Lots of flies fished are SMALL BUGS...the PMD's, and the BWO's...and those bug cycles from nymphs to emergers. Small caddis as well. Got your casting in order? Able to fish small tippets, and land fish on small tippets?

My take on coppor John's is no for Spring Creek water. The big advantage of coppor Johns is they get down in faster water..a lot of wire, and bead. I think a beadheaded flashback PT nymph is about as flashy, and heavy as you need to get. The more natural, less flashy seems to work better in Spring Creek water. I use small soft hackles to good advantage bead heading them, the nymph form body, and the moving partridge hackles working well. I can tie them small "placing" the feather behind the bead rather than wrapping it. I cut the tip section of th feather out, and angle the "V" cut down behind the bead, holding it there in the left hand, and several soft loops of thread bind in the fibers I want behind the bead, and the bumped up thorax holds out the fibers. I can tie them in size #18 that way if I want small ones, and use other hackles besides partridge as well. A black metal bead can be used if flash is a problem, or plastic beads that are very small, sold as XSM and not any bigger than this "O" in peacock color, brown, black for bug heads, and fished in the surface when emergers are being taken. I always use some type of bead for how I will fish the fly because it serves to anchor in the hackle fibers. These can be good caddis emerger patterns. You can anchor in some antron fibers behind the wing for an emerging wing sparkle, and then place in the soft hackle fibers. I shot a Hungarian Partridge yesterday, and skinned it all out brought the cleaned bird inside today, and left the skin on the table outside, and my wife let out my hunting partner, my chocolate lab that retrieved it, and he ate the skin!!!!

Oh, BTW, like the avatar photo...looks like one of my releases!

SOOOOOOOOOO much easier to tie flies when you use a bead. All of my dry flies have beads. Someone will go, "A bead on a dry fly?!"..Yep, the small, and XSM beads are just like a shiny bug head, and in plastic they do not hinder the float. I've seen tiers use epoxy wanting to get a shiny finish to their thread heads...instantly accomplished using a bead...no crowding the hook eye...no lacquer getting in the hook eye. I do not even whip finish. I use that Borger, double under the thread when you pull the knot up tight, and a drop of head cement, or finger nail polish, and material and knot is locked in behind the bead. You do have to draw the knot up easy sometimes if it is caught on the edge of the bead as the bead can restrict, or even break a small diameter thread. I just tied some BWO #18, emergers as there was no hackle. I tied up two matching, pinched down CDC feathers for the wing in front of the bumped up dubbed thorax, then two pinched down grey duck wing small feathers matched outside of the CDC...trimmed the duck feathers short in front of the wraps and behind the bead, then pulled out the CDC stems at rt angles behind the bead, and a figure 8, or two to hold the CDC butts at Rt angles, a little more dubbing, coverikng the wraps, and in front of the CDC, finish knot, and then trimmed down the CDC stem butts short as emerging legs, that will stabalize the fly on the water, and add flotation, and done. Hard to create that without the bead. Parachutes are finished off easily as the feather comes up top, and wrapped in behind the beadhead. I leave a small stub of feather sticking up behind the bead to insure it doesn't pull out. It doesn't show. I had a wood fly tying fixture made by a commercial guy that holds 3 of those bigger plastic flat boxes with all the compartments. They slide in and out of the fixture. Two hold hooks, and one is just for all the different beads that I use, from tungstun, to metal, to plastic, and the different colors. Problem with the small plastic compartments that the plastic slots that can be pulled out, and placed differently is the hooks, and the beads can slide underneath them IF you do not use a shower sealer like silocone to seal them in at the base. Those heat sticks that you plug in the gun, and melt the glue worked for me at the base edge of those plastic slot pieces.

D, structurally speaking, the turkey tail fibers are very much like pheasant tail. The color is what does it for me. I feel it's a better representation of the majority of nymphs you'll find in a given stream. Fu, did you get the CDC butts as legs trick from Rene Harrop? I've seen him do it in his fly tying videos.

Good tip on the beads sayfu. I will have to try this out when I move back to trout water:(. I moved early this winter and have been super busy. Might try to get on a wind farm over in your direction in the next few years. Would loooove to swing some flies for steelies!