Dee Style Wings & Speypages Monthly Challenge

Spey Page's July monthly fly challenge was an Akroyd tied with dee style wings. http://speypages.com/speyclave/showthread.php?t=50027  I once again took the challenge and followed the step by step that daijones so masterfully had done and shared on the website. This has long been a fly/style that I wanted to try but never got around to it. This was the perfect time to try it. Everything is pretty straight forward with the tying. The only somewhat confusing part (confusing, not difficult) the rear half of the fly is bulked up a bit with some dubbing spun in a loop and cock hackle wrapped through that portion. When you get to the thorax or front half of the fly you don't build it up, but rather lay down some floss and wrap a spey hackle and a collar keeping everything fairly sparse. This is done to give the wings a place to lay out flat. Bushy butt and a flat front. As I tyed this into the wee hours one Friday night, I was amazed at how well things were going for a first time through tying. Then came the setting of the wings. I'm pretty sure anyone who has tied wings on spey type flies usually gets a little anxious when it comes to setting wings. I had consulted with Charlie Dickson and Wylie Haggerty at Spey Nation about setting wings on dee style flies. I even brought some turkey tails for them to look at and let me know if they were adequate. I set the wings on the first try and they looked good except they curved up at the rear of the fly. I tried everything to get them to lay flat. I reset and reset, even cut new slips from the same wing, different wings, nothing worked. I started going back through my tying trying to diagnose a mistake, but nothing jumped out. I finally settled on a set of wings with a slight curve and called it a night. I posted and consulted again and it seems that this is a common problem that can be corrected with steaming and bending to shape. Live and learn. I'm excited to crank out a few more of these and take them for a test swim. In the photos you can catch a glimpse of my latest driftwood fly display.