Tom Davenport wrote:
Canadian Blood, Olive, or Black are excellent mohair colors that you can buy prewoven into a shaggy yarn. They call their product a "spectrumized" color because the primary color is actually created by mixing a variety of colors, none of which actually look like the final product.
A few years back, I spent probably a lot more time than I should have making my own dubbings from Aunt Lydia's yarn and castoff sparkle yarns found at thrift shops. The procedure I ended up with was pretty simple. I cut the yards into one inch pieces by doubling the yarn over and over and then cutting a bunch to length all at once. The cut pieces would be stored in ziplock bags.
To make a blend of colors, I would take a pinch of this and a pinch of that and then use two wire-in-rubber dog grooming brushes to shred the yarn and blend. Works like a charm.
The Canadian mohair yarns marketed at fly shops by a guy in Utah are actually yarns that were available at high-end yarn shops. The exact same stuff. They still might be, but you had to buy a skein, and years ago each skein was about $14. If the yarn is no longer available, then the guy in Utah may have cornered the remaining supply. My guess is that it is still available if you do a search by taking a sample and asking the store owner.
If you want to match a yarn like the fish-effective Canadian Blood yarn (a burgundy colored yarn with strands of several other colors mixed in), I found a good technique was to snip off a short strand of yarn and examine it under a magnifying glass. Count the number of strands of each color present and that gives you the proportions to mix the colors. You can mix by volume, weight in grams, or just one pinch of this, two pinches of this, one of that, three of this, etc. Works very well to match spectrumized dubbings.
Must say that although I have caught a good number of fish on the Canadian Blood yarn (it's effective used in a mohair leech pattern for the landlocked Atlantic Salmon at Hosmer Lake), I only keep a couple of flies using that material in the fly box. It is an option and not a often-fished standby.
Your fish-catching may differ.
Wes Wada Bend, Oregon
