DIY bucktail wrapping

[JasonGotaProblem]

Note the "italian special" 2nd from right. And I think 2nd pic is technically a fly not a bucktail, but I'm not up on terminology yet. That might get a bass. We'll see.

[jurelometer]

First some fly tying terminology:

Dubbing: short strands of material , usually held in the middle by two strands of twisted thread.   This is wound around the hook. Dubbing is used to add a fur like effect.

Wing: the bulk of the materials that make up the profile of the fly.  This evolved from the little feather wings on insect imitations, and later  longer stiff feathers used to make the early streamers, but now is also sort of a catchall for the material that makes up the main profile.

Tail:  A seperate component that extends the farthest back, but is not the wing.

In fly tying terminology,  Jason's jig in the photo has a white wing and red tail and no dubbing.  Some folks do use some flashy dubbing over the wraps, but Jason is using plain thread wraps.

Usually jig tyers just call the wing a tail, and no longer have a name for the tail

I wonder if that length rule is more for flies of the unweighted variety. I see people on piers and catwalks throwing 2oz bucktails with 12" of tail (and landing fish!), so casting may be affected less in the case of heavier jig heads because of the better weight distribution. And really it seems the fish have a preference for these longer tails, so maybe exploiting that preference is worth the risk of casting complications. And I've been throwing these guys for years with tails not only a bit shorter than what I'm making. It's just the norm around here.

Its also possible that these lure makers know your longer tail tricks and that's why it goes smoothly. Come to think of it the store bought varieties are definitely a stiffer tail material. I guess I'll have to go out and try them now. All in the name of science.

If they are not fouling, then you don't have a problem.  The tricks involve things like putting something in the hair at and just past the bend that will stiffen a bit , pushing the hinging point away from the bend.  You would be able to see it easily.  

I tied hair jigs for stripers for awhile, and had problems with fouling with feathers and softer materials, but I was hucking for distance in the surf with a strong cross breeze.

There are lots of choices for material.  Folks always think that softer is always better because it will undulate more.  But the soft stuff just moves with the current like any other piece of detritus down there, and does not move much water, making less likely to be picked up by the fishes lateral line as solid food.  

I have only worked flies for snook, and the popular flies tend to be thin small bait/shrimp imitations (clousers) when the fly is supposed to move a lot, or something very flimsy with marabou or similar  if the fly only drifts or gets bumped along slowly.  Usually, very limp stuff has no action at speed.  

I have done more fly fishing for a species called barramundi, which looks like a bigger fatter snook, and occupies the same niche, but usually in  less clear water.  Flies for barramundi tend to be darker plus bulkier in order to push water and be picked up by the lateral line.

If you are looking for synthetics that are relatively stiff, but not crazy stiff, synthetic wig hair is dirt cheap.   It gets repackaged in tiny unspecified quantities  and sold to the fly tiers for $5 a pop.  Look for kanenkon [edit] kanekalon. It comes in straight to kinky-wavy is usually best -look for the stuff marketed as jumbo braid.  Mixing a very tiny bit of thin sparkle is not a bad idea.  Look for Krystal flash or angel hair.

Real bucktails are not too costly, but tails with some longer/soft hair demand a premium, and are tricky to order over the internet. You sort of need to go to a fly ship and sort through the inventory.   Yak tail  is my #1 favorite natural long stiff hair material, but it is hard to get for a decent price unless you buy a large quantity. OTOH, you can probably get a couple dozen jigs out of one fly tier pack of yak hair.

The name of the very stiff stuff escapes me for now.  If you are interested, I can look it up.


-J

[steelfish]

Seems that Jason has a touch to find all the rabbit holes on fishing hobby, moding reels, building rods, building bucktails and a lot more waiting

It feels like a natural progression. The desire to have nice things without paying nice thing prices inspires us to learn how to make our own nice things. Also now I can play with colors.

