Category Archives: Fly Tying

Fly fishing and fly tying have always been costly, but can an employee discount replace a misspent youth

I’m the fellow that leaped off the couch signaling a “wave off” … frantically gesticulating while your diatribe continues unabated …

“Yea, it’s great I showed the shop some of my flies and they want me to tie for them it’s great I get a big discount on all my stuff 40% off on rods and waders and tippet and books and my wife can’t say sheeet!”

“Yea, but …”

“…and the thing that is really cool is I’m tying these twenty dozen wooly worms and they’re fast as hell and I’m making all kinds of money and it’s going to be great ‘cause the IRS don’t know sheeet!”

“Yea, BUT…”

“ …don’t harsh my buzz ‘cause I’m a machine cranking these bad boys out they wanted five dozen peacock and five dozen brown and five dozen purple and five dozen grey so I’m unleashing some serious bucks and you’re trying to rain on my parade ‘cause they didn’t ask you and you can’t tie sheeet!”

“Yea, that was just the first order Meatloaf, new talent always gets training wheel flies to draw them in, and now your new boss is contemplating which miniscule hell he’s going to unleash on your second order.

In fact, I got a dollar that says he wants #16 and #18 Henryville Specials, with the little spray of lemon wood duck between the quill wings, better yet I’ll go lobster dinner if I’m wrong.”

A week later I get the pitiful-yet-defiant voice on the other end of the phone, “I finished that order for wooly worms.”

“Yea, and ….”

“I picked out the Sage rod I’m getting …”

“ … and …”

“ … and the prick wants me to tie 100 dozen Quill Wing Royal Coachmen in size 18 and another hunert dozen in 20.”

“ … and which Sizzler was you taking me to?”

My first order was from a family friend, fifty cents apiece for two dozen #14 Adams. I was about 15 at the time and that was all the money in the known world.

Ditto for the second, third, and fourth orders. Brindle Bugs in size 6 & 8 – only they had to look exactly like the specimen provided; thirty years mashed in a fly box, dampened and dried countless times, bleached by sunlight, then handed over with complete reverence.

Even at that tender age I knew he meant it.

It was bad enough the solution involved lining garbage cans until Poppa offered to drive me to Mecca. That was Creative Sports Enterprises, Andre Puyans, and the giant crate of fifty cent India capes, the only establishment that offered hope of finding a Rhode Island Red that had been pawed over and bleached by incandescent to mimic Rhode kill.

… and the hooks were no longer made, so the hangers-on at the cash register tried to get rid of me with the standard fare, then endured my critical regard  for the Mustad’s he offered before I lit him up, “limerick bend small barb, 2X long, bronzed, tapered and looped down eye, steelhead hook … these are model perfect bend and forged, what else you got?”

… even Puyans raised an eyebrow at my steely tone.

I pocketed eighteen whole dollars at the cost of nine. Two weeks of arduous labor to complete three dozen, and the proceeds were a princely sum … for the Sudan or Somalia.

I eked out a small subsidence wage pimping tiny dry flies to school children, until the American Casting Association needed 60 dozen tournament dry flies with trimmed hackle.

Months later, Ma was still sweeping the dander from yellow saddle hackle out of the living room … and I was approaching the dollar-an-hour barrier, which like the speed of sound was something mysterious, theoretical, and largely mythical.

Now that I was big enough to peer over the counter,  as I pawed through smuggled Chinese capes at the local shop, mentioned that I “had vice, will travel” … and the portly gentleman manning the register figured he could run me off by demanding to see my letters of marque.

Samples. Lots of them.

… and while he pawed through Caddis and mayflies in assorted shapes, sizes and colors, confessed to an immediate need for Umpqua Specials, size 8, “bring ‘em until I say stop.”

Steelhead stuff was easy money, and as the Umpqua Special was a standard pattern and didn’t require yellow saddle, I was a budding entrepreneur.

“Gray thread? Who told you to use Gray thread for the head on an Umpqua Special?”

I was caught unawares, and while the guilty party was likely Trey Combs or AJ McClane, assisted by a grainy photograph, I realized us commercial fly tiers were not chosen for our artistic tendencies nor innate sense of fashion, commercial flies were “acne” – black heads on everything.

