I've been experimenting with ways to make the Jeff Smith style 'Buffy' type fly without using the ezbody spreader. Ezbody's become hard to locate and I was never good at getting the front profile 'slim' enough to minimize the wind resistance through the air.
My latest attempts have been built aound making the spreader by doing a high/low tie of seafiber about 1/2" to 1/4" back from the eye. I also tie in a modest bunch of pink kinky fibre with some flash to provide some internal color contrast. Once the 'spreader' is built I coat it lightly with softex and set it aside until it cures.
Once it's dry, then I tie in the body first using white kinky fibre keeping it sparse. Add some pink angel hair for a gill, yellow unique hair for a wing and then a combination of flash and colored kinky fibre ( this one has a blue underwing with blue/green flash blended on top. )
Add the eyes and then coat the head back to behind the eyes with softex.
For size reference, this is a 6/0 Teimco hook. When 'tank-tested' the fly keeps it's height profile very well because of the stability of the spreader....
For those that are looking for a way to build large profile flies with out a massive amount of body materials you might want to give this a try
My latest attempts have been built aound making the spreader by doing a high/low tie of seafiber about 1/2" to 1/4" back from the eye. I also tie in a modest bunch of pink kinky fibre with some flash to provide some internal color contrast. Once the 'spreader' is built I coat it lightly with softex and set it aside until it cures.
Once it's dry, then I tie in the body first using white kinky fibre keeping it sparse. Add some pink angel hair for a gill, yellow unique hair for a wing and then a combination of flash and colored kinky fibre ( this one has a blue underwing with blue/green flash blended on top. )
Add the eyes and then coat the head back to behind the eyes with softex.
For size reference, this is a 6/0 Teimco hook. When 'tank-tested' the fly keeps it's height profile very well because of the stability of the spreader....
For those that are looking for a way to build large profile flies with out a massive amount of body materials you might want to give this a try