Beads & Skulls
Peter Watson turns some creative heads with Flymen accessories
The Flymen Fishing Company from Charlotte, North Carolina has released some innovative options for getting weight into your fly patterns, with the Nymph Head brand of beads and Fish Skull weighted heads for streamers.
Brass and tungsten beads have been with us for a while but they’ve added a few twists to these regulars of the tying bench. Their Nymph Head Flycolor brass bead and Nymph Head Heavy Metal tungsten bead ranges are available in six sizes and ten eye-catching colours. Alongside the standard gold, silver and copper there are muted realistic colours such as Mayfly Brown and Caddis Green, or for something different to show the fish, perhaps Steelhead Blue and Shrimp Pink is what you’re after.
Along with the same great colour range the tungsten beads have a 3D eye effect with a small raised eye on either side of the bead giving a great insect-like profile. The eyes not only add 15 percent more weight, they can be coloured with a waterproof marker or paint pen to create a great lifelike quality. Brown or green beads with black eyes have a subdued realistic appearance while black beads with red or orange eyes really stand out with the ‘hot spot’ of bright colour.
All the beads are countersunk and once packed with thread or a few wraps of lead wire have no problems with twisting around on a finished fly, and having your tungsten beads with eyes makes them easy to distinguish in your fly-box.
Fish Skulls are weighted heads designed primarily for streamer type flies. Awarded the Dealers Choice Award for Best New Fly Tying Product at the 2010 Fly Fishing Retail World Expo, these are sure to become a standard for those wanting realistic weighted baitfish patterns. The skulls represent the head and gill plates of a baitfish, come supplied with quality 3D eyes that sit in a small recess on either side of the skull, and are available in four sizes and seven colours to complement most of the common tying materials. With comparable weights to dumbbell eyes, they provide a similar sink rate and are designed with 70 percent of that weight on the underside. This keeps your fly stable in the water and allows you to put them on upside-down to flip your fly over and have it ride hook point up to offer a level of snag proofing.
They are amazingly quick and easy to add to a fly. Simply tie your fly as normal leaving a millimetre or so behind the eye before adding a drop of superglue to the thread wraps and sliding the Skull onto the front over the eye of the hook; then a few quick turns of thread in front of the skull will lock it in place. This ability to add them after the fly is completed opens the possibilities of adding weight in the field. Having a selection of heads and adding them as needed may just bring a few tricky fish undone.
Nymph Head beads and Fish Skulls are worth keeping in mind next time you’re tying up some weighted patterns. From tiny size 20 midges up to 4/0 baitfish patterns, the guys at Flymen Fishing Company have it covered.
Trade Enquiries to Clarkson Imports 03 9758 7722.