Snowbound and at wit’s end, Roughfisher grits his teeth and accompanies his bride shopping. At his darkest hour and with purse in hand he stumbles into the millinery aisle – to find the lost graveyard of Antron yarn.
All us brownline types are cost conscious – sided by strong women who don’t complain when a dump truck of yarn shows in the driveway.
I’ve known it by many names – but mostly it’s “the vise I can’t get rid of…”
One of my buddies found one at a flea market, it was an original “Thomas Vise” complete with a sheet metal C-clamp. Elsie and Harry Darbee swore by it, and it enjoyed a brief resurgence as the “Catskill Vise” – never manufactured as such, just a common name for the old Thomas specimens still in existence.
I owned my first when it was the “Phelp’s Vise” – bought a second one for parts from Peter Phelps after it was rechristened the “Xuron”. It was popular with Eric Leiser and some of the eastern tiers in the Eighties, but like all simple, elegant, sturdy designs, it vanished.
A fly tying vise without any moving parts doesn’t wear out; no “forcing collars” to split, no seals or gaskets, no midge jaws to break – and even when you turn a stainless steel 3/0 into a pretzel – there’s nothing in the assembly to protest or groan.
The best part is they’re making it again.
It’s still called the “Xuron” vise – and in this day and age of rotating gizmo vises, its price falls into the “entry level” of fly tying tools. The Deluxe model with pedestal base is $160.
That’s a far cry from the $400 contemporary miracles of rotary design – and it still offers a feature you can’t buy in any other vise, the base has a “ball and socket” joint that allows you to adjust both the attitude of the jaws, and tilt the vise to any degree in the “X , Y” coordinate plane. You can pull the vise jaws backward into an upright position, or thrust them forward and rotate the jaw to make the shank of a salmon-double level.
It appears the only change to the vise is the presence of a “knurled” knob where the Allen screw used to be. We modified the design by rotating the head 180 degrees (so the tightening lever is on the far side) and replaced the screw with a small “L” shaped bar of metal so we could rotate the jaws into a new position by pressing your palm against the bar.
The knurled knob isn’t as easy to manipulate while tying – so I’d recommend modifying the assembly, or asking the vendor whether he still stocks the old threaded “bar” – or can modify the assembly for you.
Some companies still do that – it’s called “customer service.”
Which is the “best” vise is hotly debated in every fly tying forum available on the Internet. “Best” seems to be important to new tiers – while us old guys are more interested in what works. This is the “General Practitioner” of fly tying vises – able to accommodate hook sizes from 6/0 to 26 with the same single tightening motion – and handles the rarified styles like Waddington shanks and tube flies with a tilt and tighten.
Considering the contemporary vises I’ve used – which seem to be moving into more of a “specialized” style, with a plethora of knobs, dials, and gauges to handle hook sizes and styles – this vise is uncommon.
It’s rare that simplicity reasserts itself – I must not be the only fan, as someone still thinks there’s plenty of life left in the design. After putting about a quarter million flies through it in the last 20 years – all on the same set of jaws, I’m sure you’ll find this tool more than meets your needs.
Christmas is heading our way, and it’s going to be a tough holiday what with the turmoil in markets and decline in the economy. Maybe this is worth a second look – it may be the “best” price for the service you’ll get.
Them heady days of a commercial resale license are long gone, compliments of the Internet. Manufacturers use minimum order to separate the riff-raff from the genuine capitalists – something I gleefully exploit at every opportunity.
With the economy in the tank those $50 orders from “Fatty” over at Singlebarbed are doubly precious, and plays well with my shameless hoarding nature…
I figure you’re interested, hence my mentioning where to find vast quantities of feather dander on the cheap – unfortunately not all my readers are Real Men fly tiers, so not everyone gets to take advantage.
Among the largest sources of capital outlay for fly fishermen are flies, it’s the reason most attempt to learn the craft somewhere in their career; the smart ones fail, realizing that’s it’s twice as expensive – leaving us slow learners to master the craft.
India and Malaysia have provided most of the flies found in fly shops for the last couple of decades, but China and Africa are coming aboard as direct competitors – and a canny fellow may be able to take advantage.
Minimum orders from Kenyan manufacturers are often only 4 dozen flies – and counting your fishing buddies and their need to lighten your fly box, that’s a single outing. The rest require a minimum of 100 dozen, which represents a season of pals and their grabby mitts.
Both Chinese and African vendors charge about $3.40 per dozen, about thirty cents a fly, making a 100 dozen only $340 US.
