Thoughts?

[Mr.Smith]

With the javelina season over I am finally working on my swap flies. I have tied a couple good looking flies so far but I am not sold on which one I want to use for the swap. One is a size 18, longish tail, crane feather wrapped hurl style for the body, CDC wing with a small gray hackle. This fly looks good but is pretty tough to tie. The other is a size 16 all the same except double the body a bigger wing and no hackle.
Do you think a good CDC wing will keep a fly in the film without a hackle? I like the look of the bigger one more but I'm not sure it will float.
I'm going for a light gray emerger, real nymph like body with just enough wing/hackle to keep it in the film.

[shlitzhead]

Do you think a good CDC wing will keep a fly in the film without a hackle? I like the look of the bigger one more but I'm not sure it will float.
I'm going for a light gray emerger, real nymph like body with just enough wing/hackle to keep it in the film.

it certainly should. cdc wing comparaduns do, as do cdc winged caddis flies.
sounds like a pretty good emerger to me.

mgj

[Mr.Smith]

Sweet. Thanks Mike. This is my first time working with cdc, all from ducks I shot this year.

[Iluvmyfly]

I like to use the dry floatant to brush the CDC and then it floats in that film perfectly. We have a rusty spinner fall here in the summer that this works really good for. It is only good for a few casts though and then you have to do it again. In fact, I think Jude showed me that at the Juan a year ago.

T

[Mr.Smith]

I read an article on the web that sstated that you should not dress CDC because it takes away the natural floatabilty of the feather. The feather floats because of its shape not because of the oils on it.

[Bighand]

It would ne nice if they would tell which types floatants not use. The paste, gel types you do not use on CDC. One gummie mess of feathers. The brands like Frog's Fanny works great on CDC. It is a fine dry flake type powder. Also like to treat the CDC wing on a CDC winged RS-2 with Frog's Fanny to make it float. Better yet when fishing it deep on a nymph set up.