Category Archives: Fly Tying

My fillings have been replaced so the ride in should be cake

Planning a quick scout trip tomorrow for smallmouth and largemouth bass, chores are completed so I can raze havoc at the tying bench.

I’m not sure what I’ll find as it’s a new lake and a small feeder creek, can’t fish the creek as it’s closed until April, and the lake is a man made impoundment rumored to have steep banks and unknown water levels.

It’s an adventure, and I crave the exercise so I’ll be traveling light, minimal gear, no food, and boundless enthusiasm.

Scout trips are what my Dad used to call, “Fishless Fishing Trips” – where the “getting out” was the main event, and the “getting bit” was a possibility, albeit slim…

Kokanee Salmon, Eagle Lake Rainbow, Small and Largemouth Bass, Crappie, and Bluegill are all inhabitants – with 10 miles of bumpy dirt road their only protection. The locals call it a “3 beer trip” – meaning, you can drink three beers after you leave pavement – and before you see water.

The Angry Goldfish, Angelina fibers tied Spey style

I banged out a dozen Angelina spey-style streamers and I have plenty of trout stuff, so one fly box will cover me. The above picture is the “Angry Goldfish” one of my favorite scout flies for bass, it’s tied “spey” style using Angelina hackle: 5 turns of Opal, 3 turns of Watermelon, topped with Fuschia and Onyx fibers.

Ought to wake something up…

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Will the real McCoy simply show hisself

The label from the Following up on a comment from Phil Huewe on the “Cheaper Ice Dub” post I did about a week ago. I knew I had the right fiber, it was the right “flavor” of fiber that was my consternation.

I contacted the maker of Angelina, the Meadowbrook Inventions Inc. and asked them what I was looking for – I’d tried the straight, crimped, and hot melt, knew it was the right fiber, but asked if there was something they made I didn’t know about.

The manufacturer referred me to a new form called “Soft Crimp” Angelina, and was nice enough to provide a couple half ounce packages as samples…

Bingo.

Which is the Ice Dub?Angelina is available in 2″, 4″, 6″, and 8″ lengths, not only the texture can be different but the length will throw you off as well. Anything longer than the 2″ will look “orderly” compared to Ice Dub, as they’ve trimmed the Angelina to 1″ and then mixed it all up.

If you want Ice Dub, buy the 2″ flavor of “soft crimp” Angelina. The “soft” part of soft crimp is markedly different than the straight, regular crimp, or hot melt fiber. It’s identical to Ice Dub in texture (although the length will be a bit longer).

All flavors of Angelina have worthy uses, and I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. What makes it doubly insidious is the other two styles they told me about that I haven’t seen… sometimes your cup runs over…

I have inquiries to vendors the manufacturer recommended, and I’ll post them as soon as I have found a reputable source. I need one with all 41 colors so I can decide what to buy.

I can toss a pinch of the straight and “soft crimp” fibers into an envelope if you want to inspect them for yourself, just email me your mailing address – mine is in the “About” section at the top of the page.

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Most of the heavy metals went south with the runoff and only the truly caustic stuff is left

I’m still in a state of enforced idleness, waiting for water levels to resume some semblance of clarity. I keep checking hoping the stream flow meter has malfunctioned, but it keeps telling me to stay home.

…so I ignore it, and wander out for some visual confirmation.

creekondrugs.jpg

The good news is there are two separate colors instead of a single cocoa latte murk, I assume one is water color, the other is raw selenium. 300 cubic feet per second and it won’t be recognizable until it’s half that.

Instead of anything really productive, I’ve been fiddling with Spey flies and Angelina fiber. I thought that I would hit the American for some steelhead, but got scared off initially by the proposed closure. The Fish and Game Commission decided not to close it, largely because the season was nearly over.

Spey flies have their roots in Scotland, used on the river Spey for Atlantic Salmon. I have always admired their minnow-like silhouette and figured with a little modification they would make nice bass flies.

