J.Stockard Pro Tyer: John Satkowski, Toledo, OH, fly tying demonstrator and instructor, you can find him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/johnsatkowski/

You can’t really talk about composite and complex dubbing loops without discussing some trout swing flies. If you know anything about me, you know I am not much of a steelhead fisherman. I have caught most of my steelhead accidentally fishing for other species. I do, however, enjoy tying steelhead intruder flies, brook and brown trout streamers, and swing flies. I love going to northern Michigan and fishing the beautiful rivers for feisty brookies. Whether you enjoy swinging flies for chromers or throwing streamers for browns or brookies, a dynamic loop fly can change the odds in your favor.

Although you can make any fly you can think of with a complex dubbing loop, the most popular style nowadays is the complex loop intruder. Intruder flies have what are called stations. You can have one station or up to four or five stations depending on what you are tying. Most flies have two stations, a front and a rear with some sort of flat, flashy material in between. You will hear terms like Hoh Bo spey flies, and most of these patterns have a single station. I know that there is a lot more to these style of flies, but I am keeping it fairly basic in terms of description. The intruder style fly uses a ball of dubbing or some other kind of support to spread out the station. The same is usually done on the front station as well. Your prop materials can be anything from mylar piping unraveled, chenille, or you can make a small composite loop with materials like feather barbs, Ice Dub, Amherst pheasant fibers, Ringneck pheasant, or even turkey tail fibers. A softer and suppler material is then tied in over the top. You can use a myriad of materials for this, but I really like arctic fox, marabou, opossum, flashabou, and various furs mixed with Angel Hair. If you stick to the basic design and construction of an intruder you can make really nice flies. Tiny versions of streamers with composite loops are becoming very popular as well so you can alter the size and shape of your fly by changing and trimming materials down to fit your needs.

In some of the flies pictured, the dubbing loop also offers some support for palmered marabou on top of it. You can get some really natural looking results with this method of streamer construction. Nymph flies can even be constructed with dynamic loops and the results are often great for creating a really “buggy” looking nymph with a small bit of flash to get the fish’s attention. I know brook trout especially love an area of flash or a hotspot on a nymph drifting by. Since my local rivers have an abundance of the almighty hex, a slightly flashy hex nymph can also get some attention from the resident smallmouth during the pivotal times of the season. You can experiment with lots of different materials with different colors and textures to see what the fish like. I find that a dynamic loop with mostly natural materials and sparse amounts of flash is best for tying small nymphs or even dries. You can really ramp up your stone or steelhead nymph patterns with some Senyo Shaggy and ice dub to create the effect of more movement and a glint of flash to help the fish key in on your fly. In murky and rough conditions, this may be your savior from going home with the skunk.

When tying larger flies for trout, I like to play around with different heads and collars to either create movement or to move some water. One of my favorite methods to create a head is to tie a lead dumbbell on the bottom of the shank and stack deer hair on the top of the hook shank and alternately tie some Senyo Laser yarn on the bottom. This method makes really nice heads and depending on how tight you stack the deer hair, you can alter the sink rate and action of the fly. Make no mistake about it, deer hair heads push some serious water, but I wanted to try some new methods. I made a typical dynamic loop with some flash, small rubber legs, longer fiber dubbing, and I clipped a clump of a couple different colored deer hair and spun that all up. Once I wrapped it and brushed it, I was surprised at how natural and blended the head looked. I added some eyes to complete the head and was very satisfied with the results. The head not only looks good, but pushes a lot of water and you can trim the loop to any shape you wish, use resin to bulletproof it, or epoxy to shape and protect the eyes. This method is now one of my favorites to complete a head on a streamer. Don’t be afraid to put whatever materials you prefer in your loops, most of my most successful streamers were happy accidents with dubbing loops.

Prey For Predators

When you are talking about predatory fish, your main fly choices will most likely revolve around some kind of baitfish. There are millions of baitfish patterns out there, but putting a dynamic dubbing loop on the fly can really bolster some attention from the fish. Pike for instance, love forage fish such as juvenile gamefish, shad, chubs, and various kinds of sucker species. If you take a close look at the shape and coloration of these fish, they are full of many colors and hues. A sucker has an overall color of olive, brown, and a rusty orange, but ramping up some of the oranges and olives in your dubbing loop can help sell the suggestion of a sucker. Adding some flashy elements of some of the colors of the baitfish you are imitating can yield results. One of my favorite methods to do this is add some Ice Dub accent and strands of Flashabou or Krystal Flash in your dubbing loop to accentuate these tones.

I love deceiver style flies but they can slim down once they are in the water. They certainly work and have worked for ages, but I got to thinking about profile and movement in the water. There are times that even savage predatory fish like pike get picky. They may lean towards biting slimmer, smaller flies or natural colored flies over something bright and artificial. I also wanted some extra water push on the front of the fly so I grabbed some Flymen tubing and created the head out of that. I wanted some extra light catching effects and a body that would flow a little better than fairly static bucktail. I created a dubbing loop and added a couple different colored materials to emulate the multicolored bodies on many baitfish. The result was really striking and the body flows and moves in the current. I put some fairly large eyes on and coated the eyes and the front of the tubing with resin to get some extra water push and the resin makes the fly move erratically when stripped. I usually tie it unweighted and fish it in the top third of the water column attempting to imitate an injured baitfish. The strikes are usually really aggressive, and the hackle tail of the fly really rings the dinner bell.

Whip Finish

Whether you are constructing your own dubbing brushes or making them on your flies as a loop, be creative and do not be afraid to use different materials. The Internet is a wealth of resources to look at demonstrations, tutorials, and materials, but the more loops you physically make the easier and quicker they become. Fly tying should be a creative and stress reducing activity. Constructing dynamic dubbing loops is a great way to show your creativity while creating fish catching patterns. The sky is the limit and to harken back to one of my previous articles, you can even update older and traditional patterns with some dubbing loops that can really electrify them. Take for example a simple wooly bugger, usually constructed with chenille, a hackle feather, and a marabou tail. You can keep the marabou tail but substitute the chenille and hackle for a dynamic dubbing loop with ice dub, small rubber leg material, and some slightly longer fibers such as Baitfish Emulator or Mega Simiseal. You can even use some of your favorite Flymen materials to assist you in your dynamic loops. By using the method that Blane Chocklett uses to create the T-Bone fly, you can support and spread out your dubbing loops with the Body Tubing. This creates some bulk without adding additional weight allowing you to make bigger flies that weigh a fraction of what they should. Another little trick I employ that is hidden in some of my streamers is using a small Double Barrel head in the slider position towards the front of the fly. I can then backwards tie some craft fur or construct a dynamic loop in front of that and it adds support for the materials of the head. It can also create a big push of water. You can also use some resin to slick down the materials over the head making a nice head that is buoyant for higher floating patterns. Next time you’re at the vise, play around with some new dubbing loops and materials to push your patterns to the next level.