are WINGS necessary?

[AuSableTrophyhunter]

are Wings required on conventionallly hackled dry flies? Wings are the only difficult part of the tie, take time and can twist tippets and can cause flies to tip over or sink.
I wonder whether the hackle itself is a sufficient trigger to a trout and whether I could simply dispense with wings?
I believe in small flies #18 and smaller, wings can be dispensed with and no loss of attractiveness occurs. Think of a Griffith"s Gnat, for example.
On a fly 14 and larger, I continue to use wings for duns but if I could dispense with the wings and not lose effectiveness, I could save a lot of time in tying.
I note that though Goddard and Clark make much of wings being a trigger, they recommend several duns that dont have wings, for example their Super Grizzly and the Dun Variant(which is only short body with 3 oversized hackles wound in conventional fashion.

So, are wings necessary on conventionally hackled, Catskill style dry fly dun imitations?

[Davyfly]

This is a interesting question and the only answer can be given to you by the fish at the end of the day.
I have no doubt at all that wings may well add that extra attraction at times other wise not.
Dave Whitlock is of the belief that the no hackle winged flies work way better than conventional dries with hackles, when used for the smaller mayfly representing the duns. I would agree with him here myself as my own dun patterns do not use hackles.
Difference is l do not use feather wings. I developed a material called Dun Wing years ago which is a type of poly yarn dyed to very natural dun wing shades.

Tail of fly is Cock de Leon.
Bodies color related to species. Fine and dry is a good dubbing
Thorax region darker than abdomen, l after use dyed Hares ear
Wings. Dun wing of the right shade tyed in the typical upright position.

Some like to use CDC, have to say it is not a material l favor, but it does work. The reason why l choose not to use it is its long term use, and often when a fish is caught you have to change the fly.

I will post some pics later.

John Goddard and Clark l know. When they they did they research for the book it was done on the UK Chalk Streams, mainly the Kennet. these rivers are very different to most. Very slow flowing and gin clear, which does allow for a fish to have plenty of time to inspect a fly, and l can say from experience they can be difficult to catch at times.
The fly has to be right.

In fact l had to tie a 100 of each of those patterns for John who gave them away with limited signed copies of that book.

In the case of very small dry patterns l use most of the time, palmered hackled flies. For the reason they high float and can be easily seen.
So l do agree here that wings are not needed, that is my experience.
In fact when l fished the Big Hole recently my killer fly for the rising fish taking trico was a palmered hackled size 20 dry.

They are simple to tie.
Wrap a thread body, leave a thread tag of 4 ins at the tail of the fly.
At the head of the fly tie in the hackle wind that to the tail and reverse the thread tag back to the head to counter wrap the hackle. That's it.
Choice of hackle related to species, generally l am using badger, furnace and dunny shades.
You will need good quality saddle hackles for this. Whiting in my view are the best as they offer a huge range of color variations.
they are deadly when fish are taking small chironomids.

DW

[Soft-hackle]

Hi,
Like Davy, I find that the answer is somewhat -NO and somewhat, YES. Davy, when speaking about Goddard and Clark indicates that on that particular river, the wings were important. No-hackle dries do work and work well under certain circumstances and conditions. So do no wing dries under certain circumstances and conditions. In slow low water, the no hackle works very well. On rough water, high flotation and non-sink qualities work better-most likely well hackled, but the wings, while nice to help the fisherman spot the fly, are not as important.

Mark

[littlej81]

As far as fly fishing and tying are concerned I am extremely green. That being said I've read a decent amount about both subjects (not a fraction as much as most posters on this site), and I have come to the conclusion that the simpler the better. Better meaning less time consuming and a lot of the time more productive. As many people have said on this site, less stuff for the fish to refuse.

For instance, you could go all out and tie a up a fancy caddis pattern with legs, ribbing, and a fancy dubbing blend, OR you could go catch some fish on some dubbing wrapped on a hook (walt's worm).

I think the question you are asking is answered differently depending on your answer to my question? Are you tying to fish, or are you tying to tie?