Split an order with a buddy, and laugh all the way to the bank…
Alibaba.com lists 605 manufacturers of flies in their sales leads, all contain contact information and sample pictures of their wares. All it takes is an email to the manufacturer requesting samples, and you may find a new best friend, and score enough freebies to cover your next couple of outings.
Most of you may not have noticed the resurgent dollar, how in the last couple of months it’s beating almost every other currency available. As long as the dollar is strong against the Yuan, Drachma, Lire, Pound, etc – you’ll be paying even less for your tackle.
While you’re at it consider one of those really expensive pontoon boats – the ones listed at $1500 or more in the catalogs .. Who do you think makes those?
Minimum order is 10, and direct from the manufacturer it’s pretty much guaranteed to be less than half price. Shipping will add more, but 9 guys at your casting club might be interested.
… and no, you’re not harming American fly tyers – most shops use their best talent on the specific patterns they can’t get from the offshore vendors; all the watershed specific patterns, flies that require higher skill levels, and those patterns that are useful only a couple weeks each year.
It’s all the standard patterns that flesh out their fly selection that are imports.
It was an oddball hook, normally I would’ve kept moving without another thought – but a sale is not to be taken lightly…
Togen has an overstock sale on an odd shaped “Salmon-Steelhead” hook in black nickel, only a single size available, size 2 – but I took another gander and saw a “creepy-crawly” hook rather than steelhead-salmon steel.
Traditional hooks can be turned over to ride point up only with some heavy add on, bead chain eyes or similar physics-altering device capable of overcoming the weight of the bend and point. Hooks are naturally heavier towards the arse end – and something’s needed to reset that balance point.
“Creepy-Crawly” describes everything that’s big, sinks, and used early season, when the water’s heavy and the fish are looking for the big bug.
This has just the right kind of oddball shape that I can easily flip it over just by positioning the lead on the shank. The size is right for big stonefly nymphs and heavy … you guessed it … crayfish patterns.
Early season nymphing is hell on hooks, and it’s common to rescue a fly from a rock snag to find a nice “L” shape to the point – getting that precious point out of harm’s way would be desirable.
At $7.50 per hundred, they’re half price.
I was tracking some quarry for the Roughfisher, and as the supply is ample figured I’d share with everyone else, as many of you tie flies with baby blankets …
You call it Furry Foam, and are content to pay $1.25 for a 6″ X 6″ square, I call it a Vellux Throw, and pay $15.00 for 36 square feet. At retail that’s a 600% profit for the middlemen – who score them wholesale I’m sure.
J.C. Penny’s offers nine colors in stock, available as a throw wrap ($15), and Twin through King sized sheets ($19 – $34).
Big stonefly nymphs and Darth Clam come to mind, likely it’s something you’ll want to split with a buddy, or share with your fly tying class – 36 square feet is a lot of flies.
One of the few investments for a toddler they won’t outgrow – once they get too big you can launder it and chop it into manageable pieces, you may even have it longer than the bronzed baby shoe.
Just cut around anything that looks like “urpy-chuck.”
Halloween is a bad influence, add an aged Blueberry Poptart and a couple fingers of the mud I call coffee, and you’ve unleashed the expressionist beast. Now I understand why Van Gogh trimmed an ear off – he was in the throes of creativity and tired of painting rich people.
I can sympathize, tying little tiny insects in muted earth tones can grate on a fellow over time, especially with gray skies and constant rain showers for companionship.
The shipment of red and black boa arrived and provided the luxury of big, bright and colorful; big hooks, bigger ideas and only physics to hold me in check.
This “natural” was nearly 6 inches long, normal sized for the red crayfish I’ve seen on the creek. The Olive variant imitates the smaller crayfish which are more plentiful, I’m not sure if there’s a relationship, implying Olive crayfish are immature and molt into red armor after a certain age, but there’s plenty of both present in the creek at all times.
This is using the “Cardinal” color of Boa yarn which is a mixture of crimson, ruby, and black. I tossed in four strands of orange rubber legs, and 4 strands of ultra chenille to simulate some of the pronounced legs visible in the original above.
It’s tied to flip over and ride hook point up, so legs and other items are mounted on the top of the fly. I figure if it doesn’t work I can whack off everything but the rubber legs and have a decent mouse.
Despite its size the fly is pretty lightweight, I added 30 turns of 2 Amp fuse wire to get it down in a hurry, but the yarn and other items weigh next to nothing.
This is the first prototype, I may add a tail under the hook eye as a beard – a loop of the red yarn would make a nice “paddle” tail and may even assist in getting it to ride properly.