…until he ordered Light Cahill’s, where I heard similar, “Black Thread? Who told you …”

The Devil was always detail. Never leave the establishment without a sample, failing that, never guess, never embellish, and absent a hard sample, lock in the thread color beforehand.

I was an animal.

I started the day brushing teeth and memorizing fly patterns, and while the other kids were at lunch, rifled their desk for the brass tubes from ballpoint pens, drained the ink and made barrels for tube flies. Homework assignments were works of art, their content marginal, but the margins festooned with Trichoptera, mating Odonata and dancing mayfly nymphs for the late assignments.

My pals talked carburetors and valve timings, and I responded with metatarsals and pronotum, both parties nodding sagely at the other’s comments – entirely ignorant of their meaning, but multiple syllables being smarter than singles, whatever he’d said was surely profound.

They discovered posi-traction and I learned their interior was navy blue chenille, and how vinyl fuel line in small diameters makes a great  sleeve for a salvaged ballpoint enroute to salmon greatness.

I was “Neo,” The One. The kid that answered strange phone calls from desperate anglers, from Captains of Industry, where black limo’s swooped to the curb and neatly folded brown baggies were exchanged for wads of cash, stock options, or smuggled exotics from far continents.

“Hello?”

“Can you tie a fly called a Green Highlander, and could you have three dozen 4/0’s done by Thursday?”

“Sure, you want that in traditional full dress, or low water, tube-style, hairwing, reduced, original Kelson, the Scottish or Irish variant, spey style, Dee style, on a Waddington shank, or tied on a Salmon double?”

“Shit, I don’t know, they just told me to bring those!”

“I’ll need a Dun & Bradstreet, your last two years of Income Tax returns, and the name of the river you’re going to fish – or you can smuggle an ounce of baby seal back through customs and I’ll waive the fee for the Lady Amherst and Silver Monkey hair.”

“D-d-de-Deal!”

Smuggling was part and parcel of the enterprise, as a trip to Tasmania meant you could afford the surcharge for “real” Tasmanian Devil fur, Newt eyelash, or whatever indigenous species the locals raped for their flies. Upon your return or via anonymous post you sent the plainly wrapped endangered species to a pre-arranged safe house.

Mine. Mostly.

The basement dumpster of the US Customs Office yielded a current copy of the regulations and prohibitions, and offshore vendors were thrilled to label the forbidden package, “Commercial synthetic samples, not for resale.”

Despite all those federal agencies and sniffing canines, there was only one guy at the airport that knew what sawdust in the fiber meant, only one guy that could recognize a Grey Jungle Fowl – and while the dogs pawed through the luggage from Bogota, intent on valises stuffed with white powder, Golden Bird of Paradise just looked like a drab chicken by comparison.

There weren’t any pastel tee shirts or cigar boats in my future, no gold chains – and while my pals had discarded crankshafts and blowers for girls, I was battling moths.

Safely in college, yet broke due to reinvestment of all proceeds, I memorized war movies and naked celebrities. A decade of breathing Naptha and licking arsenic off your fingers meant the daylight hours were spent in class sleeping, and the evenings were tying flies for cash.

Stuff started hurting, first your backside from all those late night cram sessions involving unsteady chairs and great gouts of deer hair, whose hook points were invisible to mashing fingers until you exerted enough for a clean through-and through. The drone of the war movie in the background while you focused on upright and divided, until the soundtrack cued you that the platoon was going to get raked by gunfire, or the point man dismembered …

Ditto for celebrity skin, craning forward to ensure the post on the parachute was just tall enough, only to glance up for the obligatory disrobing scene, followed by three turns of Ginger and a whip finish.

The fly received that – Ginger got what broadcast TV allowed, then faded to commercial.

By then I was “Little Dry Fly” – a rare find for a shop, as the less talented were assigned duties and the Indian names corresponding; the “Zug Bug Guy” or “Balding Hare’s Ear.” None of us were referred to by name or with any real human courtesy – we were commercial fly tiers with clever sounding Indian names, distinguished by our always being late with the order, always short, and when un-chaperoned – always elbow deep in your Metz necks.

