Hi TZ, This is an interesting problem which we touched on before ie wings on big insects. I will be very interested to know if the CDC works here. It is my favourite wing material for upwing flys but I have not had great success with it tied spent. I think it gets waterlogged too easily and while it looks good in the hand it lacks the translucent quality I'm looking for. Have tried it on spent Dannica but always ended up going back to good hackle tied spent. The problem is when trout are really locked in I think it is the outline of the spent wings which is the trigger.When you look at the natural flys on the surface it is very distinctive. Hackle is fine on smaller flys especially in rivers.
Have tried trimming to get a good outline and this helps a bit but still not really the business.
Various sheet wing materials are not good spent because they don't cast well and cause twist. Lost a box of my latest and best mayflys last year
so I am starting from scratch ,which is a good thing I suppose.
The problem is similar for the dragonfly wings only worse due to size. The solution may lie with some translucent synthetic fibres either trimmed to give a good outline or maybe tied in as a loop. It's a tough one.............John