Short strikes haven’t been a problem on the Little Stinking Olive, both bass and pikeminnow completely inhale the fly, we’ll add a trailer hook if needs be.
The boa yarn slims down when wet making a watery lump of fly that looks completely solid. The gossamer fibers mat like marabou removing all lumps and strands, I taper cut the legs to make them thin as they join the fly and thick out by them monstrous claws.
I spent most of the weekend trying the boa yarn on a variety of applications, most successful were the Matuka Muddler streamers and the black stoneflies.
The tough weave that holds the fibers together makes a splendid synthetic hackle – something I’ll exploit on Shad and Steelhead flies – where the chicken hackle is prone to breaking as the flies take so much more abuse than trout flies.
Plenty of bright colors available to tinker with and although they’re available in stores I’ve been able to buy the skeins of material much cheaper on eBay.
There’s a warning and a promise in the below; the warning is for those that have never tied flies, and the promise is for those that do..
When you find something really special, you don’t linger, you don’t think about it, you don’t wonder – you pounce. Worry about storage later.
For those thinking that fly tying is a quaint way of extending your trout season, and how a couple fingers of old malt would go well with a half dozen Adam’s – think again. I’ve mentioned it a number of times in the past – just ensuring you were listening is all.
It’s guaranteed that items you take for granted will vanish with little warning – it’s our unique curse as almost nothing is made for fly fishing, we borrow it from some other industry. If chenille sweaters are out of fashion, or Corvette seats are no longer lined with vinyl tubing, we’ll suffer the loss of something dear.
In part, I’ve tried to show you where these materials are made and what industry they’re made for, in doing so, illustrating how precarious our position is – we represent a tiny fraction of the business to a manufacturer, as our contribution is limited to the purchase of a 3 yard card.
There’s a certain prophecy in my material aberration; both natural and synthetic materials are vulnerable to fashion, the economy, and government regulation. When Belding-Cortescelli pulled Nymo from production there was a howl heard worldwide – the equivalent of Danville thread vanishing overnight.
Polar bear, seal fur, Heron, Jay, and all of the materials popularized in Atlantic Salmon flies vanished with equal ease. Both Polar bear and seal were “in my lifetime” as a tyer – now we’re using substitutes for the substitute and glad we can get that.
It wasn’t so sudden that we couldn’t try to stock up, most did their best, and some ensured they had a lifetime supply, the rest hoped the substitute was cheap and half as effective – most were not.
I had the good fortune of being schooled by the masters of their day, and while my young eyes got big as saucers when they produced materials – all had the same prophetic speech, “stock up as much as you can, as anything can vanish at the whim of a manufacturer or the government.”
It’s all part of the mastery aspect, you’re going to burn 4 ounces due to a poor dye, 6 more ounces to excessive heat, or the phone ringing – you’ll loose another half pound to the moths, and your favorite dog will eat at least two of your precious hides when you’re not looking.
If you’re really lucky that’ll leave you that last pound for your own use.
Witness the below confession as a “money” fly hangs in the balance; colors no longer made and one last chance to stock up. Sure I’m crazy, just like Popeye stockpiling spinach.
Cal Bird had the most influence on my tying, one of those rare luxuries afforded by proximity. I remember him ordering teal flank by the pound – when 4 ounces would represent a typical tyer’s lifetime.
Cal was a professional tyer – he didn’t sell his work commercially, rather he’d tinker with materials, colors, and flies, as a regular part of his day. Never satisfied and always on the tip of some discovery known only to him. Occasionally we’d all get to see some of his efforts – his tools, flies, and the ever-present packet of materials he’d press into your hand so you could try some.
He was “paying it forward” – empowering the next generation of young hopefuls with some of the materials forever gone – that we’d all benefit from his calculated purchases of yesteryear. It’s a special quality shared by Cal and a lot of old timer’s, a knowing wink and something rare pressed into your hand.
It’s all part of the tradition – once limited to the “father-son” legacy, now practiced by those interested in passing on something more tangible than a silly fly with their first name attached.
In another couple of decades I’ll be stove up and content to sit in the sunshine jawboning. If I’m really lucky there’ll be a couple of new guys at the casting club – alternately swearing and snapping thread – with The Desire, but absent the skills, so I can do the same.
While you’re giggling, make sure you remember what happened to Z-Lon, and in the intervening 23 years how much of the 586 pounds does Bett’s have left?
Charlie Brown and I had the same vocabulary, featuring a plaintive howl everytime Lucy yanked the football away. My battle was with the fly tyer’s of A.J. McClane’s Standard Fishing Encyclopedia – it was the bible featuring color plates of flies and their recipes, allowing me to gauge my proportions against the real thing.