[AuSableTrophyhunter]

Good points have been made. I think that simplicity in a pattern is a good thing as long as all of the triggers for trout are still present. The trick is to know what the triggers are. That is where experience and above all, local knowledge come in.
I have huge respect for Mr Goddard but I do not envy Mr Wotton having to tie flies for him. Goddard"s patterns are often in my opinion, unnecessarilly complex to tie. For Mr Wotton, that does not represent a problem but it does for me.
I tie duns like Davy suggested with in my case a single yarn wing dun with hackle trimmed on the bottom. I learned this pattern many years ago from Gary Borger"s book. He calls it a yarn wing dun and it works very well and is much easier and faster to tie than tying two wings from other materials. The yarn wing is in my opinion, more realistic than say two bundles of white calf hair as wings.
I have tied no hackle dries as done by Gonzalez in his book on "Pressured Trout Flies" but they are time consuming and overkill on most waters I fish.
Now, here I get controversial. I find that with the exception of caddis imitations, the flies innovated by Gary La Fontaine are over-rated and in some cases, just plain goofy. In the goofy category, his airhead, flame thrower and teardrop nymph are just a couple of examples. His streamer with the eyes set to the rear of the hook to fool the fish into striking the hook, are super goofy

[Silver Creek]

[quote author=AuSableTrophyhunter link=topic=3611.msg27138#msg27138 date=1254146647]
are Wings required on conventionallly hackled dry flies? Wings are the only difficult part of the tie, take time and can twist tippets and can cause flies to tip over or sink.
I wonder whether the hackle itself is a sufficient trigger to a trout and whether I could simply dispense with wings?
I believe in small flies #18 and smaller, wings can be dispensed with and no loss of attractiveness occurs. Think of a Griffith"s Gnat, for example.
On a fly 14 and larger, I continue to use wings for duns but if I could dispense with the wings and not lose effectiveness, I could save a lot of time in tying.
I note that though Goddard and Clark make much of wings being a trigger, they recommend several duns that dont have wings, for example their Super Grizzly and the Dun Variant(which is only short body with 3 oversized hackles wound in conventional fashion.

So, are wings necessary on conventionally hackled, Catskill style dry fly dun imitations?
[/quote]

I may have misunderstood the original question but I interpreted the original question as concerning a standard dry flies with both wings; and palmered dry fly hackle and whether one could leave off the wings and still have an effective pattern. To that I say yes, most often the pattern will be as effective (or not) even without wings.

These patterns designed to float high and are most effective in the riffles where the fish do not get a close look at the fly. A standard dry floating on the tips of it's tail and the hackle looks little like a real mayfly which rests on its abdomen, on the film. So I think it is not an effective pattern in slower flows because of the way it lays on the water. I believe whether the pattern has wings or not matters little when the orientation of the pattern is incorrect.

I would learn to tie tie a parachute which is both more realistic and easier to tie, or a sparkle dun which is even easier.

[Nymphmeister]

Silver-
I always find your posts to be interesting & well thought out. But I have to respectfully take exception with what you said about "A standard dry floating on the tips of it's tail and the hackle looks little like a real mayfly which rests on its abdomen, on the film". Mayfly duns are actually supported on the water by their legs, and their abdomens do not rest on the water, but are actually slightly above i, with only the legs touching it. Only the larger Drake-type mayfly duns (Hexs, Green & Brown Drakes, etc.) rest with their abdomens in the film, due to their heavier body weight. LaFontaine (my hero, Lol) talks about this in detail in his book "The Dry Fly", and he also terms flies like Comparaduns & No-Hackles as "nymph-duns", because he says they don't accurately represent a dun due to the bodies being flush in the film, but rather are part way between the true nymph & dun stages, sort of an upright-winged emerger I guess. Spent spinners also have their abdomens in the film. Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but I cannot help but correct this point. Now I'll shut up. :-X

[Walshmiko]

Im Sure Wings can be seen through refraction regardless the size of the Fly. Ausable you mentioned leaving the wings out to save time? Wings become second nature when tying dries, I wouldnt skimp on the wings, if cheating time is the issue I would recommend buying flies..(I would tie them wings Cross those "T"s and Dot Those "I''s

[NJFred]

Great question and discussion guys... my 2 cents.