Hair or fiber can become hackle simply by spinning them in a dubbing loop and palmering the result up the hook shank. Angelina fibers already scream “eat me” and they’re agile enough to dance like crazy underwater. I spun them into hackle using 34 gauge copper wire instead of thread, this’ll make them bulletproof against fish teeth.

Should look like some form of Sushi

We’ll see if “Old Nondescript” can’t see his way to skipping the mayfly nymphs for a small bass-burger; that’s opal Angelina palmered up the shank, with a couple turns of Citronella, topped with some Marcasite. It should be a fair imitation of a little bass, Pikeminnow, or a bluegill.

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If you manage to get more on the material than you do on the floor, you’re successful

My gal was out of the house this weekend so I made melancholy until her car left the driveway. Seizing the opportunity of her absence is important, if she knew what I was up to she’d swivel her head 360 degrees and chase my ass with a butcher knife.

Beaver Frisbee, Dogs love ‘emThe trick is in hiding your tracks and getting most of the chores done – all without leaving a hint that you’re in her kitchen splattering noxious dye in every direction.

I had snuck a couple of Beaver “Frisbees” into the garage, intercepting the package before Madam got wise, fortunately Coffin Creek Furs ships in a plain brown wrapper, and at $15.00 for 4 square feet of hide, it’s a deal that can’t be beaten.

I destroy plenty so the extra fur is useful. Chalk it up to artistic license, sometimes the color is unsuitable, the dye bath too weak, or the phone rang and you boiled it past the color you wanted, it’s all part of the fun.

Yep, that’s her sink, make sure it’s spotless“Fun” if there’s no evidence in the sink when done, one small hint of mischief and I’ll endure the water torture and glaring incandescent bulb, it’s worse then living with Columbo..

Cloth dyes like RIT work fine on fur but the color will not be vibrant. Salt fixed dyes yield a more somber pastel color, fine for earth tones but unsuitable for bright colors.

If you need vibrant colors like red and orange, you have to use “acid” dyes, also called “aniline” or “coal tar” dyes. These were available under the Veniard label in the UK fly shops. Don’t be scared by the “acid” term, regular white vinegar (5% Acetic acid) or Muriatic (10% Hydrochloric acid) is used to fix the colors. Muriatic acid is what you cleanse a swimming pool with – you may even have some in the garage.

Now you’ve got four colors completed, Olive and it’s componentsToday it was “olives” I was interested in – not simply olive, but a range of olive colors from dark to light. Olive is a mixture of yellow, green, and black, and the proportion of each determines the final color.

I always use a mixture of colors to make the final dubbing rather than using a single dye color, yielding fur that looks like the desired color, but has fibers from all the component colors to add variation. It’s doubly useful because you’ll get dubbing for all the component colors and the final color, yielding an assortment of 5 or 6 colors per batch.

The final assembly is done with a coffee grinder. I trim the fur off the hides after they’ve dried and mix them using a blender. I’ll use Angelina fibers to add some sparkle to the blend, both similar colors for the true olives, and try some wild combinations to see the effect on the finished fly.

Because of the “tinkering” I do with color, I always dye much more than I need, this gives me plenty to play with and gives leftover pieces to tuck into the drawer should I need to restock the colors later.

I try to make about 1/2 to 1 oz of dubbing per color. This will be a dense ball of dubbing slightly larger than your fist. I’ll start by trimming 50% off the green hide, 50% off the yellow hide, and 10% off the charcoal beaver. No need to be delicate, carve it off with scissors or a razor blade, guard hairs and all. I run each through the blender to fluff them up, then start mixing the final color.

A standard coffee grinder cannot handle long filaments as they’ll wrap around the center shaft and burn up the motor. Keep all of the materials used to about 1.5 inches in fiber length, trim the components as needed to prevent binding. These small grinders cannot accommodate an ounce of fur at a time, so do small batches 1/3 to 1/4 ounce at a time.

This is a coffee grinder purchased specifically for making dubbing, if you use the “production” grinder in the kitchen you’re a dead man.

Once the color is blended I add guard hairs from a Hare’s Mask, to add spike and contrasting color to the nymph blend. If you’re making dry fly dubbing, no guard hairs are needed.