I’d always be three quarters finished when they’d mention Medium Blue Dun, or Gray Jungle Fowl – and I’d start cursing in earnest. Substitution is a four letter word when you’re learning how to tie flies, usually you’re already substituting the right way of doing it with your way, and to replace materials wholesale is akin to cheating.
Matching the completed fly with the grainy photo in A.J. McClane’s book was compounded by the fluorescent green hackle you’d substituted for medium blue dun, enough of a change to reduce effectiveness and preventing the fly from earning a spot in your box – as it’s now somehow tainted.
Years later we found out that a Greenwell’s Glory couldn’t catch crap, and the chartreuse hackle we’d added could only have helped.
I lived in fear of fine print, as every author hid the “mongoose mask hair” or “rutting beaver forepaw” behind an asterisk or small text, and delighted in knowing some new tyer was uttering a howl of protest.
As a kid I’d take my hard earned coin down to the fly shop and press my nose against the glass, psyching myself up for the pending ordeal; dividing $2.18 among thousands of “needs” – and winding up with 14 little glassine bindles of feather dander.
Sure, I had rabbit aplenty, but never Olive rabbit, or Olive thread, everything I tied for the first decade was black thread, Size A Nymo – and I was a stud for scoring that. My Light Cahill’s suffered accordingly, as once they were dampened they were Really Dark Cahill’s.
Now that I’m old and mean, I recognize that ritual of suffering is a crucial component in rounding the skills of a good fly tyer. Suffering steeled your resolve when neighbor’s tabby met steel belted radial and a dull Buck knife and swift burial were warranted. Lingering at the gut pile meant you could high grade all the mallards, widgeon, sprig, and teal – fighting maggots for the best flank feathers. It taught you to accelerate at the deer – in the last possible moment, rather than brake hard and have him come through the windshield.
…and that critical moment when you connected the dots and realized all those bludgeoned baby seal’s were needed for a full dress Green Highlander? You shrugged it off quickly in your haste to score a dime bag…
Now that you’ve reached your maturity, forged hard by the crucible of those tyers what came before you, tithing “one tenth of your get” to animal fur and brightly colored feathers, it’s time to instill in your legacy as many obscure items as practical so the next kid quits in tears.
Time is on your side, Old Guys get to have dusty old boxes of “the Good Stuff” hidden away. Most of the dust is moth eggs, but even the rumor of stash is enough to keep a young prick in deferential mode – he’ll save the lip for his parents, where it counts.
It’s your responsibility to send subsequent generations screaming in defeat, so it’s doubly important to recognize an impossible material when you see it. Low production and esoteric usage helps, and very little is needed. Enough to comprise an egg sac on a dry fly, or articulated limb on a nymph – just enough to make the fly impossible to tie.
It’s like a quiver of arrows, you trot them out as needed – each trial more difficult than the last..
I’m holding the above in the wings, next time some fly tyer claims, “I seen my buddy tie that,” I’ll trot out the “Lagoon” color on some money fly, and watch him writhe in agony. 100% viscose, flat chenille in colors not likely to grace a fly shop anytime this century.
A.J. McClane got me with rare and exotic animals, urine dyed fox, and twisted silks from the Orient, my legacy will be synthetics that were used to trim Elvis Presley’s Cadillac…
I bet A.J. was an SOB too, must be why I liked his books so much.
I made the mistake of restocking some rubber leg material at my last visit to the local establishment, and was driven into another paroxysm of swearing.
There among all the pre-packaged “jobbed” materials was the Spirit River “Tarantula legs” – minus the color I was looking for, naturally. I did find one old pack down at the floor that someone had missed – just enough to get me through the weekend.
My mistake was glancing at the price while admiring my find.
Don’t waste your money – times is hard enough without being used savagely, $2.50 for about 24 strands of colored leg material is unconscionable – that’s a dime per fly.
Spirit River buys the damn stuff from someone akin to the Living Rubber Company, and you’ll find all the colors and sizes they offer – plus extra colors not available at your fly shop – and the price is 1/11th what the shop charges.
Do the markup math yourself – a “25 skirt pack” is about $6.00 from Living Rubber, and each of the “skirts” equals a Spirit River pack of rubberlegs, about 24 strands. I don’t mind so much if an enterprising fellow doubles or triples his money, but 11 times is enough to make me wince – only because he’s making 11 times the retail price of the rubber, he’s making double that if he buys it wholesale.
