Belly and body hair from several deer species is a wonderful fly tying material. But there is a very high threshold for many tyers to start tying deer hair headed and bodied flies. Floris van den Berg’s deer hair sliders and divers are internationally sought after. Rightfully so, as they are some of the most effective predator flies around.
Jeroen Schoondergang
If any traditional fly tying material has established and proven itself in modern fly fishing, it is deer hair. The air filled belly and body hairs of several species of deer, reindeer, elk and moose, give a fly a natural movement and lots of buoyancy.
My appreciation for deer hair flies got an extra boost when I met Floris van den Berg some years ago. Floris invited me to fish the Haringvliet, one of the best but also most complex waters for predatory fish, in The Netherlands. During that trip and on later trips he showed me what a well tied diver and slider is capable of. Over the years Floris and his flies have caught every Dutch predator you can expect to catch, from bass in the salt, to perch, zander, asp, pike and even seatrout. Across the border Floris and I managed to catch fish like pollack, coalfish, cod and also (Floris) tarpon and several other tropical species. As a seducer, I don’t think that the deer hair diver and especially the deer hair slider, have any equal in any fly box.
Movement
The movement in the water of a well tied slider and diver is unbelievable. More often than not the fly fisher adds too much motion to its fly, when fishing deer hair. This point was driven across to me by my buddy Rob, when I fished for pike in Sweden last year. Due to a severe temperature drop, the pike were extremely hesitant and not interested in the deer hair divers I intended to fish.
Rob had been hooking some fish on a Rapala lure, but grabbed his fly rod when a jack pike finally decided to check out my diver.
Contrary to my attempts to get the most noise out of my divers, Rob chose another tactic; instead of pulling bubble traces, he just twitched the diver ever so slightly with a pause of several seconds between twitches. This tactic turned out to be the ticket. We saw pike examining the near-passive diver, only to grab it when it was lying motionless on the surface. As it turned out Rob and Floris had been fishing for pike and perch on their home water, the week before. Their efforts to raise some hell with divers hadn’t been productive. Only when their divers were lying on the surface seemingly motionless between casts, were they attacked. There is a good lesson about fly handling in this experience. We often overdo the retrieve. Especially when a fly has so much natural flow as a well tied deer hair diver.
The universal slider
Divers are great flies, but you need the opportunity to use them. Their range is limited and to really be effective, fish have to be hunting in the top layers of the water. Sliders on the other hand, are much more universal. As the name suggests, they slide through the water and while initially designed for topwater fisheries, they are extremely effective in the lower water layers.
To effectively fish a slider on a sinking line (I always use shooting heads made from tungsten coated line, in combination with an intermediate or mono running line) you need to take advantage of the buoyancy of this fly. Use a short leader and take your time letting your line find the right depth. Once deep enough, fish the slider with short jerks followed by a pause. The deer hair head of the fly will make it hover, like a bait fish taking a rest. This way of using sliders has been extremely effective for us on winter and early spring pike, large perch, zander, but also coalfish and pollack in the salt. According to Floris the slider is the best fly to accurately fish a mangrove creek or a flat for tarpon.
Tying with deer hair
As said I don’t have the skills, nor the patience to ever tie a perfect deer hair slider or diver. I belong to the group of fly fishermen who see tying as a necessary evil to keep the boxes filled. But if you belong to the group of fly fishers who do see tying as a hobby in a hobby, a good diver or slider should be within range. Certainly if you follow the guidelines Floris has summed up:
- Always use the right hair for deer hair spinning: belly or body hair. The hair should have the right length (not too short) and consistency; too fine and you’ll lose buoyancy, too coarse and you’ll struggle to make a well packed head.
- Use the right tools for cutting the head. You can’t go without an old fashioned double edged razor blade and a set of small bent serrated scissors.
- Use strong tying thread to spin deer hair, like gsp 100 or 200. The most heard complaint about using gsp is that it cuts through the deer hair. That won’t happen if you build up the tension gradually when you spin hair, don’t jerk the bobbin holder.
- Tie often and a lot. Only by practice you will get a feeling for the material and your projects will start to improve. This goes for tying the head, as well as cutting it.
- By varying density when tying, you can adjust the buoyancy of your fly. A hair packer tool will make life easy for you. With it you can pack the hairs much denser and tidier than by hand.
- Take notes on proportions and the number of stashes of hair you use for a certain size diver or slider. It will make your life a lot easier and your flies more consistent.
- Watch other tyers. There are plenty of very good tyers who have put instructional videos on the internet. Take your time to watch them work.
Check out Floris van den Berg on Vimeo: www.vimeo.com/troutbuster
You can order deer hair divers and sliders from floris through his facebook page: www.facebook.com/pike.diver
Many thanks to Floris van den Berg for pictures 1,2 and 3