We were calloused, hardcore, and harder to find when the order was due …

… the only thing harder than us was getting paid, as every proprietor had visions of retiring to a fly shop and little knowledge of how to run one.

Like hired guns, we’d occasionally cross paths – often when reaching for the same tuft of marabou or grizzly neck – standing hipshot in the thread aisle talking war stories, “… he ordered 400 dozen #16’s? Dude, that’s depressing, count backwards or something so it seems like you got more done …”

Flies didn’t exist singly any longer. Your fingers had a will of their own, and only dozens counted. A bright idea for an experimental, and you’d glance down and there’d be a dozen finished.

New thread?

You blink and there's a dozen

… another dozen. New dubbing color?

and another dozen

A bronze olive accident in the dye pot and … you guessed it.

everything results in a dozen

You’re at the height of your craft, mind whirling with combinations and permutations and fingers follow without conscious thought, everything looks fishy, all of them edible, only your fly box is full.

… so is the second one you carry, and the reject box you pretend to leave out for your kin to pillage, and the steelhead box, and the coffee can next to the varnish spill.

… double for the big box you bought for dubbing, and your sock drawer.

… and all those tungsten and copper beads, lead wire and cone heads – are not so much selection as death warrant, and the inevitable header cataclysmic – akin to a Polaris class sub in full alarm dive.

If you’re lucky you’ll leave an oil slick and floating debris, so the widow can toss a wreath at the spot while inviting your pals to paw through all your accumulated Precious.

One day you look back on all that misspent youth and misplaced ardor and wonder – did you ever take possession of that discounted Sage rod, or does the sumbitch still owe you …

Test. Sage rod, commercial fly tying, dubbing, steelhead, bead head, cone head, thick head, fly tying humor, fly tying blog, fly fishing, Green Highlander, baby seal, U. S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, captains of industry

When a great fish hook goes bad

With all the boutique players entering into the hook market and many discounters emerging offshore, it’s possible to run afoul of a good hook that fishes poorly.

Most of us don’t consider pinching the barb much of a modification, but the design of the hook often hinges on the barb being present. Plenty of great hooks can be made less so once the barb has been flattened.

PartridgeCH1A

At left is an old Partridge CH1A with a traditional Model Perfect bend, hollow point, and small barb. Those delicate little Partridge barbs are easy to flatten but the short point coupled with the Model Perfect bend allows fish to roll right off the hook.

Model Perfect bends aid the fish in that they’re a perfect half circle – making it much easier for the fish to pivot cleanly off the hook.

Sproat and Limerick bends (as do many others) are kinked to lodge the fish in a specific spot, making it a bit less likely for the fish to slide free.

That’s only a marginal advantage as no hook offers anything close to complete protection.

There’s simply not enough straight steel in the above CHIA to offer any margin of safety, with the bend starting just behind the barb a simple headshake will cause the hook to disconnect.

It’s not a function of quality, it’s the design of the hook that doesn’t lend itself to barbless.

Mustad4450 By contrast, a Mustad 4450 with its hollow point, model perfect bend, and enormous barb is much more sinister. Flattening the barb is a little more difficult than the microbarb-style Partridge, but the extra length in the point gives greater purchase and while the Perfect bend allows the fish to pivot – enough straight steel remains in the point and barb area to prevent their sliding off so easily.

Both are excellent hooks with the barb intact, but that’s no longer true once the barb is flattened.

eachabitdifferent

Partridge CH1A at top, middle is a Partridge HL1A, bottom is the Mustad 4450, each in size eight. Each style has just a bit more straight steel than the other (as points and barbs differ in each) which assist in holding the fish in place despite the barbless configuration.

As the micro-barb and chemically sharpened needle points have replaced many of the older styles like spear and hollow point, the distance between point and bend has grown smaller. Chemicals bathe the metal and etch on all sides simultaneously – yielding a symmetrical point often called a needle point.

Mechanical sharpening isn’t nearly as efficient, but that selfsame inefficiency (especially when hand sharpened) allows us to displace metal asymmetrically yielding the spear, knife edge, and hollow points. Which can be quite pronounced as in long swoop of the hollow point on the 4450 above.

Shanks lengthen over time and points recede, offering our quarry more leverage than ever. It’s incumbent on us to use the critical eye when enamored of some new hook – as it may have unforeseen consequences when fished.

