the palmered hackle comes loose, so it comes to the tying room for a new one -- and to pose for pictures. I have so much fun with these little guys that I've been wanting to develop some flies that'll act more like 'em. The prop powered bugger is only a beginning; I'm already thinking about a baby Baby Torpedo topwater job.

Oh yeah, the Cutie Pies come with a propeller that's flat as a fritter for some reason, so it becomes routine to bend in some pitch for the blades to get a good spin going on 'em.

Good suggestion.

I liiiike the way you think.

the difficulty with these flies is finding an RPM regulator that is small enough to fit and still remain within budget... Looks great! Any reports on it's workability on the stocker fishes?

No trout testing yet, but coming later this week. But I pond-tested a few flies yesterday, and have a preliminary report: The Spinster I tied with heavy dumbell eyes for getting deep is just as big a PITA to cast as I feared. I always hated weighty clousers because they like to kill you when you smack the tar out of the back of your head with 'em, and they can bust your fly rod too (ask me how I know). So I plan to go ahead with my usual chicken practice of tying more, but with lighter dumbells. But the spinner sure performs merrily!

Meanwhile, the Prop-Bug casts more like a fly ought to, and the blade spins readily, but seems to foul easily with minute bits of pond detritus. I want to try using beads in front of, as well as behind, the propeller, but not real sure where to get decent beads. All my craft store beads have holes that're too small to get on the hook, and fly shop beads are expensive and not easy to get. So ..... any ideas out there?

All testing was done on a 5-wt slow action rod I was also trying out, whereas I'm usually armed with a 3- or 4-wt medium action job. I don't expect I'm going to be casting a lot of spinner flies with the 3, though; they're kinda meaty rascals.

Speaking of catfish, they love them some prop flies.

If you crush the barb of the hook, you can get it to fit through the holes usually in the beads. Try that and see. If that doesn't work, try a bigger bead.

Smushing the barb is the first thing I do on all my hooks, both on flies and conventional tackle lures. I'm convinced the only thing barbs are good for is keeping bait on a hook, and since I don't use bait I have no use for barbs. I also have a Dremel tool hanging at the bench, can grind all traces of the barb away in less than one minute if I want.

Problem I keep running into is that if the hole in the bead is large enough to slide onto the hook, then it can't make it around the bend. But then, I haven't yet gotten serious about going bead shopping just yet. Was going to do that today, but went out in my canoe to get rained on instead, what fun. Maybe tomorrow.

I say this at risk of offending, but have you made sure that the countersunk side of the bead is facing the right way when you try to put those beads on? if that's not it then chances are you just need to shop for the right-sized beads for the hook size being used.

Naw, I'd never get offended by anything like that, are you kidding? Sometimes the "is it plugged in?" counter-question is what fixes the problem.

Um, well, I mean, I'm sure it's never happened to any of y'all or anything......

I think it was a fair question, Robin. The two most common problems I saw as a comm tech in the Marines were the DC storage device not in the storage container and the ONOFF switch in the wrong position.

It looks like a pistol pete to me, same concept. That thing will catch fish if you can keep it out of the muck.

looks great to me nice work

Well, the stocker 'bows weren't interested in it today. But they were stupid trout, with crummy taste in flies.