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Siman Products

Reviewed by Terry Lawton

Quad turbo dubbing twister

The quad turbo dubbing twister is very much easier to use to make a dubbing loop than a standard dubbing whirl which you have to keep twirling to keep it spinning. Inevitably the wretched thing hits the leg of the vice or does not spin fast enough and for long enough. But with this device you have a handle to hold and simply keep the thing spinning by flicking the head with your thumb. The weight of the "head" and the ball bearings on which it revolves, do the rest. Excellent.

The extra bits that come with it are a hackle plier for winding hackles and tinsels, wires and body floss together; a soft wire jointed loop for spinning and winding softer dubbings and feather fibres (CDC, Marabou, etc), a hard wire jointed loop for spinning and twisting deer hair and stifferer fibres and a dubbing hook for spinning peacock feathers (herls) in a dubbing loop. There is also a little spanner to use to change the different attachments.

Indicator loop

Fitting a braided loop to the end of your fly line makes it very easy to change leaders by using the loop-to-loop connection. This indicator loop is the easiest and quickest to fit that I have come across. And the plastic sleeve grips the end of the braid when fitted to a 4# line - something that is not always the case. So full marks for ease of fitting.

It is described as an indicator loop because of the band of flourescent orange colour. But the colour loses intensity when wet. The loop will work well as an indicator for short-line nymphing or when you can look down on the end of the line. If you are wading it is impossible to see. Also it is not the right place to have an indicator for English-style upstream nymphing in rivers and shallow water. It will probably be OK if your are fishing deep and you use the end of the line to indicate takes.

As a quick to fit braided loop, this one cannot be bettered.

Leaded hooks and magic shrimp foils

Fish & Fly sent samples of the leaded hooks and magic shrimp foils to Richard Slaughter, a local fly tying instructor. He says that the weighted hooks are very good for shrimp patterns etc. The weighted body is even and smooth and provides a very good base for all types of materials, especially woven patterns. This hook is likely to become a firm favourite with the Polish and Czech nymph brigade. He also commented that it is important to use the vice correctly by changing the angle of the jaws so that the tying area is always at right angles to the hook. Overall, he liked these hooks and the smooth, even weight will complement weaving.

But he had problems with the magic shrimp foils. He felt that the width of the foil together with its elasticity made it hard to use as a shell back unless you are tying on fairly small hooks. A shell back needs to be allowed to embrace the sides and top of a shrimp pattern, enabling the legs to be held in the correct position. As this material stretches so much, it narrows and this 'shrouding' action cannot be achieved. However, when used to form wrapped, segmented bodies, it worked well. He found that wrapping over a base colour, especially white, brings out the true colour of the material (he has been experimenting with dental tape, which works really well). Overall, the colours are very good, however it would be nicer to have this available slightly wider.

If you want to tie a segmented body on one of the lead hooks, tie-on your thread at the rear of the lead and then tie-in your choice of body material, for example a piece of Siman magic shrimp foil, and then take the thread forward with one or two wide turns. Now lock the thread with a couple of half hitches, just behind the eye of the hook, so that you can now wrap the body material over the lead. Tie-off the body material and then complete the fly by adding legs and a thorax cover.

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