Orange Snælda Variant – How to Tie, Step by Step
I have recently been receiving questions regarding materials, buildup and more about my "Snældas". Since it seems to be an interesting fly for quite a few people, I decided to make a little step-by-step description on how I tie and build my take on them.
This fly could easily be tied in any of your favorite colour combination, as well as with different weights for different conditions. I decided to tie an orange version here with what I would call a "decent" weight.
Follow below the material needed and the way I tied it, enjoy!
Materials:
– Orange soft hair in short to moderate length (fox, dog etc.)
– Hot orange buck tail
– Stripped feathers for feelers (grizzly natural)
– Orange soft hackel
– Jungle cock cheeks
1. First up is mounting the tube to the needle. I use a quite short piece of M Tubing. Make sure to overlap the two tubes with 5-10 mm and remember to leave enough space in the M Tubing to fit your hook.
2. Lock them together with your thread (pull tight!), or in your desired way.
3. Add your soft hair. Try to encourage it all around the tube and make it slightly longer than the end of the tube. Don’t take to much! It seems thicker in the picture than it really is.
4. Add some buck tail. One bunch on top and one underneath. I make the buck tail approximately twice the length of the softer hair. Add a few strands of angel hair/flash on top of the buck tail on both sides.
5. Add feelers. You can add as many as you want. I personally think four is enough. Concerning length, I want them to be twice as long as the rest of the fly.
Tip: when you choose feathers for the feelers, use a quality feather with a fairly even taper in the stem. Coq De Leon feathers work great. Also, when they are tied in I usually put drop of glue on top of each stem. Might not be necessary, but I do it just in case.
6. Dub the section where you just tied in hair and feelers. Use more dub if you want a really flashy appearance.Brush the dub as much- or as little as you prefer. Also, if you want a slightly fatter fly with additional movement, you can add a soft hacker in front of the dub as well.
7. Now to the body and it’s here I add the weighted section of the fly. I build my bodies with regular FITS tungsten cones and in this particular tie, I used two cones in size S and XS. Here you have all the options you want concerning color, overall body length and weight. I try to taper the body to the front and by using two or three different sized cones and it turns out just fabulous. You can even use one cone in desired size if you want a short and lighter fly.
8. Tight up against the cones I add a soft hackel. It moves brilliantly and the length is all up your self. Add JC feather for cheeks if you want.
9. Finish it all up with a Turbo Cone in size micro. If you really want a fly that sinks like a bar of lead, feel free to use a regular tungsten cone instead.
