My NIFTy Special

I would like to share what I have learned over the past 5 weeks tying the NIFTy Special. First off, I would like to thank Jack for all of the time he has spent putting this program together. For those of you who do not know Jack well, he is very generous with sharing his knowledge and is an all around great guy to be around!

This is an image of my completed fly. This is the 4th full dress salmon fly that I have tied. I was real proud that I was able to get the wings on by myself. Since this is a "learning fly", I would like to share the knowledge that I gained from our instruction. First off, like any fly you tie, proportions are king. When I was working on this fly, I concentrated on technique and did not pay attention to the proportions. I am not beating myself up on this because that is what this is all about...practice and learning.


When I tied the whip finish, I could not wait to show Jack. I was real happy with the shape of the wings and the way the tail, wings and topping met at the rear of the fly. Remember what I was saying about proportion? Jack being the fine instructor that he is pointed out the big hole at the rear of the fly. He did like allot of my other handy work, but since this is a learning fly, well you have to point out the stuff you need to improve on!


Since my fly was complete, I thought I would take the opportunity to use a little Photoshop compositing to try to correct my errors, thus making this a great learning opportunity. The easiest thing to fill the big hole would be to have the tippet extend further towards the rear of the fly, as shown above.


I could add some Indian Crow behind the butt. I would have had to have known that I was going to make the tippet end where it would have ended due to the tying sequence.


I could have tied in some jungle cock as veiling to fill the hole.

Lastly, I could have tied in a longer stemmed piece of jungle cock after tied in the wings.
This was a fun exercise that has many possibilities. I hope you learned as much as I did.