Category Archives: Fly Tying

Strain them old eyes further with midges and tiny dries

This winter I’ll be busy restocking tiny and gossamer, as each trip has required both small and unique dry flies. With failing vision it’s not realism that’ll motivate the sizes and patterns needed, it’ll be small yet visible as the requirement.

Both trips North featured few organized hatches, and the evening grab was comprised of a smorgasbord of terrestrial and aquatic insects, some struggling in the surface film, and the rest emerging per schedule.

Ants and midges are my top priority, using Redditch Scale hooks they would be #18 or #20, as I can’t see smaller at distance (Mustad & Tiemco aren’t using the Redditch Scale, so they would be #20 and #22).

Early in the year it was a Mustard-Orange midge that was needed, and this weekend featured a newer variant in Key Lime Pie – which will play havoc with the traditional somber bug colors, but will be fun to tie – and even more fun explaining to the curious …

Mustard Orang Midge

The Mustard-Orange Midge above (Redditch #18) was consistent with the emerging midges, it accounted for all surface casualties.Tied in traditional mayfly-parachute style so it doesn’t disappear in the surface film like more traditional down-wing midge patterns. Dun gray deer hair wing, grizzly hackle and tail, and Singlebarbed’s Yellow Orange dry fly dubbing…

… I threw that in just so you’d clutch chest and exclaim, “Crap, I ain’t got none …”

Any dubbing the color of natural orange juice will work fine. Picture the above with a Key Lime body and you’d have the latest variant covered nicely.

I tied half with white wings and half with dun deer hair. The white wing shows better when contrasted against the darker water of evening, and the dun deer hair shows better contrast against light colored water backlit by the sun. Tiny flies and diminishing eyesight means any trick is fair game.

Early in the season the ants were enormous, this weekend they were just as plentiful, only small – in sizes #18 and #20. I struggle with how I’m going to make the smallish-black visible to my old eyes, but it will likely feature a mayfly upwing just so I can pick it out from among the naturals. Ants aren’t graceful in death, nor are wings precisely folded. I should be able to poke something skyward that I can see, without compromising realism.

The Blue Fuzzy Caddis

The top fish getter for Hat Creek was something I’d tied for the brown water. A simple bead headed caddis worm tied in a frosty blue/green, compliments of Berrocco’s Crystal FX yarn, in an odd color called National Velvet.

It’s a multicolor yarn, predominantly blue, that fades into a blue green, then back to light blue.

I’d read that trout lack the cones for blue, so I’d dismissed it as a trout fly, and intended to use it for Carp and Pikeminnow.

When wet the yarn color trends to blue green, which proved irresistible to wild trout.

If the ability to resolve blue is an issue, I would guess the fly was a neutral hue that retained the green elements, coupled with a light halo of transparent mylar fuzz that gives the yarn its signature look.

Berrocco National Velvet yarn That was as much science as I contemplated, as the fish were eating it fast and furiously, and Kelvin was fingering my box for spares.

Berrocco discontinued the yarn in 2007, but you can still purchase it on eBay, there’s five skeins of National Velvet available.

There’s little question this has been a strange year. Intense and prolonged rain upset everything from the tomato harvest to hatch timetables. A lot of the odd insects encountered recently may be hatching early or late compared to last year, which explains why I’ve not seen them before.

With that in mind I’ll not go overboard in stocking up, perhaps a dozen of each color tossed into a single compartment should next year be more of the same.

On a cost basis, your fly tying dubbing is a girlfriend half your age, including the divorce

My poppa was overly fond of the Hershey with Almonds, as he cared nothing for money or markets, it was the yardstick by which he measured the US economy.

…in between telling us when he was a kid, it was only a nickel.

We learned the brightly emblazoned text, “33% more, Free” meant the economy was in tailspin and the price was about to rise, and the plain wrapper sans “free food” meant the stock market was a rocket ship headed skyward … (you can find the Hershey Cost Index here)

Most of this year I’ve been working towards a suite of dubbing under the Singlebarbed logo, not so much raw commercialization as awareness that an entire generation of tiers has never seen or used custom products, relying instead on synthetics that are one dimensional, like the unsatisfying part of a Mickey Dee’s burger.

A fistful of cash

Part of all that market research included buying some from all the major vendors, deconstructing the components, admiring the gilt packaging, noting the superlatives and claims of perfection, weighing, measuring, and studying benefits and shortcomings, as well as estimating their costs.

My premonition was dubbing would be a Hershey bar, only the shop tag obscured the “30% more, free” …

When I think of the expensive items we measure as minor trappings of wealth; a choice steak, a new car, a girlfriend half our age, they’re cheap* (unless a divorce is involved) by comparison.

Dubbing isn’t rare furs and endangered animals anymore. The modern marketplace is comprised of components shat from tubes, boiled in vats, and sold by the ton. So why is a six ounce “steak” of dubbing  just over six hundred dollars, and a new car of dubbing making a dent in the national debt?

The math is simple, I took a representative sample comprised of 10 fly shops and the 10 dubbing products common to all, which yielded a product package weight of nearly 4g, comprised of packaging weighing 3g, whose contents contain 1g of fur.

Given the taxation of those states and the average price,  the fly tying community is paying on average, $3.75 per gram of dubbing.

