Clouser - Taper Principle - SBS

[kelly]

Hi all,

Not sure the title is correct, but here goes, warn you that my spelling is really atrocious.

For those who didn't watch MC at the CPS a month or two ago.
I don't do much saltwater fishing but i have tied a few clousers for the odd trip as well as for tiger fish. What really hit home that evening was the whole concept of tapering the fly. I hope this SBS helps demonstrate that principle. I don't actually have my saltwater stuff with me, so i have stripped an old fly and remade it.



Hook : your choice!

Thread : I used 140 in Fl Chart for this, you can vary this how you please.

Head : thread as above.

Wing : either synthetic or bucktail, Definitely pref bucktail if you have the correct length for the fly you want to make. I have tied this in yellow and white as thats all i can find But chart and white is always a good combo in the salt. I found dark colours worked best for me when fishing for tigers (grey and black etc).

Body : Your choice, could also have no body. I have used a thread base with mylar over it.

Flash : again your choice, didnt use flash for this as I am just try to demonstrate something.

Eyes : Dumbell , can paint eyes on it, again I didn't do it for the example.



Step 1: Tie on thread and wind back to give a base for the dumbell eyes.



Step 2: Tie in the dumbell eyes, I find a figure of eight over the eyes and hook, followed by tight horizontal wraps beneath the eyes but above the hook helps hold it tight.


Step 3: Tie in some flash, either in front or behind the eyes. Tying in in front of the eyes will generally give you a neater looking fly as the wing will cover it up.


Step 4: Make neat touching turns of the thread to the hook bend, trapping the body material as you go. Holding the material at 90 degree's to the hook shank helps keep your thread turns next to each other. Alternatively you can keep the thread at the eyes and wind the body material to the hook bend.


Step 5: Neatly wind the body material back up too the tie in point. Make 2-3 securing wraps and trim the excess material. At this stage you can use epoxy on the body for added durability.


Step 6: Turn the hook over in the vise. NB-Really the whole point of this post. Turning the hook over.....No not that. Preparation of the wing material. Wish I had some bucktail for this, but i hope you still get the idea. How this varies from the other clouser SBS posted is that you tie the material down in many more step/increments using different lengths to get a TAPER on the "body" of the fly. For the first step you tie your material in short. You will see the reason for this as the steps go on. Another important note, You want to get all the material as high up on the hook as possible. ie you dont want the fibers to get tied in on the sides. You use a pinch and loop for this and to make it even more effective, once you have tied it down with about 2 turns of thread I hold the material on both sides(the long tail part and the part in front of the thread which you will soon trim off) and pull it up to align all the material on top of the hook. Then secure with a few more tight turns of thread. Trim excess material off in front of thread. you want to trim this off at an angle to get a nice taper on the head. (eg if the head is positioned like the picture below you want to cut the excess material off at an angle of about 135-160 degrees to the hook shank). Note that you are tying in only a small amount of the total material each time.


step 7: Basically a repeat of the previous step, this time with slightly longer material. Again making sure to get the fibers as neatly as possible on top of the previous wraps.



Continues further down the page, maybe someone with authority can move it up...

[FishWhisperer]

Im getting strange codes and no pics... just me??

[kreef]

Me too, where did the pics go?

[kelly]

help please?

[kelly]

Give me five minutes. First timer....

[Wiets]

Give me five minutes. First timer....

1. Edit your post
2. Click on Icon called "insert Image"
3. In the dialog box paste your image location string, eg;

http://upload1.zoopy.com/files/photo...d635_small.jpg

4. Click OK
5. Voila! There is the image!

[kelly]

Step 8: and again...... longer material than the previous. In my example this is now the last of the white and therefore the longest material and the final length of the fly.


Step 9: Same as the previous steps but starting from longest to shortest and using the next colour. You can also add some flash in before you put this layer on. You can use the same tying instructions as the above examples but using flash this time. Another nice variation is to add appropriate lengths and amounts of flash between ever application of wing material for a more flashy fly.


Step 10: You guessed it.......same as above with shorter material.


Step 11: I missed a photo of the last application, but same as above again with the final and shortest part of the wing.Note you could add some sort of material on the sides of the tapered head to add a lateral line down the side of the fly.Since you have been cutting the excess of at a nice taper each step of the way you can now complete the head with some nice tight turns of thread. Keeping the thread at a 90 degree angle to the taper of the head should help to stop the thread slipping donw towards the eye....good luck You now have the final fly....


I think the awesome taper you get with this fly is well worth the effort. You can adjust your lengths to get the taper to how you like. I think the taper on this fly could have been brought forward more (ie had more short lengths to thicken the front of the fly as the taper start a little late on this one)
A nice added bonus to this is that the material is much more secure. When you tie clousers in less steps you will find that it is easier for the wing/tail material to slip out as the material slips against itself.

Add: You can now apply some epoxy to the head. Could also put some on the thread wraps around the eyes to help secure it. Alternatively you could also have put a drop of super glue on the eyes.

Hope that all made sense, not gonna proof read it will edit later ,need to get back to some studies.


Here you can see the taper on the head...


And because we did such a sterling effort at keeping the material well placed on top of each other we get a slim profile on the head...


You can compare the hight of the head to the width to see this.

This concept is completely based on my observation of MC tying a fly.

First SBS(sort of) , hope its worth something to someone. Enjoyed doing it.
I will be doing a whole lot more on yellow flies in the next few months.
Need a decent camera for the small flies, these were taken with my cellphone!

[pieterkriel]

nice SBS Kelly

[FishWhisperer]

Very nicely done! Fab SBS! Cant wait to see the Lellofush flies.

I would just like to add one thing if I may. The taper he refers to, as far as I know is not only the taper of the head (which does give it a nice fishy shape) but he also tapers the body a lot too. The reason he does this is that as the water flows over the profile of the fly, the defined taper causes turbulence as the water rushes over the bulky head/body and then back down to the thinner tapered tail, which in turn causes the tail to shake/kick. I also think the fact that he adds so much material to the fly help to keep the taper in the water.
I have attached a few photos of the fly from that night... Im sure you will agree, its a thing of beauty!

Attachment 3272 Attachment 3273

[kelly]

Thanks, also thanks for clearing that up. I think i stressed the taper on the head to much the technique that i was trying to get across was the taper on the body. not so much the head.