Tags: Partridge hooks, Mustad hooks, spear point, microbarb, fly tying materials, hook geometry, chemically sharpened hooks, needle point

Just little packets of dander

While last week was an orgy of drips, smears, and spills, it was only half of the overall effort. Testing dyes to produce the one and twenty minute shades gave me a pile of sodden colors, but it’s not dubbing until it’s teased, torn, and turned into filament.

Fabric Dyer's Dictionary Wet dyeing is a mixture of chance and things we can bend to our will, “dry dyeing” allows us to micro-manage color and turn lemons into lemonade.

It also allowed me to experiment with a fabric color bible, and their recipes for 900 different colors from component colors.

I picked up the Fabric Dyer’s Dictionary ($16.29) from Amazon.com, figuring fabric and its rough weave might approximate dubbing colors fairly well. This particular book isn’t as useful as I’d hoped as it’s limited to the fiber reactive liquid dyes used on vegetable fibers, like soy, hemp, jute, silk, and cotton.

Sample page and color measurement

It does list the components of each hue – which may be enough for the casual colorist to get within striking distance of the color desired, but you’ll have to develop a conversion from liquid measure to dry, or convert your powdered dye to squeeze bottles as they suggest.

As the liquid phase of the project was complete, I’d need to convert their teaspoons and tablespoons into pinches of dubbing.

Mixing dry dubbing to yield new colors

A couple of dog brushes, a gauze mask, and elbow grease is all that’s required, that and plenty of fur in as many colors as possible.

You can’t use blenders on fibers that are measured in microns, this is more of the Singlebarbed’s Whizbang Dry Fly dubbing and the average fiber is only 12 microns wide – about one-thirtieth a strand of wool fiber, it’s gossamer and sticks to everything – and will only bind into clumps with blender use.

Tearing the fibers between the grooming combs aligns them in parallel and starts the blending of color.

All fibers pulled parallel to one another

Now it’s only a matter of how complete of a color blend you want. As an impressionist I’d rather have some streaks of the components available as it allows me to fine tune the actually fly by selecting a bit more yellow or a bit less, ditto for the gray.

About four mixing passes to reach this blending

Considering that you can do the same with existing packs of fur you’ve purchased from the fly shop, dry dyeing allows you to build custom colors unique to your fishery with little mess.

The above yellow-gray blend has been through about four blending passes to achieve this level of mix. Each pass was scraped against the other repeatedly, then lifted off the bottom comb by scraping the top “with the grain” and towards you, then laid down again on the bottom comb to repeat the process.

This is about as far as I’ll take each blend. It gives about four shades of color from a single clump, depending on whether you take the fur from a yellowish area or a predominantly gray section.

final color with its components

The final blend with its component colors – the flash has lightened the original gray measurably. The color is a good muddy gray – liable to be someone’s secret color somewheres.

Considering the ultra-fine filament size necessary for a good dry fly dubbing, the rending process will have particles in orbit all around you. If you’re sitting down to a extended session wear a simple mask to avoid inhaling the bunny, beaver, or filament you’re tinkering with, it’s only prudent.

The first batch of colors

It doesn’t take much to yield a spectrum of colors suited to your watershed – and contrary to vendor offerings, you’ll have few wasted colors, and they’ll be complex blends – none of the drab monotones that dominate commercial dry fly dubbing.

I’ve concentrated the colors above in the olive and brown range, giving me 10 shades of each, plus 5 shades of gray, and a quick spectrum of warm colors suitable for most of the common California colors of mayfly and caddis.

This is just a start however, as I’m building a comprehensive selection to replace all the odd packs of vendor dubbing accumulated over a couple of decades.

Fly-Rite, Spectrum, Hareline, and all the traditional flavors just cannot compete with a naturally floating filament measured in microns. They’ll be relegated to a dimly lit drawer once I’ve matched all the remaining hues needed.

The color syllabus can only be used as a hint for the colors to clump on the combs, but as dry dyeing offers you complete control – you can add a pinch of what’s missing and match an exact color very quickly.

Something for you to tinker with while waiting for the creeks to subside.

