Tips for making nice head on deer hair flys

[Steve]

Does anyone have any tips for making a nice neat head on a fly such as the Muddler? I can usually get the job done, but its never easy, and I sometimes have problems tying off a neatly without pulling too much hair into the finished whip.

[WEEZER]

I've been tying muddlers and fishing them for a couple of years and I've learned that the fish don't care about a perfectly tied fly :)
(Thank god!)
The best tip I can give you is to learn to whip finish with just one hand. Then you can hold the hair back away from the eye. (It's not really that difficult to do.)
All my other tips are too hard to explain. Sorry.

[Steve]

Yeah, I know the fish don't care but it still drives me nuts when I compare mine to one that you would buy. Whip finish with one hand? Wow, I got a long way to go before I can do that.

[Bob T]

Steve, a variation of Muddler Minnow that I have been using a lot the last couple of years is the Bullet Head Muddler. Its head is tied similar to the Thunder Creek series of streamers. The tips of the deer hair are tied forward and then folded back to form the head. This saves trimming the head and is less wind resistant while casting.

After you tie your last clump of deer hair, throw on couple half hitches or a quick whip finish and cut your thread. Poke a hole in a 2 X 2" piece of plastic zip-lock bag and put that between the hair and the eye. You can then reattach your thread a make a very neat, hair free head.
I saw a guy (Gabe) do this yesterday at the tying exhibits at the Flint Muddler Minnows fly show in Shwartz Creek. Watching this guy was worth the cost of admission.
Jack C.

[Steve]

Hey, thanks for the tip. That one sounds like a real good one. It may be worth a tutorial with pictures on this site.

[washeta]

Another opton is to use Aluminium Foil in place of the plastic zip-lock bag.

[This message has been edited by washeta (edited 02-21-2000).]

[This message has been edited by washeta (edited 02-21-2000).]