Back in January, I posted about a fly pattern that I had learned to tie. It incorporates a 3D printed head on the fly and I like how the fly turned out. To read that post, just click here. To follow up on this post, I wanted to share what I learned after putting it in a tester tank and a small change that I made as a result of what I observed.
I always like to get the negative out of the way so the positive feels like some sort of reward. Lets start with the bad news. I had expected the the gray version of the fly with the rabbit strip to have some great action in the water. While it did have action, it was underwhelming. That fly also struggled to sink at all which was also a bummer.
The good news is that the olive fly with the marabou back sank a little better (it almost had neutral buoyancy actually) and the action was just as good as the fly with the rabbit strip. The lack of a rabbit strip means that the fly just became cheaper to tie as well as the fact that the marabou doesn't seem to foul as much as the rabbit strip does. However, anyone that knows me is aware that I'm not the type of person to leave "good enough" alone.
So I tied a third fly. This one incorporated craft fur as a back and, in my opinion, is the optimal design. The action of the fly was a little less than the marabou but also caused it to hold a better profile. What I really mean is that the marabou made the fly appear more fluffy, which didn't seem very realistic. The craft fur gave more of a wavy, swimming motion and the profile of the fly looked more lifelike. Check out the videos, as well as the pictures below, for visuals on what I am attempting to describe. All that's left now it field testing!
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