Keep your fly floating – with dry fly silicone

Salmon from Ubber Humner Newfoundland Photo Jesper Fohrmann

Tricks on how to impregnate with dry fly silicone

FA classic in Dry Fly Fishing Mucilin Pasteor 100 million years… more or less – Salmon & trout have practised the art of hunting insects in the surface… and have become masters of this art. as soon as insects start flying the fish will be scanning the surface for the  – footprints – the entrapped animals leave on the surface. It is these insects and their appearance that is the key elements in our fishing… even though insects are tiny and motionless the fish will find them with amazing precision Read more on this:

Here the classical dry fly silicone add-on: Mucilin from Thames Fishing Tackle: Buy in our shop
A must-have product in the fly west, but don´t leave the Mucilin silicone in the back of your car, backpack or pocket to get boiled in the heat of summer… The dry fly silicone easily gets separated from the past leaving the product completely useless…In fact, if you’re unlucky you will never notice that the silicone has parted from the paste and you will, in fact, be applying a thick white past that very likely will make your fly sink and not float… Mucilin is best kept below 20 Degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit)

The right dry fly silicone – is the recipe.. to success

The way that our artificial flies present them self on the water is of great importance in our fishing… We want the fly to sit in the surface tension so to speak. To do so we need the fly to be well impregnated with water-repellent like silicone. Sins the late 1940`s  anglers have used products containing silicone to keep their flies afloat. It comes in many shapes and we prefer to use a combination of a liquid solution and a paste version both containing some silicone…

The liquid version of dry fly silicone from Thames Fishing Tackle – Good for ground preparation of big deer hair flies

Preparing dry flies for fishing

We have used a glass jar for this job. In this way, we will be able to prepare many flies at the same time

Preparing dry flies for fishing 2

Prior to fishing, we will impregnate the flies with dry fly silicone ones again. We use Silicone Mucilin Paste. Make sure to dissolve the paste between your fingertips before adding it to the fly.

Preparing dry flies for fishing

Here we use Silicone Mucilin from Thames Fishing Tackle. Hydrostop from Loon is also a product for this job Let the flies soak for 20 sec… Leave the flies to dry for at least 8 hours.

Preparing deer hair flies for fishing with dry fly silicone

Take care to rub it well into the deer hair structure of the fly – * this will make the flies look somewhat translucent – something very important in the world of dry fly fishing

 Translucent flies are killers

Translucent Bomber - Bomber a super dry fly for atlantic salmon* Now that we have touched the subject of translucency in flies we might show you something very interesting about deer hair flies.

Many people ask us why we don´t make our Bombers with foam or other floating material? In fact, we have tried this with different fly patterns made with; Cork, Balsa-wood, Styrofoam, EVA Foam and at some point I even did a fly with a small glass cylinder but none of it worked properly and we soon returned to flies made from deer hair… There do not seem to be any shortcuts on this project…

Why is deer hair so special? Well!  first of all, it seems like the deer hair (as most other hair material) has a natural ability to attract and deceive trout and salmon… It is like the concept of eating an animal with pelt isn’t that disagreeable with fish.

One very special Bomber Belonging to a UK angler I know – This fly has over time become very good because of: Wear and tear and multiple coatings of Muslin – All adding up to a translucent appearance that’s seemingly attractive to salmon 

Detail of the translucent BomberYou and I all have our favorite wet flies in the box. Flies that seem to fish much better than other flies…They might be torn up and dull looking but they will produce fish on the bank time after time… In fact, it is probably this ruggedness and dull looks that hold the secret to your success with this particular fly; If you take a close look you will find that the fly has become somewhat altered from usage. It could be little strands of wool coming undone – Hair splitting up from casting and fish teeth tearing at them – fading colors etc. All adding up to a more translucent appearance

Dry flies made with deer hair will also become better and better with time – It is if the deer hair become hollow ! when used over and over again – Something I will try to prove through picture of detail – Detail section is from picture above of the super-Bomber

Note the hollowness of the hairs that gives the fly this see-through appearance … as seen on the close up of the deer hair body

Don’t get dry fly silicone or such stuff on your leader

Avoid getting products like Mucilin onto your leader the leader will end up showing up like a neon sign on the surface – and salmon will stay clear of your fly… A good idea is to prepare the flies with the Mucilin past prior to your fishing trip. When you have impregnated your flies leave them in a tempered area – so the Silicone can set in the flies and the solvent in the past can evaporate.

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