In the prior installment I described a “professional” tyer as “someone who ties flies an hour per day”, fun or profit being immaterial. This is the start of flytying season, complete with area closures, holiday madness, Egg Nog obsession, and bitter cold. Lots of folks will fit this category for the next six months, applying the lessons of last season to their arsenal of flies for next.

They’ll do so in cramped quarters, using whatever table or flat spot is available, hoping not to earn the wrath of their equally housebound spouse. Some have their own room, others attempt to remain inconspicuous in an overlooked corner in their apartment –  all share the same issue; “real” jobs that limit tying to evenings where lighting, table height, and chair dictate how long they can tie without fatigue.

Storage and the actual tying infrastructure are as overlooked as scissor choice. Materials are expensive and they always seem to get first crack at the budget. Trying to keep an accumulation of materials bug free, out of reach of children or an inquisitive pooch, usually has your collection moving vertical.  For them as are apartment bound, either dating or married, you’re in worse shape – as there are no out-of-the-way locations.

Gals do not appreciate dead stuff, you don’t want to explain why a rancid  “bunny’s face” is featured prominently on the coffee table – not on the first date, as there will never be a second. If married, your spouse is a reluctant participant in your hobby, while tolerant – few things can strain a relationship more than a significant moth infestation, or the family pooch burping up a hairball of orange bucktail.

Bulk storage needs to address three issues; insects, space, and ease of use. It must proof you against insect loss, be attractive enough so that your spouse permits guests to see it, offer enough space to be effective, and it must be close enough to the tying area to make it functional.

Storage is two parts, the space available in or on your tying table, and extended space available in boxes, a chest, or closet.

When a fly tyer is learning, he goes the cardboard box route; he’s tying on the kitchen table, so both he and his storage needs to be portable. After his first serious bug infestation the cardboard box is abandoned – he learns that if everything is in one box, it all gets eaten.

Next comes the “chemical” phase, where he pours mothballs into his storage area figuring his troubles are over. Armed insurrection results, as the spouse hates the odor, you hate the odor, and the family dog is now barfing up a potent chemical brew onto the rug.

Materials in contact with Mothballs or Crystals will retain the chemical on their surface, you’re tying at night and brush your eyes with the back of your hand, and now you are blinking toxic waste. Applied liberally, mothball odor will dominate an entire room and for an apartment dweller that’s not a recipe for domestic bliss.

After tying for 35 years, I haven’t figured it out either, the solution I have is multi-faceted and appears to have kept an uneasy peace on the domestic front.

I always have an eye open for old chests of drawers at garage sales, most are made of pine or better, and will refinish into something fairly attractive. Almost all of them are stained or painted, a quick glance at the interior of the drawer will identify the wood and its original color. The older the construction, the easier the finish comes off – as old lacquers become brittle and flake easily.

Line all the drawers with red cedar slats, available at any hardware store, sold as closet lining. Red cedar repels all the bugs, has a wonderful smell, and can be touched up with a belt sander every couple of years to restore the protection and aroma. Lay them loose on the bottom of each drawer, or you can tack them down with a little contact cement.

Apparently Madam approves as the frilly socks shown are not mine. This isn’t proof against a domestic dispute, she’ll question your sanity when you bring in the garage sale item – after it’s refinished,  she’ll insist you promised it to her for her unmentionables.

Gals love the smell of cedar and you’ll have to defend your space aggressively. A smart fellow will realize this argument may be winnable, the “moth crystal eviction” argument is not.

Always keep your materials in sealed bags. Incense (Red) cedar will ensure that nothing is disturbed, but why take the chance – especially with extended storage, where you’re not in it everyday to notice an issue. Bagging ensures all infestations are localized to a single bag rather than the entire drawer.

Fly shops have moths, lots of them. Quarantine all newly purchased items in a separate drawer for a couple of weeks. During the quarantine period avoid mixing them on top of other materials on your bench surface, moth eggs are tiny and they’ll shower onto anything like salt out of a salt shaker.

If you’re done for the year take your fly boxes out of your vest and add them to the bug protection, it’ll be six months before you wear the vest again, you don’t want any rude surprises on the eve of the season opener.