The standard skirt material from Living Rubber is what Spirit River describes as their “medium” size, and it’s rectangular rather than round. If memory serves, the Spirit River “fish scale” rubber is also rectangular. Living Rubber sells the round rubber in 15 foot lengths for $8.00 – these are simple one-color bands of ~50 strands each. They don’t yet sell the printed pattern round fibers on their web site.
I haven’t contacted the company for the availability of round imprinted rubber, but if they’re selling it wholesale to jobbers, they’ll certainly sell it to you.
Shown in the photographs are “25 skirt packs” of “Green Pumpkin” (the olive and black metal flake) and dark green/black and the orange/black varieties.
Take advantage of the vendor for a change, see how it feels – it’s another sawbuck saved for your next big purchase …
The mailman is starting to back away so I should cool my ardor a bit. Little padded envelopes keep showing up at my doorstep from Bernice, Julie, Deborah, Nancy, and Janice – and while I was hoping he’d think I was part of a Columbian cartel – the gals keep perfuming the packages.
One look at my gut precludes there being a romantic angle, and I’m afraid the last perfumed kilo gave me away.
It’s knitting yarn.
The shrinks would have a field day dealing with fly tiers, there’s 240 crayfish in a single skein of Bernat boa, but how many skeins will be needed over a lifetime?
… and is that just my lifetime, or do I need to include my brother, his buddy, my fly-less fishing buddies and their friends as well?
Hoarding is the equivalent of gathering up a mound of sand on the beach and if anyone looks perplexed, just point and exclaim, “this is infinite sand grains, exactly.”
It’s why your math teacher didn’t give you credit if you didn’t show your work – as both math aficionados and psychiatrists love to pore over your hoard-reasoning, similar to siphoning a trout’s gut to see what he ate – only mental.
Each of us has a imprecise system of amassing feather dander, because we’ve been caught short multiple times on common-turned-rare materials. These being the halcyon days of fly tying – with real materials from real animals, and as each one is pressured into oblivion based on its fur, taste, habitat, or simply steel belted radials – we wish we’d had the foresight to stock up.
Yea, you’re right – it’s never going to happen to you.
What funny is we’re still in the 80-20 phase, 80% of the materials we use for flies are natural, 20% are synthetic – and a couple generations from now that may be drastically changed. Will subsequent tyers hoard synthetics as we do vanishing species? I think so, partly due to the packrat nature of the hobby, and partly due to the lure of “better” – as originals are always better than substitutes.
For every tyer that used Swan for his Royal Coachman, there was an old guy looking askance at some younger tyer’s work, exclaiming, “.. close, but it won’t work as good as Swan, too stiff…”
Now I’m salting away skeins of synthetics – snapping up colors that says “crayfish” to me – while the rest of you shake your head in wonderment. Flamingo, Phoenix, Cardinal, or Hawk, may yield a better fly and none of these colors are currently being made. That’s no surprise as what’s fashionable is over in the blink of an eye, then it’s “last year’s” model – like bell bottoms or double knits.
Synthetics, especially those from the fashion industry, may have a shorter production life than natural materials, and we may have to purchase them accordingly to ensure a steady supply.
Better yet, do I hoard what I can find, then sell pinches for exorbitant amounts, akin to Polar Bear, Baby Seal, or Golden Bird of Paradise? You never thought “Aunt Lydia’s Rug Yarn” would be on par with Blue Chatterer – and will you be man enough to abscond with your parent’s bathroom throw rug when you discover its value?
Old guys learn to accumulate, young learn the hard way by missing the boat and wishing it were otherwise. Genius can lie in pawing through some box of forgotten treasure, searching for Puce rabbit and finding a pound of something no longer available – sparking the creative process.
Somewhere between the moths getting it all and your kids tossing it after your demise, these flights of fancy will yield umpteen flies any of which could be the next Light Cahill, Adams, or Pheasant Tail nymph.
Amassing all this is just one of many excessive habits, justifying the drawer space consumed requires imagination and immersion, ferreting out the obvious and unexpected uses in an orgy of creativity.
With 500 yards of Dark Olive Ultra chenille, and 1000 yards of perfumed Mallard Bernat Boa, something that fish eat should result. It may not be the next Zug Bug, but it’s the fastest stonefly nymph I’ve tied. A couple of whacks of the scissor to shorten the top fibers into wingcases, a couple cuts to clean the bottom of fiber and you’re done…
It’s knitting yarn, a synthetic hackle, a Matuka streamer wing, a rabbit strip imitation, and a nymph style … so far … and it’s in short supply.