The wind is up to 20 knots and the water temps on the flats are about mid 60’s in the Lower Keys, so I’m tying flies.
I have seen a lot of patters tied with brush products and then trimmed into a slider like fly. Im going to go over the technique I use to attain an all synthetic slider head without using those $$$ brushes.
I call this one the Congo Slider…
We start off with tying in a chunk of magnum rabbit, polar flash and legs out the back along with medium lead eyes on a #4 TMC 800s. You con go nuts with color schemes.
I then start by tying in my first chunk of blended olive Congo fibers in a V pattern swept back towards the tail. All of the fibers are tied on the bottom of the shank leaving the top of the shank bare. The first fibers you tie in should be the longest as you want them overlapping the rabbit to some extent. I do a couple layers of my olive and then tie in a couple clumps of rust and blue that I pull from the Dirty Water Baitfish blend of Congo hair. All of the colors are swept back in the same V pattern until we get ahead of our lead eyes. Trim into a nice slider style head….
This swept back V technique is very useful for other patterns and I use it to tie almost all of my other EP style synthetic flies including baitfish, worms, gurglers and redfish flies.
I recently sat down to tie a super simple, fast yet realistic blue crab. This is what I came up with…
Again a #4 800s with medium lead eyes (smaller hook or at least eyes on calmer days) The rabbit in this fly is Hareline Tiger Barred in black/orange over tan and the legs are Hareline as well in lt. blue/pumpkin.
Start with a little over a ½” of rabbit and strip the hide so theres only about a ¼” of fur left, tie them on the back of the shank and put a little bit of CCG tack free between them to keep em apart. Then tie your first clump of Tan Xtra select craft fur with the butt ends back then sweep the tips back as well. The legs are half of a strip with a little bit knotted at both ends. The 3 legs are tied in one at a time after each clump of craft fur, after your legs youll need 1 or 2 clumps to cover the lead eyes.
Trim as flat as possible! This fly is a little bit harder to tune and get to fall naturally, but approach it as a Merkin style fly when applying epoxy for tuning.
There you have them….
Jordan
Was totally stuck until I read this, now back up and runignn.