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Tying
Instructions by
Tom Sheehy
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Background
My first introduction to the Crease Fly was
from a fly-swap I participated in about six years ago. As I remember
it, there were about a dozen flies in the swap, and as you would expect,
most of them were simple variations of clousers or deceivers. The
one fly that really stood out from the crowd was a beautifully painted
blue over silver Crease Fly.
At the time, I had never seen anything like
it, and was really impressed by the way it looked and behaved in the
water. It was so nice looking, in fact, that I didn't want to lose
it or have it get all beat up catching schoolies, so it was relegated to
the backup fly box.
Subconsciously, there was another reason I
shelved that fly. Those of you that have fished with me may know
that I very rarely use someone else's fly -- for the simple reason that I
would hate to catch "the big one" on something that I hadn't
tied myself. Even if someone is out-fishing me ten to one, I'll
refuse the hot fly of the day and try to find something in my box which
will work. I realize that
this is a ridiculous philosophy, because you can guarantee that I
will be back in the same spot the next day, casting an exact replica of
that same fly that I
tied up the night before.
About a year and a half after the fly swap, I was having
one of those 'kitchen sink' days out in my canoe on Joppa Flats in
Newburyport. It was a perfect evening in late June, with the
smallest breeze to keep the no-see-ums away, and fish were all over the
flat. No matter where I went, I was spooking fish and would occasionally
set off a huge chain reaction of one school spooking another and
another. The problem was, I was throwing everything but the kitchen
sink at them and couldn't buy a bite. After about an hour of
complete frustration and literally throwing everything I had at them, I
decided to tie on the one fly in the box that I hadn't tied myself, that
beautiful blue and silver Crease Fly.
You can probably guess the outcome of the
story at this point: I managed to pick up quite a few nice fish that
night, all on the Crease Fly. So many, in fact, that it got
completely destroyed in the process, but I went home a very happy camper.
Back then, I couldn't find any of these
flies in the local shops, and none of them carried the foam that was
needed to tie my own. Over the remainder of that season and the
following winter, I had completely forgotten about that great night with
the Crease Fly.
Over the last several years, the Crease Fly
has become increasingly popular, has been featured in a number of
magazines and internet sites, and is even being sold in some fly
shops. It was also featured in Bob Veverka's Innovative Saltwater
Flies along with an introduction and background from its creator,
Capt. Joe Blados, who lives and fishes on Long Island.
This past fall I was re-introduced to the Crease Fly
through a friend who was having great luck with them from
shore. I quickly ordered the materials I needed for this fly and
managed to have a couple good days of fishing with them before the fish
headed south. Now that the fish have left, I have been refining the
pattern and trying different methods and materials to create
it.
The Crease Fly is certainly very easy to
tie, once you understand the basic concepts involved, and I'm sure that
experienced tiers won't have to read through the gory details to figure it
out. What I do hope to accomplish through this guide is to help cut down the learning
curve for the beginning and intermediate tiers by sharing what I have
learned this far.
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Materials
List
- Hook: Tiemco 911S 1/0
- Thread: White Flymaster+
- Tail: Olive FlashFiber over
White Kinkyfiber
- Flash: Pearl Flashabou
- Body: White Craft Foam
(adhesive back)
- Eyes: Black/Pearl Mylar
Stick-On (7mm)
- Adhesive: Balsa USA Gold CA
(thick)
- Sealant: Loon Head Hard
Body
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Tying Instructions
First and foremost, it should be noted that
the Crease Fly isn't really a specific pattern. It is much more of a
technique that can be used to create a number of different patterns,
simply by using different materials, baitfish profiles and
coloration. I have seen many different sizes and colors of Crease
Flies, some that had foam bodies that were at least six inches long,
others that were tied in a 'broken back' style where the body was
separated into two halves and joined in the middle to increase the action
of the fly.
Several fly shops have started carrying
Crease Fly kits which provide all the materials you need to create this
great fly: several sheets of foam in various colors, a bottle of CA
(superglue) and several sheets of mylar foil which are used to color the
foam. It is also one of the few readily available sources of the
adhesive backed foam that can be used in one method of decorating crease flies,
which I will explain below.
If you have been tying for a while you know
how much of a difference the right materials can make, and even though the
Crease Fly is a simple pattern, it can be made much more complicated by
not using the right types of foam or superglue, as I will describe in the
tying instructions. In any case, I highly recommend this kit as a
great way to get started -- it provides all the 'right stuff' that you
need and is very reasonably priced.
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Step 1
The first
thing to do is to select the proper hook. Any long-shanked hook will do, the longer the better.
You want a hook that will give you enough room to duplicate the size of the baitfish you are trying
to imitate while still giving you a nice wide hook gap to work with.
Some of the hooks that I have used are the Mustad 34011, the Tiemco 511S and
the Tiemco 911S.
