# Doll Fly - Up To Date



## AtticaFish (Nov 23, 2008)

After a couple suggestions on another site to go simple, downsize, and a hint on productive colors in different regions...... sat back down last night and gave it a spin. Aim is for throwing these at walleye cruising the shore after dark. The round heads are 1/8 lead free with a heavy hook except for the red neck on the end. It is lead and has a lighter wire hook so it will most likely get bit from a bigger fish. I was shooting for the look of the old traditional Thompson Doll Fly. Of course i had to fancy it up, but hopefully did not over do it.







Flash and thread tag were left out the back for a little accent. Wanted a little fuller body when wet, so tied in a decent tapered clump of wool before i added on the craft hair. They have a nice poof to them and stay full as the roving soaks up the water. In comparison, the red neck on the end does not have the wool under body and you can see it is skinnier right off the thread.




















These are some others i made as well. Most likely only going to keep the round head and will cut off and retie the insert heads. Will be able to salvage the zonker tail on those at least. Used seed beads on the inserts heads for the propeller stop and an actual slotted tungsten fly bead on the round head. The smaller bead on the round head let the #2 prop spin soooooo much easier. Lesson learned there. I know i've read recommendations to use cone heads instead of beads for the stops on propellers, but did not have any in appropriate size.










Not gonna make it out tonight... tomorrows forecast is more freakin rain... Thursday not sounding any better... it is gonna kill me to wait to sling these at some after dark walleye.


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## Skippy (Dec 2, 2009)

Those sure look good. Did you get out and try them? One other question. Why did you use the heavy hooks? I just use aberdeen hooks so as to get them out of snags a little easier. Never felt that I lost a fish due to the thinner hooks.


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## AtticaFish (Nov 23, 2008)

Thanks Skippy. I did get out twice now to fish these. First evening out caught 2 keeper walleye and lost/missed several others. Could see lots of glowing eyes in the headlamp following these jigs! The pearl head orange throat was the winner. Only been able to get back out once since then and got skunked with the walleye that night. Did get a large catfish, but also lost 6 jigs that night. Ouch.

Involved in a discussion about the heavy vs. light hooks in jigs on another forum right now. For many years i used cheap-a$$ aberdeen hook jigs for 99.9% of my fishing. Have bent the smaller head/hooks out before on big carp in the river. Figure if i am chasing walleye..... don't want to hook into the biggest fish of my life and have it bend out the hook. I like the heavier hooks and think that the majority of snags i get when fishing rip-rap are from the head getting wedged instead of the hook getting caught. Since i am mainly fishing from shore, there is just about no way to get a wedged-in jig out of a snag. There are a lot of people that believe you can bend the hooks out of snags and get them back more often with the lighter wire hooks. I have done it before, but also broken off a lot of those light wire heads also so assumed they were getting wedged in the rocks. Re-shaping the hooks after a snag does put stress on them and can cause them to fail also. All that said though........... i used the cheaper wire hooks for many many years and still caught fish.

I was able to get these heads custom poured using tin instead of lead and with the 2X heavy steelhead hooks for a trade from a good friend out in Nebraska. If i did not have the source for these custom poured head/hook combinations...... i would likely be using a much cheaper variation.


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## allwayzfishin (Apr 30, 2008)

Hey Attica...Curious how these have worked for you?
I know it's an old thread but I'm gonna be tying up some jigs over the winter and these look sweet. I have all the ingredients to this recipe too. Except for the jig heads lol.


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## AtticaFish (Nov 23, 2008)

allwayzfishin - The traditional doll fly patterns work great. I did well with them and have caught some of my biggest inland walleyes on these. With the wool under the "hair" body, they really soak up the water and seem to cast a little better with the added weight. Never had much luck with the prop/spin baits. I fished the doll fly patterns for years but have moved away from them a little since getting more confident with some big paddle tail swimbaits.


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