Scorched earth is the only policy on unbagged loose material, if the bugs get in the entire drawer should be thrown away. Synthetic materials will not be damaged, they’ll just harbor the eggs safely so that the infestation can be transmitted to other places. Dry your tears, and toss the entire supply.

The seams in the drawers will contain live eggs even when the drawer is empty, treat it as a quarantine area, and add only sealed bagged materials to that drawer initially. Give the cedar lining time to ferret out all the critters and cleanse the unseen areas.

Like I’ve said, I don’t have the answer – your storage needs are as big as your appetite, you can make do with a couple nicely refinished furniture items, it’ll keep you in Madam’s good graces (after she claims them), and will allow you to increase your addiction in a socially acceptable manner.

Technorati Tags: red cedar, fly tying storage, fly tying, domestic bliss

A lethal combination of work related interruptions and procrastination strained my credibility, and I was making good on promises this weekend by cranking some flies for past favors. On rare occasion a tier has no idea what his pals use, nor what they like, and has free license to tie an assortment that he knows are “guaranteed death” for anything with fins.

The “Guarantee” part is always subjective, and usually lasts six seconds out the doorway, or six feet past the driveway – but anglers never read the fine print, so we don’t get called on it much.

I figured five nymph patterns would be a good baseline to cover the Lion’s share of anything encountered in freshwater, ditto for dry flies. Looking at my own flybox that seemed consistent with my own habits.

I needed “Top Gun” – the best of the best, the five patterns that would catch freshwater fish anywhere the angler found himself, and as I’m mulling over  favorites, the TV blares suddenly with the Saturday Matinee; John Wayne, hisself, in “The Searchers.”

I’m staring at the flies in my palm, and the mental light bulb goes off, that’s exactly what I’m looking for, the five patterns that resemble everything, and imitate nothing, the Searchers.

My list: (California, trout as principle species)

AP Black – Andre Puyan’s Black nymph, you may know it as the “All Purpose” Black

Pheasant Tail – predominantly brownish, mayfly imitation

Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear – predominantly grayish – mayfly (can be caddis also if tied extra scruffy)

Bird’s Nest – I use both the gray and the olive – caddis imitation

I was stumped on the last choice, as I had at least twenty candidates, but no single fly as the obvious choice. The requirements are simple, the five nymphs so good – if you tied them in 3/0 a Sailfish couldn’t resist..

The Ball’s in your court Gent’s – what’s the top five “All  Killer, No Filler” nymphs in your arsenal, and as a double bonus – the collection is owed a SingleBarbed reader, so if any consensus emerges – this stalwart fellow is going to own them.

Wipe that evil grin off your face, anything that is recognizable as an Atlantic Salmon Full Dress is not going to be tied in size 16 – not by me at least…

Technorati Tags: nymphs, trout fishing, killer flies, Top Gun

A fly tyer is responsible for the entire sub-prime mortgage debacle, and the proof is on my tying bench.

I know where I’m fishing, I know what bugs live there, yet I insist on tinkering with what works, in favor of just tying what’s needed. It’s not just me that’s afflicted, as I have heard many fly tyers gnash teeth over the same self destructive behavior.

Local intel reveals ALL the fish are committing suicide on any Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear. In response, you starting digging out bunny parts slamming them onto the hook, and a vision appears;

“The Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear would be better if it had a red tail.”

Just as quickly the vision is gone, and you look down at your blistered fingers and see 34 dozen Hare’s Ear’s with a red tail.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

As I’m a willing victim of this aberration I’m not sure I can shed light – but intuition suggests greed and ego may have a hand in the outcome, it could also be a left brain/right brain issue, as I always struggled to keep the crayon inside the lines in elementary school.

I assume that “good can be made great” which is why most tiers tinker with patterns, and all the great chefs in the world are men. (Even more than fly tiers, men share the “tinker-lust” despite repeated and very public failures.)

I don’t want a fly tyer managing my 401K because the self destructive dimwit would be swinging for the fences with every purchase. If a safe but staid 10% return is available, he would ignore that in favor of some shady penny stock that he “visioned” was going up five bucks.

