Pott Stickers

I've been working on Pott Stickers for almost a week.
I made a post yesterday and then discovered something and so then deleted yesterday's post.
Or so I thought. I deleted it again a few minutes ago.

Here's the updated deal. This is a Frans Pott Sandy Mite. Pott started manufacturing these in the early 1920s. They used to be by far the most popular fly in Montana. The woven hair hackle is time consuming and hard to learn. Frans Pott, George Grant, Henry Wombacher, Tom McIntyre, Mark Freedman, Matt Watrous, Robert Biggar, Todd Collins and Randy Flynn are the tiers I know about who have figured it out--and who make their own woven hair hackle flies--some of them with two or three thread strand weaving techniques that often vary slightly from tier to tier.

I'm a retired computer programmer. In my profession "lazy" is considered a virtue. Larry Wall who invented the Perl programming language coined this idea. What he really meant was "Any technique that is faster and easier and just as good or better than its more complex competition..................is by definition better." In that sense Larry Wall dedicated his programming career to being lazy.

In that sense, as a fly tier, I've been dedicated to lazy for a long time now.
Here's the Frans Pott original deal: A Sandy Mite:


The Pott Sticker
A long time ago I found I could wind hair onto a hook so it jambs up against a bead, so it looks a lot like a woven hair hackle fly but I didn't have to weave anything. This idea puts a bead behind the hackle. I called it a Pott Sticker.


I never could get Pott Stickers to work with the bead in front of the hair hackle, or with no bead at all. Until I tried tying the hair on so the fibers point forward (temporarily) tenkara style. If you put a bead on the hook as a first step, then tie the body (two contrasting rubberleg strands) and then tie the hair on so it points forward over and past the bead, you can then push the bead backward so it forces the hair fibers to point slightly back. Then whip finish in front of the bead.


Or do the same thing without any bead. Fibers face forward. And then back.