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kinky rubber legs
How
to add action and realism to your rubber-legged flys
by oliver edwards.
I'm
a confirmed 'leg man', my eyes are automatically drawn
to them, it's a weakness, almost like an illness,
I probably need treatment, I'm talking about nymphs
of course, insects. What did you think I was on about?!
I'm particularly interested in insects which have
good-looking legs - of course. Thick, chunky angular
legs, like those on big Stonefly Nymphs, or the whacking
great wide femurs on Heptagenid Nymphs, and what about
those great black hairy ones trailing out behind the
Hawthorn Fly, or the furiously padding legs of an
Emerging Caddis Pupa. Excellent secondary triggers
all. If you think my obsession is O.T.T. then think
again about it when next you're fiddling about tying
two knots in pheasant tail fibres when your knocking
up a few 'Daddies'!
The Americans have been into rubber legs for years
of course, and over in Wyoming with the lads for the
'97 World Championships, it seemed that just about
every fly we saw in the many tackle shops sprouted
rubber legs. Hell, did those wobbly legged things
pull fish! Readers of this magazine will no doubt
recall how enthused I was.
So, gradually, I've built up a reasonable stock of
round and square rubber, in a variety of thicknesses
and colours, and over the last couple of seasons I've
given a few of my patterns the rubber treatment. Well,
the result is, I'm a convert, a believer. The addition
of rubber legs, I am totally convinced, improves the
'catchability' of most patterns, probably any pattern.
However, on some patterns a straight rod of rubber
just does not look right. Okay, I admit, it's all
in the eye of the beholder, and fish probably couldn't
give a damn, it moves a lot and that's probably enough.
But, wouldn't it be nice if we could bend or crank
rubber legs very quickly, accurately and permanently?
Knot the darned stuff, I hear you say. Yes, I've done
it, it's a fiddle doing it in situ, and you can never
guarantee which way the lower leg will go. Furthermore
pre-making them in the knotted and cranked form is
quite simply much too time-consuming, and an even
bigger fiddle.
Well, a few weeks ago I cracked the problem. I was
in that pre-dozing off state, just clearing one or
two things from my brain, when it occured to me. I
got out of bed and went into my fly-tying den, picked
up a scrap of medium round rubber, and, almost as
fast as blinking my bleary eyes I had an acutely cranked
leg of rubber. I could do it ultra quickly and with
pin-point accuracy, and, it was fixed, permanently.
I felt like yelling: 'Eureka!'
The only snag is, you need a very specific little
hand tool - a hot-tip cauteriser (more later). Here's
how it's done. Finish completely your fly, or batch
of flies. Now put one back in the vice and angle it
such that gravity's direction is the direction you
want the lower leg part to go. The tip of the cauteriser
softens, even melts, a tiny area in the rubber, and
the lower leg topples over like a felled tree, observing
the direction of gravity. You simply come up underneath
the leg with the hot tip of the cauteriser and barely
touch the rubber at the exact spot you want the joint
to be. In fact, you actually hover with the hot tip
just thousandths of a inch away from the rubber -
you'll have to use a firmly resting hand. Within,
say, a second you'll see the lower leg start to topple,
gradually at first, then quite quickly it will drop,
but still connected of course. Now you whip the cauteriser
away, quick sharp! (Hang about and you'll singe the
leg off at the knee.)
Here's
what appears to happen.
The very pin-point intense local heat starts melting
one side of the rubber strand, now the weight of the
outer part of the strand - the lower leg - can no
longer be supported so it falls under its own weight.
As it falls, the gap just melted closes, the two sticky
faces touch and fuse, and the rubber sets again. Job
done - seconds. I can do all six legs of an insect
in about 30 seconds in fact. The joint is permanent,
it doesn't wash out in use, and it's 'maul proof'.
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