Plagued by these artistic visions, it’s little wonder that greed and excess have spilled into the mortgage market, as all of the fly tying mortgage brokers and hedge fund managers said, “Hell yes you qualify, I seen it!”

Technorati Tags: sub prime mortgage, tinkering, fishing

Never quite satisfied by what works, and always succumbing to base instincts, artistic flair, and some esoteric material ill suited for whatever you should be tying.

I had a live sample for the #20 Blue Wing Olives, complements of the Trout Undergrounds precise photography. Modified to give me more to see, as old eyes and tiny dries are not a good match.

I needed some standard searching patterns for the traditional midday grind, simple nymphs to replace those left imbedded in brownline shrubbery; Olive AP nymphs in size 14, and some Hare’s Ear’s in size 12.

Not having to give them all away is a first, normally all the fishing pals show up at my door with their hand out. No matter how many I tie up I am left with two after the feeding frenzy.

Until all of the sewage and wastewater effluent is washed off the waders it’s best I fish alone. I figure the fish downstream will be too busy complaining to notice the hook until it’s too late.

October Caddis in case they’re needed, if not these will make a nice carp fly, heavy wire hook and ribbed with Angelina to add a dab of flash.

I tied some Elk Hair Caddis which always receive a warm welcome, and added some #18 Pale Morning Duns to give me something visible and a color change. With the odd scraps already in my fly box, it will give me added versatility, and should any prove tasty, I have a dozen or more of every pattern.

The Pale Olive Paraduns were spared my fiddling with the recipe, in large part because in my youth I had to tie 200-300 dozen of them per year. It’s quite possible I was asleep when I tied these, as were the only pattern that escaped augmentation.

I managed to repair the significant holes in my fly box for this weekends expedition, I carry so few flies that I am quite practiced at forcefeeding something to a trout. In a pinch – that’s why God made rocks. 

Domestic bliss shattered by my failure to iron shirts, but as it was for  Science, it’s a worthy martyrdom.

Angelina fibers are available in a heat fusible flavor,  insert a pinch of fibers into a paper napkin, pass an iron over them a couple times and the of fibers fuse flatly to each other, yielding a “Tyvek” style mesh cloth.

This fabric is only as strong as the volume of fibers used and the degree of their overlap. Additional experimentation is required to find the best pattern to melt; parallel fibers, cross-hatched, further testing is needed to  determine what proves strongest.

One look at the result and about 75 different uses pop into your head, so allocate some time to fiddle.

Mayfly wings was the first thing I saw – the opalescent hue looks just like a shiny spinner wing. I trimmed a set for a #18 hook and managed to secure it without too much trouble. They are light and flexible wings – they will bend in flight rather than remain rigid and “helicopter” the tippet.

The photo shows what happened after I gave it a good yank. The direction of the original fibers when fused will have to be tinkered with so they don’t tear out. A #18 hook doesn’t give much area to tie down, the wing frayed badly when abused.

The intact wing shows the effect of the fabric trimmed to a shape, I folded the material and cut both wings at the same time, leaving a narrow adjoining section to tie to the hook. That was my mistake, as the narrow “neck” between the wings did not have many fibers secured. When pulled, the wing slowly fragmented into oblivion. Visually it’s a nice wing effect, but durability requires us to test further.

My next attempt was to roll up some fabric into a cigar shape then trim to the proper length once attached – exactly as a polypropylene yarn spinner is tied. I figured more fibers would be secured in the small tie down area and the wing should hold together much better.

The result is depicted above, after I mauled them badly trying to pull them apart. The fibers separated a little bit but that was the only evidence of damage. Like all good flies the more it’s eaten – the better it looks.

The above pattern is what we used on Fall River and Hat Creek for the Trico spinner falls, when the solid black flavor didn’t yield any fish we switched to this variant – it went by many names, mostly we called it a “female Trico.”

Now I just call it “too damn small for me to see” – along with every other fly smaller than an #8.. I will debut these this weekend on the foam line just for the fun of it – assuming I get out of the Doghouse by then.

del.icio.us Tags: trico spinner, angelina fibers, mayfly spinner, Hat Creek, Fall River