Tags: bulk fly tying materials, dry fly dubbing, dry dyeing, fly tying blog, fly tying, fabric dyer’s dictionary, Hareline, fly-Rite, Spectrum, fly fishing, dog comb,

Labels and reference color hide a rainbow of sins

dye_fiddling Call me a slow learner, but the aerial display of the fourth will have nothing on the fireworks tonight …

I Figure 26 colors run through the same sink, tracked across identical linoleum – each with a 100% chance of a gaily colored spill outlining big hammy footprints headed toward the Man Cave …

Naturally I’ll spring for roses and chocolate hoping to confuse Miss White Glove, but even with all the innocent looks and promises of romance her spider-sense is liable to tingle.

It’s why I save all those extra Fly Shop ziploc bags, the lecture on “How much fly tying stuff do you need” carries less penalty than the “you dribbled Olive crap all over the living room” variant. By witching hour, all two and a half pounds of dry fly dubbing, plus those sixteen animal hides will be packaged neatly, allowing me to look appropriately shamefaced while she administers the former – rather than the latter, while I distract her with dinner and a glass of fine red.

I was working colors mostly, a new set of dyes and a new vendor always requires an exhaustive trial to see how labels and reference colors stack up to the end result.

I use the “21” method for evaluating new dyes, as the range of payload color can be fairly drastic even among the lightest tints. Take two identical hanks of material, soak one in the bath for one minute – soak the other in the bath for twenty minutes, dry and compare.

Twenty-One Method of Dye evaluation

The upper row shows four colors dipped for just 60 seconds, the bottom row shows the same dye bath after 20 minutes. The rightmost “Maize Yellow” produced a Golden Amber with an extended dip – yet the label reference showed the light maize variant. The leftmost color was “Safari Gray” – a color similar to Khaki, but the extended dip became nearly brown.

The rust brown and dark olive (two middle colors) were labeled as the bottom row, both dark colors – and quite vibrant in intensity. The one minute colors yielded a sage green and a creamy orange – with the cream-orange a huge bonus as it’s used extensively in most of the watersheds I fish regular.

This is why it’s so important to test dyes before using them on precious materials, sometimes the reference color is one minute – other times it’s gained only after the long steep. Knowing which yields what minimizes mistakes and the unforeseen colors.

More colors

Here’s another four dyes with similar issues. The leftmost medium gray and rightmost khaki are only true to the label color after a one minute dip – after that they darken incredibly fast. The center two, medium olive and brick red match the label only after a twenty minute soak. The one minute olive is also a huge color, it’s the Pale Morning Dun pale olive – something I thought I’d have to craft, versus just dipping it in a jug of nymph dip for a minute.

Each of the dyes shown was measured identically, one tablespoon of dye and three tablespoons of fixative, each used identical amounts of water.

Each dye is capable of three distinctive colors, the 1, 20, and 11 minute shade.

A canny fellow looks at the colors available and the 1, 11, and 20 minute results and can exclude certain colors from purchase. Most browns have only minor adjustments in red or black pigment, having it steep longer will match a russet or dark brown which you won’t have to buy.

The above picture is 13 dyes yielding 25 colors – not to mention the most absolute black and bright red I’ve ever seen.

Get Out of Jail Free Card

The Before As no points are scored for being banned from the kitchen, it’s important that the how to make a complete mess is tempered with how to extricate yourself from a screaming and angry woman.

It’s like watching all those crime shows and getting pointers on how to hide the body.

At left is the corpse after three days of desiccation. “Her” corn grabbers being the blunt instrument we need to cleanse – as well as the assortment of  ugly gray, red, and yellow driblets that line the strainer area. Each capable of bringing the Wrath of The Gods onto your narrow shoulders.

Soft Scrub, Get Outta Jail At right is the Righter of Kitchen Wrongs, cleanses fingerprints, restores the Pristine to the porcelain, and is capable of making you innocent of all imagined crimes.

… and don’t nod your head like you knew it already, this is the Goods, Babe.

Lay a generous dollop onto the porcelain and cover the afflicted area completely, give it 10 minutes to work magic, then rinse.

… and don’t buy the lemon as it coagulates in the jug rendering the contents useless. Unless you like driving to the store – blowing through all them red lights.

