Fly Fishing Egg Pattern: Glo Bugs Made Easy!

Fly Fishing egg patterns called glo bugs are the easiest to learn how to fly but fairly difficult to master.  Not to mention the waste of egg yarn.  By making a simple tool out of a soda straw you can tie perfect glo bugs all day long with a minimum of waste.  Tying globugs the old way I got about a dozen per foot of egg yarn, with the new tool I get 40+ per foot.  Here's a youtube view of how I do it.


You can follow the steps here or you can go directly to youtube and watch a video on how to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fKzvXN6o7I

Get a plain soda straw and cut three inches of it off.  Take several strands of egg yarn and using either a threader or a looped of piece of string pull the egg yarn into the straw.  You want the egg yarn to be slightly tight in the straw but not difficult to pull.

Place your hook in the vice and pinch the barb down.  I pinch the barbs down on my hooks because it no only makes the hook easier to remove from the fishes mouth but it also makes it easier to remove the hook from your clothing and skin.  Dress the hook, as you dress the hook tie in a piece of weighted wire.  For the weighted wire you can use lead, copper, or any of the other lead substitues sold on the market.

Take the soda straw that you have loaded with the egg yarn and pull out about a straws width of egg yarn.  There are many different sizes of soda straws, using this method you can tie many different sizes.  Lay the soda straw on top of your dressed hook and pull the thread up and over the top of the tool to cross over it.  You want to tie from the right side of the tool to up and over the left side. 

Pull the tool down until the thread lays on top of the egg yarn.  Pull the thread very tight but do not break the thread!  You want the thread to cross underneath the hook where you finished dressing the hook.  Make a quick turn of the thread around the hook to keep the thread tight during the rest of the tie,

Now cross the thread under the tool to the other side of the vise.  Pull the thread up and over the top of the egg yarn to the back side of the hook.  In effect you are making a figure 8 over the yarn and pull it as tight as you can without breaking the thread.

You should now have your thread laying across the top of the egg yarn with the thread out over the upper left corner of the hook and pattern.  Keeping the thread as tight as you can make severalwraps around the hook to secure the tightness of the thread.

Pull enough yarn from the tool to lean room for your next tie.  Trim the yarn out of the tool the same length as the other side of the egg yarn

I am probably going to get alot of heck about writing this but....Fluff the egg. :)

Whip finish, cement the thread, and cut the thread.