I agree with the yes and no. First of all many fish will eagerly take an emerger and often only take emergers (with or without the wings popping through the back of the casing). Same kind of comment for spinners... However my comments are in regard to fish clearly eating duns.

There are times when fish seem to key on the wing profile (The first thing they see is the tip of the wing when the fly is moving downstream towards them). I think at times this wing tip becomes a critical item of food recognition within their little pea brains where pattern recognition is how they decipher food from stream debris.

At other times it doesn't seem to matter. They key in on body size, silhouette and color. Of course this is hard to really determine as a fish eating duns will most of the time also eat and emerger which could look like a dun without wings.

Some times, often during heavy hatches, they can get keyed in to wings of cripples many with a wing in the film. The wing in the film can be critical as it represents a large part of the silhouette.

Once again these are just some of the things I've observed and much of this comes from fishing the Delaware where wild fish are highly selective due to an abundance of food and fishing pressure.

[Silver Creek]

[quote author=Nymphmeister link=topic=3611.msg27487#msg27487 date=1254887594]
Silver-
I always find your posts to be interesting & well thought out. But I have to respectfully take exception with what you said about "A standard dry floating on the tips of it's tail and the hackle looks little like a real mayfly which rests on its abdomen, on the film". Mayfly duns are actually supported on the water by their legs, and their abdomens do not rest on the water, but are actually slightly above i, with only the legs touching it. Only the larger Drake-type mayfly duns (Hexs, Green & Brown Drakes, etc.) rest with their abdomens in the film, due to their heavier body weight. LaFontaine (my hero, Lol) talks about this in detail in his book "The Dry Fly", and he also terms flies like Comparaduns & No-Hackles as "nymph-duns", because he says they don't accurately represent a dun due to the bodies being flush in the film, but rather are part way between the true nymph & dun stages, sort of an upright-winged emerger I guess. Spent spinners also have their abdomens in the film. Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but I cannot help but correct this point. Now I'll shut up. :-X
[/quote]

Thanks for the correction.

I agree that comparaduns, sparkle duns and the like are can be taken as emergers. Gary Borger calls the parachute primarily an emerger. The "wing" simulates the emerging insect with the body of the flies not representing a dry fly body but the nymphal body, and the hackle the representing the legs of the nymph and commingled emerging dun.

What do the trout actually see? Well, truth be told they don't see nearly as well as we see. We see 14 times better than a trout because we have 14 times the density of rods and cones in our retina. Check out Salmonid Vision at sexyloops. So what we see in detail, they see in blurry shape. The advantage a trout has is that the shape of its lens is a sphere and it has a wide depth of field. However it still needs to be very close to the fly to see detail, I suspect that when the trout get that close and have the opportunity to examine a standard dry fly, it doesn't look very much like a real dun.

Another point is that the commonly held belief that a trout cannot see the portions of a fly that are outside the window or only portions of the fly through the window is false. A fly or in fact a heavy natural resting on the film, depresses and slants the meniscus. This depression tilts the surface of the water so that the trout can see portions of the fly through this tilted surface. The greater the depression, the more the fish can see.

Although I cannot prove it, I suspect that in slow flows the fish have time to learn to identify not only the impression of the fly on the film but what the pattern they see outside the tilted window to decide whether the fly is an insect.

This same principle of a tilted window occurs in riffles. In riffles the water surface is not flat but tilted in small individual waves. The fish can see through these tilted surfaces because each wave surface has a "window" that occurs at at different angle to the fish than the the water surface that is parallel to the river bottom.

So in the fish's view of our fly or the natural we are dealing with three factors - poor fish vision but with a great depth of field; a window through which a fish sees that is determined by the slant of a variable water surface to the fish; the impression and depression of the fly on the water surface. When I consider these three factors and whether a wing on a standard dry fly will be the determining factor whether the fish takes or rejects the fly, I just don't think it is very important.