Pulled Tinsel Body - The Fly Tier's Benchside Reference - page 173
Pulled Tinsel Body
This technique has appeared in the work of Dick Talleur, who credits Matt Vinciguerra, a fly tying photographer, with the invention of this method for a fly called the Beady Eye. The tying procedure is quite simple and yields a very slim, flashy, minnowlike body. We’ve reproduced here only the technique for fashioning the body. Readers interested in the full dressing should consult Talleur’s Mastering the Art of Fly Tying.
The original method called for a single bead at the head, but bead chain, lead eyes, or any barbell style eye can be used in dressing the single pulled strand illustrated in the main sequence below. The alternate sequence shows a double pulled body, and only a single bead is suitable for this technique.
Step 1. Slide the desired bead onto the hook shank, and position it about 1⁄8” behind the eye. (For more information on beads, see the section on “Bead Heads,” p. 428).
Wrap the desired body—weʼve used floss here—tying off the body material behind the bead. To secure a counter-drilled or tapered bead, slide it forward and build a thread bump just ahead of the body. Put a drop of CA glue on the bump, and push the bead back, seating the thread bump inside the counter drilled or tapered hole. Allow to dry. Remount the tying thread at the rear-most point of the body.
Step 2. Cut a piece of woven-Mylar tinsel tubing about one inch longer than twice the length of the hook shank. Remove the fiber core.
With a scissor point, poke a hole in the center of the braid.
Step 3. Push the hook eye through the hole. Draw the two ends of the Mylar tubing back to the bend—one should be over the top of the shank and one underneath, as shown above.
Step 4. Bind the tubing to the shank, taking care to keep one strand atop the shank and one below it. Clip the excess tinsel, and bind down the butts.
Step 4a. A more solid-looking body can be fashioned by mounting two cut pieces of tubing ahead of the bead. Prepare two lengths of material and mount each one as described in Steps 2-3. Pull the first piece of tubing (gold in the photo) back as described in Step 3—one strand above the hook, one below. Secure with a few wraps of thread. Draw the second piece of tubing (pearl in the photo) along the sides of the hook shank. Bind down all four pieces of tubing with several tight wraps of thread. The tubing can be clipped and the butts bound with thread as shown in Step 4, or they can be left long and frayed to form a tail, as shown here.
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