I am far from knowledgable in traditionals but they both look good to me. I'd be thrilled if I was tying flies looking like that. Would happily swing both of them.

 

Not to worry; the Puppy will Hunt.
:smokin:

 

The LADY CAROLINE doesn't look half bad. You used the wrong tail on it though since the tail for it is specified as "red breast feather fibers from a golden pheasant" in the pattern dressings for it. Also, your eye loop is too big and needs to be smaller. Use you bodkin and wrap the loop material over it to get the right size eye loop.

The dee fly isn't bad, but is isn't very good either. The body is a bit too thick, the tail looks a tad short, the flat tinsel tip is a bit too long (it should only cover the space between the root of the barb and hook point), the oval tinsel isn't always tightly against the flat tinsel ribbing (and it needs to be), the ribbing is not evenly spaced, the head is too long. there shouldn't be all that exposed thread between the body and the wing, and the wing is tied improperly (this is the biggest problem). Dee wings need to be tied in with the wing butts tied-in so that they are tightly up against each other, not overlapping as you tied yours. If they overlap, they will splite as soon as they are fished. If butted tightly up against each other without overlapping, they will not split. Granted, it is a lot more difficult to tie them properly when first learing to tie dee flies, but unless you work on doing it correctly (and yes this is one of those rare cases where there really is only one correct way to do it), you are going to become very frustrated.

 

Russ !!! give you very nice tip for you.
Still good to go fishing with this one,,,,well done !!!!


Jin

 

Russ !!! give you very nice tip for you.
Still good to go fishing with those one,,,,well done !!!!


Jin

 

yeah I see all that russ..

I didn't mean for the wing to cross..I had it in but turned it when I tied it down and forgot to fix it before the final tie down..
Head is horrible...that is a problem I'm constantly trying to fix...

I kind of had a few ideas about the body and none of them turned out the way I thought...way fat body, tinsel went to hell on me...pretty much everything you see and said...

I'll fish it and see what it does but I don't have a lot of hope for it...more showing that when you do things your way and not the books way this is what happens..

The tail on the lady C was an experiment...I want to see what it looks like in the water and if it will swim OK?

Appreciate the help...Next time I'll take my time a bit more...

 

not an expert at all, in fact the opposite, but having success setting dee wings. put the back one on first, then set the front one up against it. if you set teh back one right, the front one is much easier. pick winging fibres that are a bit resilient as well, if they move too much, its hard to tie em in.

 

Not trying to hijack this post at all. But on the Dee wings, how bad is the issue if they are overlapping? Just curious as was watching Dec and Martys DVD the other night and I could swear they tied in the Dee wings overlapping at tie in. Just a curiosity thing. Been wanting to try getting into more traditional flies but every time I keep hearing how picky and complicated it scares me. I sometimes lack the patience to tie a wooly bugger! lol!

 

I have the dec and Marty video and thought the same thing. his wings cross over in that video, but in his sbs on here he does it right.

here is my take after a few attempts at classics for ya Miked. if you are pretty comfy with tying, good with thread control and tension, then it will come with a few tries. you need to be able to minimize thread wraps. finding good materials to work with is hard. these are the challenges. its fun to try it out and what have you to lose?

that being said, after some practice, setting most wing types gets easier and easier

 

as already mentioned the wings tend to come apart when not "compressed" together..

 

"- This is what happens when you think you know what your doing and then realize you really don't... - "

Agreed! My initial attempts at these turned out in similar fashion: Simply too much going on. Although not the Lady Caroline, the spey is not a bad spey at all. I would clean it up a bit though. Keep the bands through the body to four or five turns. All other ribbing or counter-ribbing should compliment the bands, not crowd them out. Shorten the tag a bit also. Keep the pattern classy-clean.

As for the Dee: everything flytyer has mentioned... and maybe I need to take a second look at some of my recent attempts...

 

If you put a little bit of flexible cement, such as a light coat of Dave's Flexament on the wings where they cross over each other, it will help keep them from splitting when fished, Granted, it will look a bit Micky-Mouse, but the fish won't care and the fly will fish better because the wing will stay together instead of splitting.