Wool vs Dubbing vs Yarn for Egg Patterns

I wanted to tie some egg patterns to fish myself and to gift to some friends, so I stopped by a fly shop in Manhattan to see if they had any materials. They had yellow and orange, so I picked some up. They didn’t have pink though, so I thought I’d get creative and try out some materials I already had to see how they’d work: wool yarn and dubbing.

Top left to right: Shetland Spindrift 301 wool yarn, pink ice dub, a blend of the orange dubbings I have, Orvis egg yarn. Bottom: Orange EZ Egg yarn.

When I got home, I tried out the EZ egg yarn and found it very easy to tie, and it produces a nice looking egg! I used an orange bead instead of a hotspot. The EZ yarn is essentially a chenille base with other materials spun onto it.

I also picked up some old stock Orvis yarn, which you have to tie in, then cut to shape. I found that more difficult to work with and don’t like the look of as much. They are the yellow eggs in the photo below.

The other problem with the other yarns is that they seem to work better on larger hooks, like size 10 or 12. Great for big trout and steelhead, but for some of the smaller wild trout near me, I’ve been using size 14 and 16 hooks most of the time. These larger yarns aren’t ideal for that. So I decided to see how the wool yarn and dubbing would work!

Top, L-R: Pink Wool yarn, pink dubbing blend, pink ice dub only
Middle, L-R: Orange dubbing blend, orange EZ Yarn
Bottom: Orvis yellow egg yarn

For the pink dubbing egg, I decided to use a size 16 jig hook, because I had pink slotted beads that would fit. Plus, wild trout eggs would be a bit smaller.

The dubbing eggs have a great shape!

Especially with the dubbing flies, I dabbed UV resin on the head and tail to lock everything in place.

The EZ Egg Yarn was a winner in when I consider the combo of speed and looks.

Dubbing eggs were second because they look great, though they take a while to tie.

Wool yarn eggs are okay, but aren’t as fast to tie as the EZ Egg yarn, and don’t look as good.

The yellow yarn was the worst. It is kind of ugly and take almost as long as the dubbing eggs to tie and shape.

Good experiment. Going forward, I’ll probably buy a couple packs of the EZ Egg yarn in different colors and sizes and use that for egg patterns. If I had an endless supply of dubbing I’d just use that, but dubbing is about the same price as the EZ Egg yarn, but faster and easier to tie. It also leaves my dubbing available for other flies.