Hareline Mayfly Foam Body Cutter

What it is

Hareline’s Mayfly Foam Body Cutter is a bench tool for cutting foam into consistent mayfly-body shapes. It uses double-edged steel blades to make clean, precise cuts, and the hardwood handle holds up to regular tying use. It will cut accurately across varied foam thicknesses.

What to tie with it

Use it to punch out extended mayfly bodies or cut full foam mayfly bodies, including shaped heads, right from a foam sheet. It’s also handy for two-tone foam bodies by stacking or laminating foam before cutting, then tying the cut body in with standard extended-body methods like a stirrup tie or paraloop-style support.

Flies and the fish they're for

This cutter is aimed at foam mayfly patterns, especially extended-body mayflies that are fished as dry flies for trout on rivers during mayfly hatches. The smaller sizes also get used to cut foam indicator “posts” or bits for foam beetle-style dries, which are commonly fished to trout in summer when terrestrials are in play. If you’re building larger foam extended bodies from thicker sheets (like 2mm foam), it helps keep those big-bodied mayfly silhouettes consistent from fly to fly.