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.