Last step is to add some Angelina fibers for flash. I’ll divide the finished color in half and add the trimmed Angelina (cut to 1.5 inch) to only half of the product. This gives me two flavors, “flash enhanced” and regular.

The completed color on a fly, now clean the sink before she gets wise

If you are making multiple shades of the same color, just change the proportions, a lighter olive will have less green and charcoal, a darker olive will boost the charcoal, warmer olive – increase the yellow, colder – increase the green, etc. Use the artist’s color wheel to determine the components for each color.

I hid the dye pot in the garage again, and acted completely angelic when the “cops” showed. If you try the “I missed you, Sweetums” gambit she’ll know somethings amiss, always leave one chore on the list incomplete that way she assumes you lounged around watching football. It throws her “crime scene” radar into complete disarray.

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I never heard so much as a whisper, and now it’s much too late

The last of the Redditch hookmakers I don’t know why I expected anything different, I wrote enough articles on the decline in “genetic diversity” to know better. It’s part and parcel of the “WalMart” phenomenon, small Mom and Pop business’s forced out of existence by sinister and cavernous chain stores.

It began innocent enough, I’m low on the special hooks used for my steelhead flies. The slim chance that I will confront a steelhead forces me to attempt every advantage, and I was down to my last box of razor sharp Partridge hooks that I’d squirreled away for personal use. To my horror they’re unavailable, worse yet the company has been swallowed by the mighty minions of Mustad.

The bloody coup occurred a year ago, I don’t even get a chance to rush to their defense in an orgy of protective consumerism.

“Partridge of Redditch” is no more, and with their demise a lot of small custom hooks have vanished from the market. I’ve used quite a few of their hooks, and fiddled with many of the odd styles – their quality was unsurpassed and their responsiveness to the public was remarkable.

They still make fish hooks, but only the mainstream conventional stuff remains of what was once a vibrant catalog. Rest in Peace, beloved SEB Steelhead hook…

I like supporting the “little guy,” in the back of my mind I preserve the fantasy of chucking the real world and retiring to some fly shop close to where trout sleep at night. It’s an unrealistic dream, but I still find a way to dump fifty bucks at even the smallest of destination shops, these guys are living our retirement fantasy and deserve the support.

It reinforces my notion that you should always buy plenty when you find something nice, you can’t put off the inevitable – but at least you’ll get another year before you get the bad news.

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Realism all 168 frames of it, compliments of Jan Muisers

164 pictures to this point I’m always in awe over any form of craftsmanship, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Shaker furniture or a finely tooled gun butt, it’s the skill of the craftsman that allows a novice to appreciate the difference.

There are many kinds of fly tier, while most tie flies for fishing, others are enamored of the craft as well. Traditional dress Atlantic Salmon flies and realistic flies are two such disciplines – the tier has passed through the “sane” part of the craft and dabbles in details never considered by the rest of us.

How much work goes into a single fly? A really interesting post on a Finnish bulletin board allows all of us to see what goes into “realism.”

How much courage would it take to run up to the guy and say, “Dude, how much will you charge for a dozen in size 8?”

I was planning on finishing my taxes, but the "artist" got the better of me

Singlebarbed reader “San Mateo Joe” sent me some of his seed bead creations – instantly driving me into a paroxysm of creativity. The medium is fur and feathers, but we’re prey to all the foibles and idiosyncrasies that mainstream artists endure.

All it takes is some pretty color or odd shaped fiber and we’re willing to cut our ear off… both ears, if the sumbitch catches fish…

San Mateo Joe’s Seed Bead specials

SMJ’s samples were nameless, buggy, and simple, all that’s necessary for quality fish food. The above-right fly caught my eye, I immediately dubbed it the “Yellow Arsed Wombat” – not sure if Joe has a name for it or not.

Nothing beats a glimpse at another fellow’s work to get the creative juices flowing, the bloody IRS can wait.

My fly is hereby dubbed the “Angry Auditor” – unworthy of a name as it’s merely a concept, I’ll plead my case just before the “what did you make, give us the rest” speech.

