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Founded 1994 by Armand Courchaine

 

Popovics Hollow Fleye

Demonstrated by Dick Pearce

Recipe

The link below takes you to a website with illustrated instructions.

  • Hook: Any size
  • Thread: White Flat Waxed Nylon
  • Tail, Body, and Wing: Any color deer hair from long hairs at bottom of tail. White is good, sometimes with short tie in front
  • Eyes: Large stick on eyes—with tabs.
  • Superglue
  1. Tie on tail. Length will determine length of fly.
  2. Reverse tie short hair ahead of tail (this will make the fly hollow): Wind thread 2-3 times loosely around butts (with tips hanging over eye). Wind once more and spin. Wind over butts. Push spun tips back with hair pusher. Tie down bent hair. Add a drop of superglue to winds.
  3. Tie on small amount of crinkly flash.
  4. Continue with progressively shorter bunches of deer hair to front of hook. 3 ties minimum.
  5. If desired, tie last bunch with a different color to produce a differently colored head.
  6. Stick on eyes and tie on tab. Make head.
  7. When dry hold under faucet. Let dry. Repeat to get shape. This is not necessary.

The following link above takes you to a website with illustrated instructions. But it doesn't deal with the difficulties of what Bob Popovics calls his hardest fly.

Here are a few suggestions:

The “Hollow Fleye” is formed by a series of reverse-tied, flared cones. Water flows though them to impart lifelike movement. The fly requires mastering two difficult techniques:

Winding the reverse tie. A small pinch of coarse hairs from the lower part of the deer tail must be spread evenly around the hook shank. Hold them with tips forward and wind 2-3 loose wraps, leaving no more than 1/8 inch of the butts behind the thread. Then pinch the butts with your left hand, starting at the top, until they look even. (I have a tendency to pull back on the butts as I pinch, increasing the length behind the thread; practice to avoid this.) Finish with a tight wind so that the tips flare.

The reverse tie is made with the hollow tube of a ballpoint pen (Popovics uses a Dynaking hair stacker). Lift the top hairs with your left hand and slide the tube till the tips are behind the hook bend. Then, grasping the hairs firmly with your left thumb and forefinger, slide off the tube, pull the thread all the way forward, and start winding against the rounded base of hair, holding firmly to the tips. The thread will gradually form a cone, which controls the size of the flare. More wraps and more thread tension reduce the flare. Wind until you are satisfied with the shape. Hold it under water to see what it will look like when fished.

Controlling the cone. Don’t vary the size of the flare much when you make the next cone. You need a minimum of three cones to form the fly. Leave at least 3/16th of an inch between cones.

The last hair cone should end very close to the eye. The final thread cone will push it back and form a head. (If you have a problem you can push a cone back with a hair pusher.)

Use tab eyes (they have them at the Bear’s Den), which are easily wound into the head and will stay in place without any more glue. If you want larger eyes, stick one onto the tab eye.

See what your fly looks like by pulling it through 2-3 inches of water in a basin. To give the dry fly more shape, hold it under running water and let it dry naturally with the tail down. Do this twice.

Look carefully at the other “Hollow Fleyes” on the website to get an idea of the range of shapes—formed by the range of cone sizes and hair lengths. It is not necessary to shorten each pinch of hair, unless you want to create a specific effect.

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