Burglar Step By Step: Something Different

Rather than do a demo of the original Burglar, I thought I would do something a little different. So here is another cool streamer that need the same materials. I didn't add pictures for the first few steps, as they are pretty self explanatory.

Step One: Tie in the dumbbell eyes, making sure to leave some room for the dubbing head. Don't forget to use some head cement to keep the eyes really secure.

Step Two: tie in three or four pieces of marabou about an inch behind the eyes. Cover up all sides of the hook, so you can't see the straight part of the shank or your previous wraps. When you tie in the last piece of marabou, don't cut the tag end! You'll need it for the next step!

Step Three: Take that tag end of marabou that you (hopefully) didn't cut off, and wrap it up to the eyes. Don't make it to thick, or the wraps will slip over the dumbbell eyes. Also, secure the marabou with quite a few wraps of thread, otherwise the marabou will slip as soon as you cut the excess.

Step Four: Figure eight some dubbing around the eyes to cover up your thread. This step is pretty easy and self explanatory.

Step Five: Take a big piece of dubbing, pinch it in the center with one hand, and pull on each end with the other. Now tie in the dubbing at the center, push it back, and tie in the piece that is pointing forward. Do this on the bottom of the hook as well, and the result should look like this:

Congrats, just whip finish and you're done!

Enrico Puglisi Flies, Step By Step

Enrico Puglisi Flies

As promised, here is a step-by-step on tying flies with Enrico Puglisi flies. I decided to do something a little more complicated for the demo, but feel free (I recommend) to use only one or two colors at first. Good luck!

Step 1: Get your hook set up on the vise, and start a thread base about halfway down the hook shank. If you go to far back, you may end up with too much material and too beefy of a fly. Setup Tip- it will help to have a waste basket below you so you can sweep away any excess materials.


Step 2: Cut a 5 inch strand of your top color, containing about 20 individual fibers. tie in the clump at the halfway point, so one end points back and the others points towards the eye of the hook. Next, pull the front half of the fibers over and tie them down. This technique will use less material and create a taller shape.

Step 3: Tie in your next color the same way, but make sure this clump is closer to the side of the hook shank (rather than on top). Rather than tying the front half of your materials on the same side, pull them around the hook and tie them on the other side. This will create a more even color pattern. Continue moving forward and tying clumps in until you have: A-Created the color pattern you were looking for, and B-You hit the eye of the hook (or close to it).

Step 4: Whip finish the fly and cut the thread. Take the fly out of the vise and grab some scissors, because this is the step that will make or break your fly. Once you're all set, take the fly and fluff it as much as you can. This is what the fish will see when the fly swims through the water. Take your scissors, and start from the back by cutting at angles until it looks like,well, a fish. The real trick here is not to cut too much. If you do, you end up with a ball of fibers that doesn't have much action and looks too small in the water. If you messed up, you're back at step one; if you're still here, let's move on to the next step.

Step 5: If you have a small  cautery /welding tool hidden in the garage, now would be the time to grab it. What you're trying to do here is create a small hole in the fibers where you want the eyes to be. Once you've got that done, use some epoxy to glue in some eyes. Voila! The finished fly... well, maybe.

Step 6: This last step is totally optional. If you want your fly to have lines, spots, or any special markings, just take a sharpie and add them in. This seems like a small step, but it can be the difference between a good looking fly and a great looking fly.

Tying With Enrico Puglisi Fibers

Tomorrow or the next day I'm hoping to do a little demo on how to tie Enrico Puglisi style flies. I've just learned how to tie these myself, so they look nowhere near as good as his do, but they're still nice. On a quick test today at a nearby pond, I managed to land four bass in around an hour on these flies. For a place that doesn't have too many fish in it, I consider that pretty good. Whether you have never tied these before, just want a refresher, or are coming to make you feel better about your own flies by watching mine, it should be a cool experiment. Here's what you'll need (it's a pretty short list):

• Enrico Puglisi Fibers (I use EP 3D Silky Fibers). These are available at most fly shops, including Rocky Mountain Anglers for those of you who live near Boulder.
• Your favorite bass or saltwater hook, and just size it depending on what you're fishing for.
• Stick-On or Epoxy Eyes, sized to match the overall size you're hoping for the fly to be. 
• Obviously, all your tools and your vise. Oh, and if you are or live with a doctor, try to find a cauterizing pen. It can help to keep the eyes in place. 

The last instruction I have is this: these flies are expensive. These are high quality materials, so they get pricy. Just fish these things on some heavy tippet (I like 0x Seaguar Fluorocarbon).


Disclaimer: I am not paid or compensated in any way by Enrico Puglisi for doing this demo. Merely, I am using his amazing materials to create some cool creations and hopefully teach a few tricks. Also, acknowledge that Enrico is much better at tying these flies than me, and that anything I do incorrectly is just a mistake, not me contradicting his tricks. So far, everything I've learned from his website has made my flies better. I urge you to watch his videos and take whatever tips you can from them to put into your own tying.

One Of My Creations

Search And Destroy Caddis Step By Step

Status Update: Unfortunately, due to the fact that my camera can't take a picture to save it's life battery, I don't have any step by step pictures. Instead, since you are all good fly tiers, I'm just going to write the steps and let you work off the picture from yesterday. I have faith in you!


Step One: Put the glass bead on the hook, then put the hook in the vice. Who would have guessed?!

Step Two: Bring the thread to the back of the hook, doing your best to put one wrap behind the other. Next, tie in the pheasant fibers for the tail. It is very important to try and keep the wraps even, so you can build a better body later on.

Step Three: Build up the body in an even taper all the way up to the bead. I can't stress how crucial it is to make the body nice. Don't get me wrong, it will catch fish either way. I'm just critical of my own flies. If your not, you're a lucky bastard that's great. I put way too many flies in the "no" pile because of minor things. But back to the step-by-step.

Step Four: Cut off a small piece of the micro braid, and tie it in a little behind the bead. clip it to the length you want. I tie mine with so the braid goes back to where the body ends and the tail begins.

Step Five: Dub the head of the fly loosely. It looks better when there's a few fibers sticking out. Tie off the fly, and you're set! Go rip up some Spring Bows!

Fluttering Minnow Step By Step

Steps 1-2: Tie in the dumbbell eyes about 1/4 of an inch behind the eye of the hook. This will leave you room for adding Silky Fibers later on. Next, move toward the back of the fly and tie in a small clump of Root Beer Silky Fibers as you would a marabou tail.

Steps 3-4: Continue moving forward on the hook, tying on clumps of Grey Silky Fibers on in a Dubbing Loop fashion. Stop adding when you hit the eye, but make sure to add only a bit at a time so you don't overcrowd the hook. Next, use a piece of marabou to Spey around the eye. For the fly shown, I switched the marabou to some Hareline Dubbing. 

Step 5-Finish: Dubbing Loop on another clump of Root Beer Silky Fibers in front of the dumbbell eyes. Whip finish the fly and add a drop of head cement. Now dip the thing in the water to get the shape looking right before you throw up. Seriously, that thing looks gross right now.