I dub thee “Angry Auditor” a Cal Bird inspired damselfly

I figured a “Bird’s Nest” style damselfly was just what was needed for the lakes I fish up north – there’s plenty in the Little Stinking so it’s a double bonus, a fly that can serve as Carp food also.

All of the above flies simply string the beads on the hook shank. The tail assembly serves as a “stopper” preventing them from sliding off the rear of the hook.

Joe adds a tip that is priceless, “I like to thread the hook shank with more beads than necessary before I start tying. It’s easy to break one or more off with a pair of needle nose pliers later on if you need more room for hackle, dubbing, etc.”

It works really well, a quick press of the pliers results in your wife wondering what’s making the racket in the vacuum cleaner…

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I had a hell of time getting hooks last year, I may have solved that problem nicely, compliments of Togen

All I need is more things to fiddle with and nothing stirring to eat my creations. They say that’s what Winter is for and it appears as if I’m going to give Old Daytripper a run for his money…

Natural Bend Togen fish hooks caught my eye recently, a Japanese hook marketed by the Togen fly shop in Canada, their appearance is akin to a Tiemco, light colored bronzing, sharp small points (chemically sharpened), well formed and graceful, and really cheap…

My shipment showed this morning – I’d ordered the “scud” style (#18528), dry fly (#26528), 1X Nymph (#18538), and Natural Bend (#16428), figuring that would give me a nice cross section of the trout styles for testing purposes.

Standard Dry Fly The “Natural Bend” is an elongated hook and #20’s are about the size of a traditional #16, I ordered #20 – #16’s to accommodate the normal sizes I use.

Really nice hooks, nicely formed eyes, and I managed to imbed a point in my finger just opening the plastic bag – so they’re plenty sharp.

Now the “Good News” – they’re $7.00 US per hundred hooks, so it may be time to think on what you’re currently using. Togen sells them in packs of 100, or packs of 1000 – you can mix and match sizes and styles to build the 1000 pack. The price drops to $6.80 US per 100 if ordered in the “mix and match” 1000 bundles.

1X Long Nymph My thoughts on the subject are well documented. 100 years ago almost every fish hook in the world came from Redditch, England. No matter what the label said, it was a Sealy, a Partridge, or an Allcock. I think the same holds true today – no matter what the label says, it’s likely a Tiemco, Gamakatsu, or an affiliated factory.

As nothing else is biting, I may have to try these in the seafood aisle of my supermarket, I think I saw a Catfish fillet that weighed enough to deform a #20 – that’s if the damn Mergansers don’t beat me to it…

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If you’re looking for cheaper "Ice Dub" then you’re at the right place

Mother of Pearl Angelina I found a better retailer for the Angelina (“Ice Dub”) fibers, Joggles.com features a better color selection of the “straight cut” Angelina, and the price is a buck cheaper.

These are half ounce packages, which is equivalent to about 4 packages of Ice Dub, featured at $3.75 per half ounce. 36 colors are available as well as some quarter ounce sampler packs.

I picked up another dozen colors, mostly the “hot” steelhead variety.

I spent part of the weekend dying hare’s masks and beaver pelts to build some nymph dubbing blends, tossing a little Angelina into each blend will add some needed sparkle.

I was eyeballing the “Angelina” film as a likely Czech nymph shellback material, these are pearlescent sheets of Angelina similar to mylar with the Angelina color scheme – still scratching my chin over this one. The film is listed with the dubbing material at the above link.

Update: See the latest post on Angelina for information on the “soft crimp” flavor, this is what you’re looking for if you want the Ice Dub you’re used to buying at the fly shop.

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Who knew Entomology would take us to the Dark Side of the Farce

I’m perusing yet another entomology tome that discusses the phases aquatic insects endure to finally get their wings, each author insists the “post-lactating-pre-nuptial” phase is overlooked by anglers, and fish knock snot out of flies that imitate it.

A dark spinner, looks innocent enough and you’ve got plenty in your flybox..

Just another wolf in Sheep's clothing

I got your “phase” right here, buddy. It’s short lived, and crucial.

Entomology Undressed

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