Along with pink fingers, the immaculate sink is the only means of extending your dyeing career, providing enough cover to enjoy a second or third session …

The immaculate porcelain

The pot scrape remains but all coloring agents are scoured from the surface. The shine has been restored as has the ability to see one’s reflection.

This corpse is buried deep.

Note the replaced strainer from my earliest attempts. All chrome with no tell tale rubber gasket to stain. It’s the perfect crime.

Tags: dyeing fly tying materials, dye reference colors, chrome strainer, dye stains, soft scrub, 21 method

The Bug died screaming, make sure you imitate that

carpenter_ant If fly tying wasn’t such a mood based hobby your flies would be twice as good. A big order of tiny, upthrust, and gossamer locks the poor tyer into a mayfly mindset and when a big black ant is up next – being a “slab” of protein completely out of place on water, the result is tiny, gossamer, and neat …

… which has no parallel when imitating a drowning Chuck Roast.

Knowing my coworkers will be demanding ants by lunch hour, and armed with a half dozen photos from yesterday – whose details are still fresh, I eyeballed a couple of the larger catalogs and noticed every ant was an upright aquatic insect … none were tied as a dead bug, and fewer yet were tied screaming in terror.

The Gods had smiled ever so briefly, and while it may be five or six seasons before I need them again, I learned my lesson.

First of all terrestrial insects don’t ride the surface upright like mayflies. Most of them are dead, the rest are struggling to free a big terrestrial wing from the water’s surface and will expire on their back or curled on their side, and there’s nothing neat and orderly about it.

Wings aren’t gossamer as they’d get in the way. They’re stubby thick affairs that once dampened lose most of their aerodynamic qualities, trapping the insect in whatever position was first contact.

Fish (bless them) are entirely unsophisticated when the equivalent of a Virginia Ham is struggling on the surface, and it’s likely that color and size is all that’s needed.

… and something that allows you to see that flush-in-the-film imitation so you’ll know when to strike.

Not pretty, nor is it meant to be

I dubbed the traditional ant profile using black deer hair, which left fibers poking in every direction looking like big black legs. I slapped some brown and black permanent marker on the lettuce bag from the trash, posted some closed cell foam upright and wound a brown-dyed grizzly hackle around it to add a bit more brownish tint to the overall fly.

Those wings will flop onto the surface and stick as the saran is so light it won’t hold its tied-in shape.

Curled and dead

Contrast the dead ants with the live picture at the top. Orderly and shipshape versus cold and curled – wings splayed. This was the look of the wet insect we fished over Sunday.

Surely, if a large Adams was all it took to fool the fish we’re splitting hairs, yet if you’re taking the trouble to imitate something lose the live bug bias and get disjoint and nasty.

Coifed and combed is for that sweet smelling fellow with the droopy backcast, and was never meant for the bait …

It’s the wing they’ll eat – all them other parts are inconsequential

The last piece of my stillwater arsenal has to be the dry flies. All are custom patterns I keep tinkering with as shortcomings and frailties become pronounced. The Calibaetis mayfly doesn’t help much as it’s seems to be a different color on every lake it inhabits.

I like to position myself on the side of the lake the wind blows towards – as the emergent adults are content to ride the breeze for great distances – instead of popping off the water immediately like a stream borne insect. The breeze will deliver all that food right to me and in the right bay or shallows the fishing can be spectacular.

For most lake mayflies I’ll toss the classic proportions and make special flies tailored for an extended float. A traditional size 16 will get the wing and hackle of a 15 (sometimes even larger if the lake is known gusty) – as the tall wing is what fish see when cruising for prey.

… and it allows me to pick my fly out from the pack, allowing me the courtesy of setting the hook when it’s eaten – rather than yanking when it’s the natural next to mine … On breezy lakes, the tall wing allows me to maintain visual contact despite the fly dipping into a wave trough – increasing my chances of seeing the strike.

I cast about two thirds less than the average fellow, as once positioned on the windward side I’ll usually find the fish cruising at my feet. As that ever-present breeze blows my “sailboat” back towards me I’ll slowly take up the slack and recast only when the fly is within a rod’s length.

It’s flirting with bait fishing, but that extra breadth of hackle and light dressing allows a greased fly to float forever.

