Rookie questions

[RIJIMMY]

Hope you can provide some guidance without laughing. I recently uncovered a ton of fly tying materials along with the boxes of fishing stuff my Dad gave me when he moved to Florida. He used to tie some flys and jigs.
I don’t flyfish but I used the wooden egg rig and I use teasers. I started tying some flies and it’s a lot of fun, but I have a few questions.
1. How do you know which way the fly is going to sit in the water? Hook barb up or down? I’m doing some patterns, black back white bottom and I’m not sure which end is the bottom. See I told you you’d laugh.
2.I have some of the barbell lead eye weights, how do you attach these to the hooks? I tied one around a 1000 times and cemented it, its not that sturdy.

That’s it, the pictures of flies posted here are sweet. After this I’ll go back to the Striper Talk thread and discuss plugs and eel, I promise

[Young Salt]

I personally don't weight my flys very often and when I do, I use lead-free wire that you wrap around the shank. with that said...
A normal, unweighted fly will ride hook point down, with the point & the bend acting as a little keel. If you use dumbbell eyes, then the fly will tend to fall point down if it is tied under the hook shank, point up if it is tied above the shank. just think of how the weight will drag the fly down.
When I tie in a dumbbell i make a 6-7 'criss cross' turns...the hourglass or round shape helps the thread stay nice and centered. The motion that I use for my next couple turns is what really locks it into place...I make a motion - like mixing something a bowl - around the weight NOT AROUND THE SHANK. I do that a couple times, then I add some head cement/ silicone / epoxy.
Also, if you already have thread around the hook shank, it will help keep the eyes ( and most other stuff) from rolling on the hook shank.

[rizzo]

When using natural stuff like bucktail it is naturally buoyant, and tends to want to float up. So if you tie a lot of bucktail on the bottom of the hook it will ride hook point up.

Also when tying dumbell eyes its important to cover the hook in thread where you are going to put the dumbells. This gives the dumbell and the thread wraps around it something to hold onto. Like young salt said throw in a couple of horizontal circular wraps, they help cinch down your figure 8 wraps. Adding a drop of super glue helps too. I tie all my dumbell eye flys like this and never have problems with them coming loose.

[RIJIMMY]

Thanks for the advice.