Rope Dubbing with Don Ordes
Photographs by Don Ordes and Byard Miller

Text by Byard Miller

This great technique, by Don Ordes of Fantasy Fly, is just the ticket for dealing with long-fibered and difficult to dub materials. Don developed the technique long ago, but recently applied it to the popular new material Ice Dub. His intention was to find a way to make a tightly compressed bodies that were super fast to tie. Well he certainly did that and more. This is one of the slickest methods of dubbing that I have seen.

We will attempt to show you, through a series of photos, just how to Rope Dub with a variety of materials, starting with Ice Dub, an amazingly sparkly dubbing that comes in a myriad of colors including many with UV intermixed. We will round out the lesson with a down and dirty weighted Woolly Bugger that is so blazingly fast to tie it's almost scary!

Most of these sequences show only the technique of making the body, so they do not included a picture of a finished fly. Remember, you will often be including a tail, or wings, or hackle at the appropriate tying stage. By clicking on any of the thumbnail photos you will be able to view an expanded version..

The first method using Ice Dub is "roped" unto thread, later we will show you how to accomplish the same body using wire as a core. After your thread is attached and positioned where you want your body to start pull out a tear-drop shaped hank of Ice Dub and lightly roll it on the palm of your hand. Tie in the narrow end of the dubbing where only a few fibers extend.

Now hang the bobbin in your left hand and stretch out the dubbing alongside the thread for about 2" or so. The more you stretch, the finer or narrower your segments will be. Make sure you don't pull out the fibers that are tied in at the hook- that's your roping anchor.

Start spinning the dubbing around the thread with two fingers of each hand, counterclockwise, and just spinning the top portion of the dubbing. The base of the dubbing is tied at the hook, so as you spin the dubbing gets tighter and tighter around the thread. If the end closest to the hook doesn't spin around the thread completely give it a little booster spin with your right hand fingers. It will come along.

Continue to spin the dubbing until you can't spin it any more. You should now have a thread surrounded by a slim tapering rope of dubbing. There should be no loose sections, but a lot of loose ends sticking out that sparkle. Pick out more if you want more sparkle.

At this point you can accordion the dubbing on the thread to bunch it up and make the segments fatter, of back off a few turns and stretch out the dubbing to make more but smaller segments. Just make sure you re-twist to get the rope tight again. This makes the segments.

Swap the bobbin to your right hand, holding on to the top end of the dubbing, and wrap it up the hook, making segments. Each wrap will make the dubbing tighter. If it doesn't come out just right, unwrap your rope and adjust the dubbing, adding more or taking some off. Because you have not used a loop or any wax, adjustments can be easily made.

Here's an example of a tightly "roped" or segmented body using Squirrel Brite. Just twist your dubbing rope as tightly as you can before wrapping it on.

Using the same Squirrel Brite, but not twisting it as tightly or scrunching the rope up towards the hook, and at the same time combing or picking out more loose fibers, we can accomplish a roped, but bushy body.

Now let's try adding an additional color. When preparing your tear-drop clump of dubbing, add an additional color to the fatter end near your left hand. When twisted together and applied to the hook, the final result will have bodies segmented by colors. You can even incorporate three or more color segregations.

Let's get adventurous...and add a hackle to the formula. First splay out your hackle feather by running it through your fingers. Then tie it onto the hook along with the end of your dubbing hank. Twist your rope as described before and when you wrap it on your hook, you have a palmered dubbed body, all done in one easy step! Amazing, isn't it?

Don't forget, you will need to add your other appropriate pattern parts to make a completed fly. Here we show a tail being added before the dubbing rope. Afterwards you would add wings or hackle to complete your creation.

We've all run across interesting materials that we wished were more conducive to dubbing bodies. Well, fret no more...here's an example of a rope dubbed body made from llama. Use your imagination...try length's of Lite-Brite, or that nice soft Icelandic Sheep...try some Awesome Hair.

Here's a perfect method for making a great caddis pupa or emerge. When you are twisting the rope, concentrate on the section closest to the hook and leave the outer most part loose. After you wind it around the shank of the hook, just brush the looser fibers backwards and you have the perfect wet or nymph body all in one easy step!

I've saved the best for last. A weighted dubbed body ala rope dub! Actually as a practice lesson, you might want to try this one first. Put your spool of wire in a bobbin and use it just like we used the thread in the above descriptions. You may find it easier to twist the dubbing onto the wire. This particular demonstration actually combines a couple of previously described techniques. Instead of dubbing, we use peacock herl and add the hackle. WOW!

As promised, I now offer the Down & Dirty Weighted Woolly. This is just too darn easy, I wish I was still a commercial fly tier! First put a cone head bead on your favorite nymph or streamer hook. With a bobbin loaded with copper wire, wind on a base of wire to the hook shank ending near the tail position. Lash on your marabou tail using the wire and make your dubbing rope on the wire as described previously except incorporate a hackle tied in by the tip and peacock herl. Wrap your rope up to the cone head and with a couple of extra wraps of wire you're done!

Ice Dubbing with Don Ordes