I’ve settled on both brown and a grey bodied flies for the same hatch. One will have a distinct brownish appearance, the other will be tied mostly gray – and as the emergence is midday – there’s ample light to discern color. I’ve given up theorizing or second guessing and just make sure I have a couple dozen of each.

Hair Wing Brown Calibaetis

The nymph is the easiest part; somewhere between a Pheasant Tail, a Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear, and a Zug Bug is the proper flavor, and like the dry fly it varies a bit each year.

Hen Saddle tip Calibaetis

I like the speckled hen saddle wings as they present the perfect opaque silhouette, and when riding among naturals are nearly indistinguishable. Note the oversized wing and hackle mentioned earlier. Once damp those wings can overpower a traditional hackle and flop the fly on its side. The broad footprint of the oversized hackle stabilizes the fly and ensures it’ll ride upright with wings prominent.

All these unknown experimental made-it-yourself flies comes with a hideous burden, after the fellow next to you inquires and you tell him to “try an Adams” – you’re obliged to hand over a double-fistful, it’s the law.

Tags: Adams, stillwater dry flies, oversized wing, speckled hen saddle, Calibaetis mayfly, parachute flies, hairwing, dyed elk, grizzly hackle, fly tying

When silhouette is no longer enough

It was a bit of an imposition, watching the steady upward march of a horde of damselfly nymphs – and realizing I’d never considered my camouflaged legs part of any textbook underwater migration. Science held me in it’s grip until the first slimy little sucker made it past the neckline of my shirt and insisted on molting somewhere near my navel.

… and they swim like true fish, not awkward or ungainly like other aquatic insects. That elongated body with the three-bladed gill tail is put to good use. And it makes perfect sense that a stillwater insect that swims as gracefully as a minnow would have his gills where the tail should be – as the swimming motion would allow those appendages to slurp all the oxygen needed – even more when flight was necessary.

I liken them to Stoneflies of the Lake, larger than most of the Caddis and Mayflies, yet slender and elongated – giving a fly tyer the opportunity to practice his craft with larger hooks and plenty of shank – versus the minutiae that comprises the balance of a fish’s diet.

I don’t favor the traditional “wooden” long-shank mayfly imitation, as a small tuft of marabou just cannot substitute for the graceful swimming motion so characteristic to this species.

Wiggle Damsel

Instead I’ll opt for the tail and body as a single unit, coupled with a short shank hook to provide just enough room for lead wire and a wingcase. Three or four strands of medium olive with a like amount of brown over the top gives me a couple of colors that are proven tasty.

Most of the damsel nymphs I’ve fished over are dark Olive – but occasionally I’ll find them in brown. I take my cue from the lake bottom and its weeds – as the naturals are tailored to match. Putting both colors in the wing allows you to remove one later by simply tearing the fibers off – a modification you can do on the water.

Motion is the key, especially when faced with the color dampening effects of deep water, where warm starts to dull and the fish measured in pounds cluster.

Tags: Damselfly nymphs, fly fishing in stillwater, lake flies, fly fishing for trout, marabou, baitfish, graceful swimmer, sink tip, short shank hook

That was then and this is now

The gals in the lunchroom give me a wide berth as my work reputation  has fallen from Epsilon Semi-Moron to neo-primitive Undateable. It’s what happens when the really soft – brightly colored tuft of hair in my hand is identified as real animal. In their mind I probably kilt the SOB in the driveway and don’t dare ask what my sandwich is made from …

Monday and Tuesday was Shad flies, and the brightly colored tufts of whatnot scattered about my vise were a magnet for the curious, until they found out they were real.

Watery Armageddon sank all plans of Shad and Wednesday I had shifted to trout, which has even more gross and despicable things that add to my legend  …

American down 2000

Now the American has dropped 2000 CFS in a couple of days, and I’m back to bead chain and 0.20 lead. A wide gulf of empty tables separates me from the rest of the diners – but that’s not all bad.

At least I don’t have to answer the 10 Sacred Really Obvious Questions that You Shouldn’t Ask:

1) Is that a hook?

2) Do fish eat that?

3) Is that real fur?

4) are you a serial killer?

5) Did your Mother cut the crusts off your sandwich when you were little?

