Burnt Wings

Black Midge

 

          Burnt wings, especially for mayflies, were very popular here in Sweden during the 80'ties. I remember it very vividly since I have quite some of these flies and right beside me now I have the measure of cardboard I made to cut the wings to the right length. The measures range from 7 mm to 22 mm. From Baetis to Danica. Lately I've been experimenting with different plastic materials to burn wings for midges etc. One of the problems I encountered was that the material I used was very hard to color with a permanent marker to make them more natural since the wings of for example midges aren't crystal clear. Finally, like on the fly in the photo above, I could color the wings a little with a blue dun permanent marker. The fly above is the first I use these wings on. It's not what I wished for but I'll keep on with my experiments to see if I can improve the result. Later on I'll present some of the most common mayflies with burnt wings of hen saddle which was the preferred material during the 80'ties. So until the next post ...

Friendly greetings,

Mats Olsson

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