Category Archives: Fly Tying

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

Ancient Iron Revisited

bothfeetThe next time someone mentions fly tying you can print the picture at left and insist that rehab is more than you can bear…

I’d said, “jump in with both feet” – and meant it, until the vendor plopped another 300,000 hooks onto eBAY. Now I’m hoping you’ll save me from myself, and scoop them up before I do.

I had mentioned last week about the spectacular ancient Mustad iron being blown out by Har-Lee Rod of New Jersey, and just as I think things are winding down, out comes another load of some incredible old hooks – at prices you’ve never seen – nor will again.

“Both Feet” for us hardcore types was about 50,000 hooks (shown above), most were purchased at $0.99 for 500, about twenty cents per 100 hooks.

A cup of coffee costs more …

Many are kirbed or reversed and digging through all those styles revealed some outstanding gems, most of which have attributes unavailable in the current Japanese iron.

As I watch and bid, I’m surprised at the brainwashing that’s occurred. Traditional fly tying hooks without kirbed point and equipped with the familiar down eye are moving smartly, but most of the other hooks are loved only by the occasional odd duck like myself.

As the fly tying forums have asked the question many dozens of times – and most of the answers are dead wrong, indulge me …

A Kirbed or Reversed hook is merely a method to make the hook gape larger. That’s all.

Offsetting the point to the left (Kirbed) or right (Reversed) makes the distance from shank to point longer than if the point was directly below the hook. Think of a right triangle with a line dropped perpendicular from the shank to where the point should be (in non kirbed hooks), if we draw a horizontal line from that spot to where the Kirbed point is – we’ve formed a right triangle. Everyone knows the hypotenuse of a right triangle is the longest side … therefore the gape is “wider” than a traditional hook.

Outside of forgetting about that offset point and pricking yourself, tying on these “bait” hooks is unchanged.

As quite a few packages are labeled in French, it appears few shoppers are translating the labels. “Hamecons Irlandais” isn’t something exotic, it’s merely French for “Irish Hooks” – and “Hamecons Ronds” translates to “Round Hooks.”

While the obvious fly tying styles are disappearing us continental types are picking up everything ignored or … gasp … foreign, for dirt cheap.

I’ve compiled a list of some of the sweeter flavors available, but as sizes are starting to disappear it’s entirely first come first serve.

Mustad 234B, Hamecons Irlandais 234B

  • Premiere Qualite = Premier Quality
  • Noirs a anneau   = Black Ring (Japanned finish, Ring eye)
  • Tige courte         = Short Shank (at least 2X short)
  • Renforces           = Reinforced    (at least 2X strong)
  • This is a KIRBED hook

    •  

    234B I’ve already burned through a couple of boxes of these gems, tying both Czech nymphs and Shad flies. I’m using the #4’s for a hook that looks like a #6 – hence it’s at least 2X short. I bend down the last quarter of the shank about 10° and it becomes a Czech nymph hook, yet has appropriate extra-strong to go with a fly that is fished amid  snags and rocks.

    The hook is unforged, so if you don’t like the offset point, bend it back. It’s already twice as strong as the weak Czech wire and you’ll sacrifice nothing in reliability.

    Note: It’s only safe to bend an unforged hook, forged wire is much more brittle and is weakened considerably.

    The Hamecons Irlandais 267B is the same hook but with normal wire and bronze finish. It is also a Kirbed hook.

    Mustad 91300 Mustad 91300 – Superb fine wire Bass Popper hook, with no takers due to the zig zag in the shank. The eBAY audience either doesn’t recognize what to do with it, or doesn’t fish Bass – and you get 500 for $0.99.

    Just cut hobby foam into the right shape, slit it down the side, slide it over the shank and throw some rubber cement into the “slice” to hold everything together … add a pinch of saddle hackle and marabou, and you’re done.

    4450 Mustad 4450 – A nice Mustad 9671 or Tiemco 3769 substitute. Unforged Model Perfect bend, ring eye, looks like about a 2X long shank (although it doesn’t say as much).

    I am a huge fan of ring eyed nymph hooks and despaired that my vanishing supply was all I was ever to see . Now I’m covered for the next couple of decades, including both even and odd sizes.

    No physical reason for “ring-eyed versus down-eyed” – I just like ‘em.

    Mustad 9143 The crowd is wise to the Mustad 9143 Dry Fly hook now – but not before I scored a couple thousand for $0.99 per thousand. Offered in the thousand-pack in size 16, and in boxes for size 18 and 20.

    This is a Redditch scale hook and is much smaller than the training-wheels 94840 (Tiemco 100) standard. Recent fly tiers would call the #16 a #18 – so allow for the size difference if you’re used to Tiemco’s or any current dry fly offering.

    57552 What the crowd doesn’t know is the Hamecons-Ronds 57552 is even better than the 9143, and available in the odd sizes which will make less of a size difference than a full even number. I stocked up on the #15’s as it is a superb size for my fishing.

    For a great nymph hook, look at the Mustad-Limerick 31250. It’s a 3906B lookalike with a Limerick bend, and most of the small sizes were available.

    Mustad 31250 There’s not too many sizes left of the Mustad 3116A, but there are plenty of size 9 and size 2 left. This was my favorite, 2X strong, down eye, Limerick bend, short shank, equipped with needles for points. Absolutely bestial sharpness. All of my Shad flies are being swapped to this iron immediately. Good strong steelhead and salmon hook, strong enough for big Carp – and was available in all the even and odd sizes until I saw them.

    For the light wire long shank dry fly, it’s Christmas. There’s a beautiful long shank, fine wire, dry fly hook in the perfect sizes for stonefly dries and big October Caddis. It’s the Mustad 32800, and there’s nothing like it on the current market.

    There’s also the occasional 4x Strong or 3X Strong (Mustad 802) hook that have been unavailable for years. Those old codgers in “Rivers of a Lost Coast” have secrets – one of them was to downsize the fly in bright, clear conditions. A 20lb salmon on a contemporary #8 may be ridiculous, but those old hooks with 3X-4X strong attribute were something special.

    The rest is up to your avaricious nature. I don’t cover too many subjects a second time, but these are extraordinary prices and will not happen again.

    Tags: Mustad hooks, Harlee Rod, long shank, short shank, extra strong, salmon, steelhead, fly tying materials, bulk fly tying hooks, Tiemco, October Caddis, popper hooks, eBAY deals,

    Responsibility wins another weekend skirmish

    Didn’t have any time this weekend for the the genteel sports. Mostly it was me racing against thick clouds to insert a vegetable patch before the next storm series.

    Copper and Watermelon

    I got basil, tomatoes, and cucumbers all squared away, which will be a fine accompaniment to my aging noodle soup stash and the mercury laden fish of the local creek – should Europe default and we plunge back into the abyss.

    Peacock and Lime

    Blisters and typing are awkward, likewise for fly tying – but I was able to pay homage to more shad flies once nightfall pulled me away from honest work.

    Magenta and Peacock

    I promise to be less burdened shortly.

    Tags: Shad flies, vegetable garden, fly tying