A Squirmy Worm That Won't Let You Down
High Water: Perfect for the Improved Squirmy Worm
With the tremendous run-off we've had here in Colorado this year, we've been reaching into our boxes and grabbing for a heavy squirmy wormy pretty regularly.
That's given us an abnormally large amount of hours to fish our original Strap On Squirmy Worm Pattern. It's also allowed us to prove the original goal of being able to re-use squirmy material when the original material is damaged.
But it's also shown us a flaw in our original design that was ripe to be improved. Read on to see what we're talking about.
The Problem With Your Average Squirmy Worm
Anyone who has tied a Squirmy Worm knows that it can get frustrating pretty quickly. What should be a fairly straightforward and quick pattern quickly escalates to cussing and temper tantrums. At least it does for us.
Tying the Squirmy Wormy usually involves wrapping the squirmy wormy material around the hook in some fashion. The problem we find is that the squirmy material just wants to spin if you don't get the tension just right. Add too much tension to the tying thread, and you also risk cutting into the squirmy worm material with the thread.
The Original Solution: The Strap-On Squirmy Worm
We originally set out to make tying the squirmy wormy not only easier and quicker, but to also provide more durability.
When tying the traditional squirmy wormy, it was always inevitable that a fish would nick the squirmie material with it's teeth, and eventually the majority of the worm material would break off, rendering the fly essentially useless.
By tying the squirmy wormy material (or basically strapping it) to the hook with the dental rubber bands, we're able to replace the squirmy or squirmito material as needed.
After fishing our original squirmy wormy alternative for over a year, we soon discovered that it had its shortcomings.
The original pattern called for one dental rubber band stretched across the hook shank. This caused two problems.
One, it stretches the band material, which over time seems to weaken the connection points, and the bands were breaking much sooner than they should.
Second, it was only providing two connection points to the squirmy material. Occasionally you would lose your Squirmito material during casting if the bands weren't tied with enough tension to grip the material.
See the original version of this blog post: Original Improved Squirmy Wormy
The New Solution: The Improved Strap-On Squirmy Worm
The improved version now uses two dental rubber bands on the shank, which creates four points of contact for the squirmy material, keeping it much more secure, even without as much tension on the bands.
By not stretching the bands, they also seem to last longer, so the main jig can truly be fished multiple times if the squirmy wormy fly material gets damaged.
Products Used in the Improved Strap-On Squirmy Wormy
Conclusion
With time, everything becomes clearer. By putting enough hours and drifts on the original pattern, we realized it had some shortcomings. By making these small tweaks on the Improved Strap On Squirmy Worm version, it seems to be much more durable and truly lives up to its promise of being able to swap out the squirmy material as needed.