Do you have snook over by you? I've heard you do, by the name of robalo. They. Are. The. Best.

completely agree on what you just said, same reason Im modding reels, building rods and for some time I was also with the idea of making my own bucktails,  I bought few jig bobbins, fly tying Vise, thread and nail polish, then tied some but no avails, nothing, tried again with the same jighead with a plastic tail and BOOM ! always the same, so, I dropped the idea of the bucktails, sold all my feathers, Real bucktails, syntetic hair, etc just kept the fly vise and jig bobbins.

no Robalos around this area and the rest of north sea of cortez, Snook seems to appear more at the south of the peninsula at the very end of sea of cortez, my friends of Puerto Vallarta catch Snook left and right at the Beaches of the Pacific ocean and FW Rivers.

[oc1]

Steve's Rock Hopper.  Tungsten flipping weight and 1/0 Gamakatsu live bait hook.  Poor photos.  Some have double hooks.

[JasonGotaProblem]

Ok that fly was getting hits. Couldn't throw it further than about 15yds on my best cast, but action was near shore. I wasn't setting the hook, and that's not normally a problem. Can I do this with a circle hook?

[jurelometer]

Nice looking critter Steve.  Hard to see everything that is going on.  Assume that  you tie the line/leader to that loop.  And does the hook ride point up so that it does not get dulled/snagged on all the rocks?

Jason:  Circle hooks usually have a pretty short shank, making them a bit hard to tie flies on and still have them to their corner hooking thing.  They made longer shank circle fly hooks, but most are not manufactured any more. 

You also need a target species that is going to keep swimming  or at least do a nice turn when using artificials with a circle hook.  If it is just the swim up and vacuum in bite, you get a lot of ejections without hookups.

When tying a weightless jig (AKA a fly),  some materials will be more buoyant than others.  Bare hooks will ride point down, usually jig hooks too.   Jig hooks can make nice fly hooks, but you normally have to use a tiny bit of lead wire or eyes (bead chain will work) on what you want to be the bottom, and/or buoyant fiber like deer hair on the top to keep the fly riding point up.  Bare jig hooks tend to bend open more often as well. 

A tiny weighted eye will make  nice more castable mini jig.  Here is an example of a weighted fly  - this will ride point up.   
Tied up with yak hair and feathers

And they do catch fish

[jurelometer]

True story:   

I just tied a small amount of white bucktail onto a hook and cut off the bend to make a practice fly for the local casting pond.   The old timers commented on how nice that fly worked, and the little largemouth in the pond wouldn't leave it alone.    That is when I first learned about the less is more concept.  I actually like that fly of yours, with just a small strip of lead wire along the bottom added to keep it right side up and not spinning.

-J

[JasonGotaProblem]

with just a small strip of lead wire along the bottom added to keep it right side up and not spinning.

Minimalism has generally served me well in many aspects of life, fishing being a shining example.

I think I'm gonna play with the lead wire idea. I believe I have a few inches of it from aerator stones, and i can order on eBay.

And I think my next fly will be the USF special in green and gold and white

[Decker]

Yeah bucktail jigs are so pricey.  The NJ local fluke rigs come with bucktail tied directly on the hook with monofilament line.  I want to learn how to do that.

You just use a nail knot for the mono.  IMHO, mono is not the greatest choice, but it is a bit faster process, because you usually don't need to cover it with coating.   Hollow hair like bucktail will flare out as you tighten it, but mono has to be really tight to hold, so it is hard to control the flair.   And it is difficult to get a permanent grip on the material with mono, so you end up needing to do a bit of coating anyways.   I prefer to use thread, and coat with something hard to add durability.  Danville flat waxed nylon is king for the very small stuff.  Thick nylon thread for the big stuff.  If you have  size D rod wrapping thread handy, you are all set for one oz jigs.  When using thread, you just wind around and tie off with 4 or more half hitches, or a whip finish if you want to impress the fly tiers. 

I really enjoy the way everyone on this site talks about materials and techniques for building and doing.  I learned how to tie flies when I was a Boy Scout and years before I ever had a fly rod.  These days I am married and raising children with a head full of project-itos and little time or focus or execute them. 

