Flies are our priority here at Big Y Fly Co. We love seeking out new and interesting patterns and add a dozen or more patterns to our cat...
Ice Dubbing: This stuff is the go-to synthetic dubbing for most of us in Oregon. It has subtle amounts of flash, great color and is very easy to work with. We have expanded our color selection to right around 40 colors or so, because we love this stuff. I love it on summer steelhead flies and I use the Peacock color or the Pearl color for the thorax for most of my trout nymphs. If you have been on the tying forums, you know that it is the most popular dubbing out there!
Scud Dubbing: A specially designed dubbing that has the right amount of wiggle, color and flair for scud, shrimp and sow bug patterns. It is easy to work with and can easily be picked out so that it resembles the micro legs on a scud.
Angora Goat Dubbing: A wonderful dubbing for stoneflies, steelhead patterns and leeches. It is coarse with good translucence. It is slick and spikey, not the easiest material to dub with, but using good wax and/or using a dubbing spinner really makes it reasonable to work with. It is the absolute best substitute for seal dubbing, and despite it's minor difficulty to work with, it is worth it when you see how good the flies turn out.
Variegated Chenille: This wonderful chenille has alternating colors and really gives those streamers and rubber legs more lifelike coloring. The Black/Coffee color is the main material in my number one stonefly nymph, and the Medium Olive/Brown makes a very good looking woolly bugger. I rarely buy any other type of chenille any more.
Straggle String Micro Chenille: I did get some of this though, and I tied up some mini woolly buggers the other day. They look absolutely killer! I see great potential with this for nymph bodies, steelhead flies and of course, streamers. It is one of those materials that isn't terribly appealing on the shelf, but once you start using it, you will find ways to incorporate it into a bunch of your patterns. It has good bulk, lays out nice and easy, and has the right amount of wiggle.
Northern Bucktail: Far overdue, we have been expanding the colors in our bucktail selection. Along with white and a few other colors that we had, we picked ups some olive, gray and light blue colors, all of which are necessary for having a wide range of deceivers and clousers. We also picked up combo packs with a few chunks of various colors, for those that only dabble in bucktail.
Deer Belly Hair: This is the hair you want for spinning, packing and stacking. Make those nice bass flies, steelhead skaters, muddlers and zoo cougars with the right materials.
UV2 Yak Hair: Do you need to make a 15" long streamer? If you have chased muskie or other huge predators, then the answer is likely yes. I have been tying a bunch of gigantic streamers for an upcoming muskie trip using this stuff, mixed with Big Fly Fibers (another great material for big flies), bucktail and Icelandic Sheep hair. Now I just need to practice casting with the 12 wt.
Icelandic Sheep: Great stuff for streamers, especially for imitating baitfish. It moves like crazy, holds decent shape when wet, and is easy to tie with.
Veevus Thread: Everyone really seems to like this stuff. It is strong, lays down well, has great color, and doesn't cut through materials. We picked up a bunch of colors in 6/0 and 12/0 for our midge tiers.
Fly Foam: We kinda went all in on fly foam. We greatly expanded color selection on the 2mm, and added a couple of new colors to the 6mm. Foam Hoppers and Chernobyl Ants are super fun to tie, and now you can tie them in a ton of different colors!
Micro Flashabou: Just as flashy as the original, but now in a super-thin strand. I really like to use one or two pieces in steelhead flies. Just enough to give it a kick, but not so much that it overtakes the pattern.
-Andrew Perrault
Fly Tying Junkie