My first choice would be the Tiemco 511S. This is a
stainless popper hook that has a 4X long shank with a 2X wide hook gap, and
a mid-shank hump which increases the surface area you have to glue the foam
to the hook.
Since the Tiemco 511S is sometimes hard to
come by, I am using a size 1/0 Tiemco 911S in this example. The 911S is also
a stainless hook with a 4X long shank, but with a standard gap.
The first step is to cover the entire hook
shank with a nice base of thread. In most of my tying, I have switched
to using mono thread, but in this application I believe that standard
thread makes a better foundation to accept the glue and hold the fly
together.
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Step 2
Next, you
will tie in the tail materials. As you would expect, most tiers use a
darker color over some flash and a white base. You can use anything
you want to create the tail: bucktail, ultra-hair, whatever you have
handy. The important thing is to think ahead a few steps and determine
how you are going to finish off and color the foam body of the fly, then
make sure you pick a tail color that will match.
In this picture, I have tied in some white
Kinky Fiber with some pearl Flashabou on top. You want the length of
the tail to match the general length of the baitfish you are trying to
copy. I find that a length of one to one and a half hook shanks looks
best.
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Step
3
Here, I
have completed the tail section by tying in some light olive Kinky
Fiber. Again, you can use any colors or materials that you want.
I chose this color scheme to match the finished look of the foam body.
Once you have tied in the tail materials,
make sure that the hook shank is completely covered in thread, and then tie
off with a whip finish. At this point you have done all the 'tying'
involved in making a Crease Fly - the rest of it is more like an arts and
crafts project.
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Step
4
The next
step is to create the foam body of the fly. There are many ways that
you can come up with the right shape or profile to the foam body. The
simplest method is to just cut yourself a piece of foam and slowly modify it
until you get a shape that you like. However I have found that if I
don't start with a plan, I very rarely come out with something that I am
satisfied with. I learned this very quickly after painstakingly
hacking to pieces several nice stacked deer hair bass bug heads.
If you do take this approach, make sure to
fold the foam in half and cut out the profile for both sides of the body at
the same time to make sure they are symmetrical - then skip down to Step 10.
What I found to work best was to start with a
piece of scrap paper, and to sketch out a pattern that I could size and trim
without wasting a lot of foam. In the picture above, I have created a
rectangle that is as long as the distance between the hook eye and the bend,
and is as wide as the gap of the hook. This is a good starting point
to get the proportions right until you feel more comfortable creating your
own designs.
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Step
5
Once you
have the basic rectangle defined, fold the paper in half in line with the
top of the rectangle, and cut out the other three sides of the
rectangle. You want to end up with a tent of paper which is connected
along the top of the long sides. The walls of the tent will be the size of
the rectangle you created in Step 4.
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Step
6
Next you
can start sketching out the basic profile of the fly on the paper. You
can make the shape as simple or as complicated as you want- just keep in
mind a few basic ideas:
- You want to keep the hook at the very
bottom of the body in order for it to act as a keel and keep the fly
upright when it is in the water.
- Try and keep the front edge of the body
perpendicular to the hook shank. This will allow the fly to track
through the water much straighter. If you angle the front of the
head, the fly may twist and spin as you retrieve it.
- Try to find a profile that represents the
baitfish you are trying to copy, but also maximizes the amount of space
between the foam body and the hook point. If the body crowds the
hook point, you won't have a big enough gap to actually hook any fish.
You can angle the template as you see fit to
alter the profile of the body. In the picture I have angled the
template to create a big 'mouth' on the fly, but have drawn in dashed lines
to make sure that the face of the body is perpendicular to the hook, and to
create a wide body with plenty of space at the hook gap.
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Step
7
In this
step I have cut out the basic outline of the body and have fitted it over
the hook to make sure that I am happy with the proportions, hook gap, and
alignment. The eye of the hook is at the lower right hand corner of
the template.
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Step
8
The nice
thing about using a paper template is that once you find a shape you like,
you can quickly reproduce it and use it as a pattern. This picture
shows the body template after it has been unfolded, along with a couple of
different bodies that I had cut from a master pattern. (marked with a 'M' to
make sure I don't use it) You will also notice that I typically cut a
small notch out of the back of the fly for the tail to pass through.
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Step
9
In this
picture you can see the foam body that was cut using the template as a
guide.
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Step
10
This
picture shows the flip side of the foam body, which has already been coated
with a metallic mylar film. This is another area where you have many
techniques to choose from in order to color the foam body.
The simplest method is to use plain white
foam for the body and waterproof markers to provide the coloration.
Try experimenting with different color combinations, and layering multiple
colors on top of one another to blend them together and get the desired
effect. You can also use a metallic chrome paint marker to dress up
the body and provide additional flash.