These fluke rigs with hair snelled on the hook appeal to my fatherly thriftiness, and I wonder if it is possible to put one together quickly and without much equipment. 

[JasonGotaProblem]

I say give it a shot. When I wrapped my first one, I started by looking for a video, saw that all the videos were like 20 minutes long. I dont have that kind of attention span. So i just started wrapping. Turns out the method that I figured out entirely on my own is pretty fast. Start to finish like 3 minutes to wrap a bucktail. I cant imagine that's gonna be much harder.

[thorhammer]

fyi ive never used a fly vise. shop vise works and is faster, especially as I use nylon uphostery thread and cinch down pretty firmly.

Sally hansen hard as nails nail polish topcoat works great. you'll have all the cheap mylar you want in four weeks- walmart after Christmas. maribou feathers in the craft section.

[Ron Jones]

fyi ive never used a fly vise. shop vise works and is faster, especially as I use nylon uphostery thread and cinch down pretty firmly.

Sally hansen hard as nails nail polish topcoat works great. you'll have all the cheap mylar you want in four weeks- walmart after Christmas. maribou feathers in the craft section.

I LOVE my rotary vise. I don't know how a shop vise could be faster, I'm not saying it isn't but keeping the bobbin steady and spinning the fly is pretty fast.

The Man

[thorhammer]

Muscle memory from doing it for 30 years- there were no rotary vises anywhere in my redneck o' the woods and no internet then, nor would I pay postage. From a dead start with no experience result may be different. Hooks- 100 for seven bucks from a local tackle store behind the dam.  Dollar rattle can paint.  Scavenged lead from tire shops, and cured out the tails from my deer or buddies' with borax. Nail lacquer for sealer. Nylon, feathers, mylar, glitter from walmart. Basically everything from walmart but hooks, like the other guuys fishing back there. Thousands of stripers caugh on these. When I was wrapping to sell, I could get one wrapped and glue on in under a minute with no strags poking through.

[oldmanjoe]

    Hook vice    Dang when i was a kid ,the wine bottle with the cork in it was the hook vice .   

[jurelometer]

For that fluke fly- I agree with Thorhammer:  No need to spend any money beyond the raw materials if you are not going into production.  It is nice to have a bit a room to  for the tail  (wing) to lay out when you wrap to ensure that you have an even distribution.  Needle nose mini vice grips work well.  I prefer using the vice grip trick over my nice rotary vice for big (2-12 oz) jig heads. 

Looking at the photo, there are a couple things to consider.  First of all, it looks like they are using heavy stiff mono for a lcombo eader and a wrap.  This will ensure that the fly sticks out straight and doesn't move much or catch weeds.  Will also tangle less.    I am not a fluke guy, so feel free to correct me.

There  is a ton of hair on that fly.  It makes the tail very stiff.  That much hair at that short length kills the action of the hair.  Lots of potential reasons for killing the action, a few of them reasonable. The most common reason is that consumers tend to prefer flies and jigs with lots of material, even if the fish might not.

With that much hair plus the thick mono, the challenge is going to be getting a tie that keeps the hair from falling out and the knot not pulling out.

If we could establish how these puppies are going to be rigged up and any performance requirements, there are probably better ways to tie one up that are not that complicated and more effective. I would tend to want to wrap with thread, flair the tail a bit, use less hair, and tie the leader to the hook, unless there is a good reason not to.

Lots of useful easy tricks if you decide to tie with thread.  For example,  tie the bucktail  on backwards and then bend all the hair toward the back. You control the flair by how you build up the thread in front side.  Now you have a nice solid profile that is hollow in the middle, so you will have better action.  Check out Bob Popovics hollow fleye for more details on the technique.   I saw a post or two somewhere from folks using the hollow fleye trick for bucktail jigs.  Very fast once you get the hang of it.

I am not an advocate for getting too fancy, but might as well let the natural material do its job.   Otherwise, tie with unwound polypropylene packing cord for fibers that will never wear out. 

-J