After months of tying salmon / steelhead flies, tying trout flies in sizes 16-20 takes a little bit for the fingers to get back into the small fly mode.

I always like to finish my flies by applying head cement. Some I believe that just whip finishing a fly will suffice, I feel it is never complete unless the fly is securely finished off. It also adds to the look if it has a nice smooth finished head. Just look at any of Don Bastian’s wet flies. I have seen some tie some very nice looking flies only to have the esthetics of the over all appearance ruined by their lack of interest in the head, some resemble a piece of licorice with all the bumps and swirls in the head. This can be cured by watching the size of the thread build up, then flattening the thread (spinning counter clock wise) to form a nice smooth head.

At the last Fly Tying Show, I observed one tier had multiple bodkins he made for applying head cement. They were marked for small, narrow, medium, and large attached to a cork stoppers that fit into the top of his bottle of cement. Applying the right amount precisely where you want is very important. How many of us have finished a nice fly on to have the appearance of it ruined when we applied too much head cement that ran.

How many times have you been on the stream switching flies only to discover that you cannot thread the tippet through the eye of the hook?
My Orvis clippers have a small bodkin just for the reason to push the head cement out of the eye. After I apply the last of the head cement to the fly, I have a scrap piece of hackle that I bared some of the hackle from the quill, I push this through the eye and the hackle removes any excess cement.

Lesson learned; I wouldn't have to use that bodkin if I remembered to push a small piece of hackle through the eye when finished.

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Winner of the NEFF 2007 Most Prestigious Award
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