Another method is to use the plain white foam
along with fabric paints or EZ Sparkle Body to provide the coloration and
flash. The EZ Sparkle Body paints are very easy to apply, and contain
glitter to really make the fly stand out. One of my favorite patterns
uses white pearl for the body, with a dark olive and black topping.
Blood red sparkle body is used to provide a bleeding gill effect.
If you choose to get the Crease Fly kit, you
will also get a couple of sheets of adhesive backed foam and several sheets
of metallic foil. The foil has a plastic covering on one side.
Once the protective covering is removed from the foam, it will then stick to
the metal foil.
There are at least two ways to use the
adhesive backed foam. The first way is to cut out and attach the foam
body of the fly with the protective covering still in place, so that when
the fly is finished, you remove the covering, which exposes the adhesive on
the outside of the fly. You can then press the fly into the foil sheet and it will pick up the foil, leaving the plastic
coating of the foil
behind. This can be tricky to get a uniform foil coating throughout
the entire body, but if you find a spot that didn't stick, you can just keep
pressing it into the foil until it is covered. This sounds more
complicated than it really is - it will make much more sense once you have
the materials in front of you.
This method also lets
you create more complex designs by using different color foils to cover
different areas of the fly. For example to create a fly with a
metallic blue back and silver sides, you would roll the top of the fly in
the blue foil until it was coated the way you wanted, and would then press the flat
sides of the body into the silver foil.
The other way to use the adhesive backed foam
is to take a whole sheet of foam, remove the adhesive backing and carefully
apply a whole sheet of metallic foil to it, being careful not to get any air
bubbles trapped underneath the foil.
This is the method that I happened to use in
the foam body for this fly. In the picture I have flipped over the
foam body showing the silver foil that has already been glued to the
back. A good tip here is to leave the plastic protective covering on
the foil until the fly has been completed. This way you won't get any
superglue on it, or otherwise damage its appearance while you are gluing the
body in place.
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Step
11
The next
step is to start gluing the foam body in place. This is another very
good reason to start with the Crease Fly kit. It comes with a specific
type of thick CA which is made by a company called Balsa USA. I have
always assumed that all superglues were created equal. When I received
my kit, I already had three or four bottles of superglues in different
thicknesses and from different companies. I found that these other
glues took much longer to set up, and made gluing the foam body together a
much more tedious and messy process.
The thick CA from Balsa USA works much
better, and much quicker than the other superglues that I have tried.
The best technique is to start at the hook eye, and slowly glue the foam
together, working your way towards the bend of the hook. I have found
that it is very difficult to glue the entire body together in one shot,
because you quickly run out of fingers to clamp the body together while
the glue sets up.
After making sure the foam is positioned
correctly on the hook, apply a few very small drops to the foam while
holding it together with the thumb and index finger of one hand. The
more glue you apply, the longer it will take to set, and trust me, you don't
need very much to make a very strong bond which will be much stronger than
the foam itself. Once you have applied a couple small drops of glue,
pinch the sides of the foam against the hook shank while the glue sets up. It
should only take five to ten seconds if you have used the right amount of
glue.
You also want to make sure that you don't use
so much glue that it wicks up into the body of the fly, and glues the sides
of the body together.
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Step
12
Continue
working your way down towards the tail of the fly, making sure that you have
a good solid joint between the foam and the hook. Once you get to the
tail section, you can use a little more glue around the tail material to
hold it in place.
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Step
13
At this
point, the fly is nearly complete. The next thing to do, once the
superglue has set up properly, is to push down on the top of the foam to
make sure you have a nice wide opening.
In this picture I have colored the front of
the fly with a red marker to make it easier to see while fishing, and to
illustrate the proper shape for the body.
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Step
14
The last step is to finish coloring the fly
using waterproof markers, EZ Sparkle Body or whatever else you can come up
with.
In this example I was using the white
adhesive-backed foam with the metallic foil already applied. Once the
body was glued onto the hook, I peeled the protective plastic covering off
the foil, and used green and red markers to color the back of the fly and
draw in some gills.
The last step was to apply some mylar
prismatic eyes and to coat the entire body and mouth of the fly with Loon
Hard Head. You can also use a thin coat of epoxy to get a similar
effect, but I have found the Hard Head is very easy to apply and produces a
very nice finish without all the mess and odor of epoxy.
Don't forget to coat the bottom and the mouth
of the fly to make sure it maintains the correct shape.
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As you can imagine, there are no limits to the
number of sizes, shapes and colors that you can create. The Crease Fly
in the above left picture was created using a metallic gold foil for the
body and black marker for the back. The fly on the left used pearl EZ
Sparkle Body for the body, olive and black for the back, and red for the
gills.
If you've been patient enough to read through
this entire long-winded set of instructions, I'm sure you won't have any
problems creating crease flies on your own. I know that I am very
anxious to throw some of my new creations at that first big push of fish
which shows up on the Merrimack next May. |
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