6) Does this make up for your having a small …

It’s scheduled to be only twice its normal size this weekend, but after six months of watching rain fall – my waistline is twice normal, allowing me to hold ground in everything but the fairway.

Next week I’ve got a date with trout again, so I’ll secret a couple of pheasant skins in my bag so I can sail them into the crowd whispering over at the Coke machine …

Makes you wonder what would happen if the butcher left a few feathers on those boneless skinless chicken breasts  – and whether it wouldn’t induce mass hysteria or famine in the metropolis.

Tags : cro-magnon, trout fishing, shad fishing, serial killer, pheasant skin, undateable, American river flow, fly fishing, fly tying humor

A trout’s eye view, minus the assumptions

While the balance of nature might be perfection, most of its inhabitants are less so. Us fishermen are often knotted up in our notions of behavior and only underwater footage or other form of proof is needed to get us thinking outside the conventional.

Utah Fly Guides posted a video of Green Drake nymphs struggling to the surface – and as the video plainly demonstrates, they’re tumbling around in the water column and in the unfamiliar medium stability only comes with a solid anchor.

If this is what the fish sees; first a flash of light belly, then a split second of dark back, enduring all that effort to separate colors may be worth the effort. Then again, woven bodies involve considerable pain and suffering and share a certain stiffness coupled with a tendency to rotate around the hook with abuse.

With an upcoming foray into the Pristine scheduled, and a couple of ideas, I brushed the Orange and Pink materials out of the way to see what I could dream up.

Four colors of dubbing to blend belly to back color

As always efficiency is better than painstaking detail, and if they prove successful you’ll be better off with a couple dozen versus a couple period…

I started with the traditional color for the Drakes I’ve fished over in California, and the color of its underbelly. I made a quick blend of 1/2 belly – 1/2 back, and 3/4 belly – 1/4 back, then used all four colors to dub the body in short stages.

The effect is a nice harmony – a color spectrum that shifts from light to dark (in Olives) – and should make both back and belly colors visible to matter what attitude the fish has to the fly.

Transitional colors belly to back

In watching the video a couple times, I noticed the belly color offers the starkest contrast with the surrounding water – allowing me to pick out the “food” from the bits of leaves rather quickly.

We’ll never know what the trout sees, but transitioning colors in this manner yields no additional complexity and a rather striking end result.

Tags: Green Drakes, fly tying, color transition, trout fishing, blended dubbing, fly tying complexity,

The new austerity and the dawn of the dollar bag

ziploc_bigbag Been a big week for the Singlebarbed staffers, first we’re designated a “High Value Site” by the Trout Underground and it’s too late to take it back, and we’ve moved to swanky new digs on the Internet – which has left us broke and penniless …

So we’ll start with an austerity post, a belt tightening move that’ll show those spendthrifts in government they’re doomed, hopefully a preview of tomorrow’s primary election.

The much anticipated, oft imitated, debut of the $1 wader bag.

A glimpse at the Singlebarbed Freezer

Ziploc bags big enough to hold a set of damp and odiferous waders – or their companion felt soled shoes, destined for freezing or quarantine. Now “Mama” won’t come unglued at the sight of your muddy brogans taking up precious space in her freezer – or leaving tell tale signs of your trespass.

… and for the fly tying crowd, we can finally secure those long graceful tail feathers, and not find them chewed past usefulness and in the process of infecting the rest of the drawer.

Ziploc® Brand Big Bags are available in three big sizes:

  • L equivalent to 3 Gallon (11.4L) 1.25 FT. x 1.25 FT. (38.1cm x 38.1cm) 5ct.
  • XL equivalent to 10 Gallon (37.8L) 2 FT. x 1.7 FT. (60cm x 51 cm) 4ct.
  • XXL equivalent to 20 Gallon (75.7L) 2 FT. x 2.7 FT. (60cm x 82 cm) 3ct.

A canny fellow would find a way to secrete a box under the driver’s seat. After you swerve to accidentally blindside that cud chewing Milk Cow in your out-of-control-Prius, you can toss the carcass into the back seat in a tasteful and sanitary bundle.

Tags: Ziploc bags, fly tying, tail feathers, felt soled waders, Internet service provider, high dollar web site, austerity, California primary election