Saltwater Fly Fishing (SWOFFING) Darwin, NT: Tying for Boat Box prize for upcoming NTFFSM

Been tying furiously for the upcoming saltwater comp at Bynoe run by the NT Fly Fishers Social Mob on the 20-21st Sept - a week and a bit from now.
Not only for myself as I am also tying up 40 or so flies for each of the two boat boxes my woodwork students have made in elective class - they are to be raffle or door prizes at the comp

So far I have tied 20 crease flies, (actually 25)

10 each for the two boat boxes to cover surface action (last five are for me!)
Crease flies are a great surface fly for most NT waters predator species

These Crease flies are tied on O'Shaunessy hooks - these ones are 2/0 stainless
First step is to tie in a bunch of white fibres off the hook bend
Then for this version add a touch of green flash over the top of this
Tie a full length of thread along the hook shank to give something for the foam body and subsequent super glue to stick to.
I tie 10 to 20 of these to this stage before working on the bodies.

I find tying one fly at a time cumbersome, have to change tools too often. Rather focusing on - less tool changes means tying faster. Before the actual tying of a number of flies of a certain type, I spend a fair bit of time getting ready to tie, like ensuring all material at hand, all the bits cut to size and shape, hooks de-barbed and in a piece of foam so they don't slide about the tying area and later are easier to coat in a batch with nail polish if needed, additionally that all tools in the right places, nothing else on tying area, etc (yes, I am sure I have some level of OCD!)

For the body I use a sticky sided foam I got from Clark Rubber, about 4mm thick and 35-40mm wide. Don't know what is meant to be used for, you can buy it by the metre off a large roll
I cut slightly diagonally across the foam to form a blunt wedge shape - normally for a 2/0 hook I measure the wedge - 25mm across head end and 10mm across tail end.

Now you are ready to take off the protective cover for sticky side and lay pre-tied hook shank along one the edge of the wedge - best about a mm or two from very edge of foam
Evenly fold over, sticky side in, so both edges of foam tape meet just past the thread covered hook shank.
Then hold the tail material out of the way and trim with scissors trim the foam at an angle, just past the hook bend
Sometimes you need to add a little super glue to the thread covered shank to get it all to hold together
If you squeeze edges together for a while it all holds - blowing on it seems to make it work faster - think it has something to do with the moisture in your breathe
Then add your choice of prism or 3D stick on eyes.
Then use marker pen for a black back (you could use green marker), a little touch of red underneath for gills. For the back markings I used to cover top of back in clear nail polish and while still wet dip the area into appropriately coloured glitter powder. Lots of options! Some tyers are now using small air brush guns to paint artistic and realistic patterns - art using the foam back of the crease fly as a canvas!

Now you can cover the join of the edges, the face of the popper and the eyes with epoxy but I find lately I use more often clear nail polish as seems to last as long but is much easier to apply. What ever your choice - cover eyes, front face of fly and areas of marker pen use - at least two coats of the nail polish. Plus nail polish less likely to turn yellow with age like epoxy does.
Be careful with the chemical interaction between marker pen and nail polish as it can 'bleed' the marker pen, I find a light coat of polish applied first without much over brushing then apply more nail polish later avoids this problem

Clousers now done - these ones have a white first layer then a sage coloured layer to provide a subtle colour change. For these clousers I have used large beadchain eyes but lead eyes or even plastic eyes can be chosen depending on the depth you want to fish the fly.

The tail material (DNA fibre) I used has enough flash material inbuilt in it, but if the material you use doesn't, add a few fibres of flash between the two main layers of materials - I like the flash buried in the middle of the fly as I feel it provides depth in the fly's appearance when in the water.
These versions for the prize box also have a hot spot of some hot pink heads (and some salmon coloured). I used to do this with some of my trout flies, so I am thinking it would work for saltwater species too (???), Also hoping it to be mistaken for an egg case or the like.
This is done by switching from the white thread used in main stages of making the fly, after fly is finished to your choice of hot coloured thread - fluoro orange and hot pink are my usually choices. Tie off and cut off white thread, then tie in coloured thread and apply a good layer of thread between beadchain eyes and hook eye before tying off. I then give the thread head and eyes - at least two coats of clear nail polish
I chose clousers for the boat box prize due to the breadth of species it can catch.