I got the chance to meet and watch
Kelly Galloup tie flies this year in Austin and at Troutfest. This experience
was a bit surreal because one of the very first fly fishing magazines I ever
read (now close to ten years ago) contained an article about his patterns….for
all I know he might have written it. I do not have the magazine any more to be
absolutely certain. However, I am certain
the article detailed two flies I never forgot: The Sex Dungeon (somewhere out
there a Google algorithm hates how fly tiers screw with it) and the T & A
Bunker. I found the heads of both flies fascinating, and at the time I had no
idea how to make either. I certainly did not even know you could spin dear hair
at the time, and would not have even considered stacking wool as an option.
There were some early tying attempts, but I had few resources to learn
techniques from at the time and fell away from articulated patterns.
Fast
forward to the fully committed tier I am now, and perhaps it will make sense
that I take on new styles of tying as studies in technique. I look at tying
styles as I imagine an artist would and work to replicate the techniques of other
tiers to improve my own skills. Once the tying is replicated well enough to be
fishable, then I fish the flies to see if I recreated the movement as described
by the original tier. For example, Galloup ties his sex dungeons with a much
wider head then the commercial patterns available. He explained this head
achieves is a front hook that brakes faster then the rear hook making the tail
kick around the side of the fly as it is stripped. If you have never thrown a
sex dungeon in the water and made it move… you should! It will change how you
look at streamer action. 
When I do a
study in any tier’s style I try to focus on their techniques (ie. wool heads
and spun deer heads) rather then replicating everyone of their flies. A style
usually breaks down into a few techniques applied in only slightly different
ways to achieve different effects on a given fly. In the case of Galloup’s flies it broke down
into the type of head, the type of tail, and the placement of marabou wings.
I experimented
at creating both wool and dear hair heads, even adding in the “sighting dot.” I
have to comment on wool for heads because I found the correct wool some years
ago and then never could since. The key here, and Galloup confirmed this in his
talks, is to avoid the wool patches still on the skin. Supposedly Spirit River
is now carrying the correct wool. I actually found wool rovings at Hobby Lobby
that are the loose sheared wool (no skin) that works best for these kinds of
heads. They also carry a wide variety of colors. 
The tails
were far less complicated, but new to me. The galloup patterns I had seen so
far always had marabou tail (similar to a woolly bugger), but I was fascinated
to see the differences in the swimming action of the patterns like the Silk Kitty,
which has deceiver style tails instead of marabou. Having now tied them and put
them in the water I say that the action is more of a slither then the marabou
tails, which seem to make the rear hook kick outward. It’s a bit hard to put in
text... go tie some and fish them.
Ultimately as a tier I want to take
the new techniques and then apply them to new flies of my own design. This
leads to learning ways to add different features to new flies. Take for
example, if you need to add a tail that moves more then the rabbit strip you
tried on prototype 1 of a fly. Perhaps a palmered marabou tail is the solution….perhaps
not, you try it and see.
