Scissors:

Throughout my many years tying flies, I quickly understood that one of the most important tools are the scissors you use. During this time I have accumulated several dozen pairs of scissors, in all forms, shapes and sizes, but if I am honest, I have only four scissors that are constantly in use. 

1. A pair of small extra fine pointed cuticle scissors for all the small detailed work and thread.

2. A General purpose serrated scissors for cutting tinsel, wire and heavier gauge materials.

3. A pair of long bladed straight scissors for larger jobs like preparing materials for dubbing loops.

4. A medium pair of sharp pointed serrated scissors for deer hair work.

Here are the best techniques for making deer do what you want it to do!

Anglo – Swedish caddis:

This is a hybrid pattern that combines two great patterns, the wing and head of the Swedish streaking caddis and the body of the British Goddards caddis. There are a few techniques here that are useful when tying with deer hair. 

Cut a thin strip of deer hair from a winter coat, rather like a deer hair zonker strip and attach a Magic tool clip about half way down the hair.

With a pair long straight scissors trim off the hide from the deer hair strip. You will see that there is a little under fur left in the trimmed end!

Using a tooth brush, brush out the loose hairs and under fur from the clip.

Place a terrestrial hook in the vice.

Cover the hook shaft with a foundation of tying thread. I use only Dyneema gel spun thread for tying with deer hair, if you haven’t tried it I recommend you do!

Make a dubbing loop at the rear of the hook, make sure that the two ends of the loop closest too the hook shank are touching each other! If they are not the loop will remain open and will not grip the deer hair.  Wind your tying thread forward out of the way toward the hook eye.

Un treated deer hair is quite fatty, If you wax your thread it has a much better purchase on the hair and reduces the chances of it slipping in the loop.

Place the loaded magic tool clip in the dubbing loop and trap the deer hair centrally in the loop.

Start to spin your deer hair in the dubbing loop. You can see in this image that the loop is not fully spun as you can still see the core of tying thread.

You must continue spinning the loop until the core is no longer visible and the hair is evenly spun.

You can now start wrapping the deer hair dubbing brush as you would a traditional palmer hackle along the whole hook shank.

Make sure that you brush the deer hair fibers back with each turn so as not to trap them with the next turn!

Once you have wound the whole dubbing brush tie it off and give it a good brushing with a tooth brush in every direction. This will free any fibers the have become trapped and give a better result when trimmed.

With a pair of serrated straight scissors trim the hair from the rear of the hook.

Once fully trimmed you should have a Goddard caddis type body.

For the wing you will need a generous bunch of deer hair. Remove ALL the under fur, if you dont, the hair will not spin fully.

Once cleaned stack the hair in a hair stacker. Measure the wing on the hook.

While holding the hair in place at the correct length on the body make two loose turns with tying thread around the bunch of deer hair and then tighten.

Make a few tight turns of tying thread through the remaining deer hair towards the hook eye to secure it and whip finish.

Remove your tying thread and once again give the flared deer har head a good brushing.

Now, while resting your scissors on the hook eye trim the head all the way round.

The under side of the head should be trimmed level with the body and cone shaped.

Take a lighter and singe the trimmed deer hair head. Take care not to set the whole fly on fire!

Once the head is singed give it another brush with the tooth brush to remove the soot. And there you have it , the Anglo Swedish caddis.

Here are a couple more quick techniques, for making cork like bodies from deer hair and a deer hair guard.