10-08-2007, 08:22 PM
If you don't wrap the entire hook shank with lead wire. Wrapping the entire shank with lead will tend to make the fly sink quicker from the increased weight.
If you don't wrap the entire hook shank you can affect the way the nymph pattern reacts to pauses in your stripping or dead drift falls.
Put the weight forward and the front of the fly will drop quicker than the back making it look more like a fish diving for the bottom and give more eratic jigging motion.
Put it to the back of the fly and the back of the hook will drop quicker than the front. I know of a guide who does that with his halfback nymph patterns that simulate a stone fly nymphs. Stonefly nymphs when knocked loose of the the rocks floats with its back end low in the water and it top have with its feet swimming in the water. With the fly tied to the tippet and and the back end weighted the fly will tend to stay vertically oriented in the water like a stonefly nymph.
If the entire shank is wrapped the fly has more of tendancy to fall in a horizontal plane with less eratic movement.
These characteristics can be altered some by the the size, shape and materials of the tail, wings, beard, and hackle of the fly.
I am not smart enough to know just how much though.
[signature]
If you don't wrap the entire hook shank you can affect the way the nymph pattern reacts to pauses in your stripping or dead drift falls.
Put the weight forward and the front of the fly will drop quicker than the back making it look more like a fish diving for the bottom and give more eratic jigging motion.
Put it to the back of the fly and the back of the hook will drop quicker than the front. I know of a guide who does that with his halfback nymph patterns that simulate a stone fly nymphs. Stonefly nymphs when knocked loose of the the rocks floats with its back end low in the water and it top have with its feet swimming in the water. With the fly tied to the tippet and and the back end weighted the fly will tend to stay vertically oriented in the water like a stonefly nymph.
If the entire shank is wrapped the fly has more of tendancy to fall in a horizontal plane with less eratic movement.
These characteristics can be altered some by the the size, shape and materials of the tail, wings, beard, and hackle of the fly.
I am not smart enough to know just how much though.
[signature]