[sly] No reason to feel bad about my crass remark!
But since DryRod brought up the perennial subject of just exactly what all we can make the wings of a good Dry out of...I had some thoughts on that, and I'm gonna subject you to them.
I think fish have a small brain with a pretty good filter for "Food or not-food".
They come up to investigate almost anything. Life is tough for them. The 'first fish to the food gets it' environment.
You've seen fish jump over your fly? Or that swirl right next to the fly? That's their active filter in action.
He got close enough to bite, and something wasn't right!
So...wings. If you make the wings look gauzy, as if the wings are in motion, you MIGHT get a look. That might be good enough to pass the filter, if the fish normally sees the fly in motion.
In order to get that LOOK, I think you'd have to trim the gob so it looks like the whirring motion of real wings in action.
Gauzy wings can be a gob of fur or synthetic stuffing. That stuff DryRod is throwing away, and the rest of us are Dumpster diving for!
On synthetic stuffing, I'm guessing now...the synthetic stuffing might hold tiny bubbles of air, (on the 2nd or third cast) which might be like a bunch of little silver spoons. Good attractors.
Also the fly wont get wet and tend to sink, causing you to make a few Wind casts to dry the fly out.
But if the fish normally sees those wings in a static state, ie 'the bugs not flying' then you better tie them with the creative care of Vargas making one of his nudes.
That would be a bug tied in a manner that set's on the water, wings up, every time.
Years ago I had some Montana Buck tails. About 30 of them tied in all kinds of variations.
The Prettiest of them caught fish. Eventually all I had left was the ugly ones, untrimmed etc which I gave to a neighbor kid.
The good ones that catch fish eventually get lost through operator error because they get used the most.
A lesson which should prompt a guy to buy a very small camera for capturing the images of the flies that worked before you use them to death or lose them.
Thats what I think right now, in the dead of winter, confined to a warm room, wishing....
[signature]