An original Franz Pott fly: the Sandy Mite with a nifty but time-consuming woven hair hackle


A beadhead way to make a quick and dirty imitation (the bead makes the hair flare out)



This one is made with a dubbing brush, where the dubbing brush was wound with thread rather than wire. Soaking the thread (both directions, left and right, top and bottom) with fabric cement just prior to winding the brush makes it work --with thread rather than wire.


....it occurs to me you could make hair hackle dry flies this way too, using a thread/fabric cement dubbing brush. Hmmm. One roadkill badger skin would be a lifetime supply of badger guard hairs. For dry flies.

Great!

RE> performs as well -- good question

That's hard to answer without making a side-by-side comparison. I've been using the quick and dirty beadhead flare version for a decade now. It's been a goto fly for me.

The new woven hair hackle version (third pic down on the original post) is so new I can't really say. In Fall I tend to fish streamers or--when the hatch is on--small blue winged olive wet flies. I don't fish dry flies during the BWO hatch because I can't see them any more. And wet flies seem to work just as well. If not better. I do fish BWO wetflies behind a bushy Royal Wulff, which I can see. Set the hook when a dimple happens behind the big bushy.

I'll test the dubbing loop version next Spring.