Most of the products are entirely synthetic, some contain two ingredients – a hint of synthetic sparkle and a natural or synthetic binder layer. Figure they’re paying about $10 per pound for the base synthetic, which they may dye, then re-fluff for packaging, that $10 investment becomes $1702.00 for the respective jobber and subscribing retail shops.

Not a bad return for the jobber, the retail side only gets to double the price once.

Comparison of the same product a decade ago (for those that existed) shows a decline in content weight of 50%.

… like the candy bar of yore, “fur” has shrankeled while doubling or tripling in price.

There’s no mystery to all this. Jobbers dominate the fly tying section and distribute the packaged dubbing too. With no in-house brand for competition they can do what they will, as they’ve got a monopoly on all that pegboard and what it contains.

… I’ll add that to the “ornery” side of why we need more choices. I just wanted to make something better, and already I feel the pull of  Jihad.

9.5% Unemployment and most are fly tiers

Cubicle wars If you’ve ever supervised others you understand how closely work resembles high school. Inkwells replaced by cubicles and communal refrigerators, pigtails a thing of the past, but the guy that dries his shoes in the microwave, or thumbs the donuts is a worthy substitute.

Come lunch I’d like to be in a happy place, tossing all the responsibility, and with brown bagging the new frugal, take my tasteful little repast into a unused conference room or break room along with a small sack of fly tying materials.

There to repel vegans and animal lovers, answer the questions of the curious, amaze onlookers, and dispense fly fishing doctrine to all those whose dad or grandfather did it years ago, who were always interested, yet never picked it up permanently.

Most tiers would be a tad reluctant, and with good cause, but I find the exercise both relaxing and productive, more focused than the casual version done at home. Time and space are constraints, but the tinkle of the brook and vision of soaring pine trees can make a marginal stress-filled afternoon seem less so, so I keep doing it.

Every couple of weeks I empty out my kit and the flybox and find seven or ten dozen more flies to add to my already cramped vest.

But with all the perils and restraint due the workplace, you should always be low on the radar, alert to avoid complaint or fur-induced adverse action.

The Sacred Tenets of Workplace Fishing

Practice casting or instruction in the parking lot is fine, just make sure you have an old line that can take the abrasion, and don’t mind the labels “Creep” or “Weirdo.”

Nobody likes being seen as a beginner, especially the well tanned, coifed, and fit. Start the lesson after most of the folks have left for lunch.

Recognize the evangelical before you’re in a discussion you can’t win. Animal freaks and Vegans disguise themselves well, they could be your Boss, or even your Boss’s Boss. Their zeal gives them away quickly, so point out that nearly all your materials are synthetic – even when there’s hide visible or whiskers attached.

Despite their beliefs, most have little knowledge of animals outside the freezer section of the store, or their cat – and having never turned either inside out, they’ll be fairly clueless.

If the Office Babe shows an interest, everyone at the table will be as talented and interested as you are. Loosen the reins and let the suitors trip over their shoelaces, it’s like guiding – with the clients ignoring your advice, and always a great show.

“Timmy” the obnoxious kid from High School is now Tim, but if one of the gals shows fear when shown a pheasant skin, or is repelled that it’s a dead-anything, Mr. Tim will chase her around the office with it. Keep the dead stuff close to you – even closer if an eyeball is visible.

Find a quiet corner so you can avoid most of the traffic, even the most hardened fly tier will tire of answering the same question over and over.

Yes, that’s a dead thing, yes, fish eat this, no, I don’t always keep them, yes, that hook is sharp …

Your most interested spectator will be the guy that never brings donuts, the lunchroom Ghost. By feigning interest, he can keep an eye on unattended sandwiches, unwanted chips, and what few donuts remain.

Only bring enough materials to tie a single pattern. At most you’ll finish five or six flies, and few materials is fast to gather if you’re summoned for an impromptu meeting or calamity.

An occasional dust mote or loose feather won’t cause alarm, but a fish hook will be an issue. Only lay out a half dozen hooks at a time and return the box to the carrying bag, that way you won’t spill any and can account for strays.

… and resist the urge to imbed a couple in the remaining donut to settle scores with the Ghost. Just restore the donut’s luster with a generous dollop of fast drying head cement. It’s difficult to be sneaky when the entire pink box comes with the prey ..

Don’t be surprised if you unearth a kindred spirit, or a classic rod last used by someone’s grandfather. While most work sites promote sterility and conformity, fearing litigation, what you do to put money on the table is not who you are, and demonstrating same can have occasional benefits.

Just be real vague about key dates like the Trout Season Opener, so you can be sick again.

It’s the hardest color in the world but only because it isn’t a color at all

It's a red black Ask anyone who’s ever fiddled with materials and you’ll see the involuntary shudder when Black is mentioned. While it enjoys status of being a must-have color among fly fishermen, getting a good permanent black will drive both professional and hobbyist to tears.

… and you don’t have to do it yourself to grit your teeth, as most packages of black materials stain fingers, clothing, and skin.

Dye companies have an asterisk next to their black(s), requiring you to double the amount of dye used to achieve a complete deep color. That translates into stained sinks, discolored fingers, and rinsing the material at least three times as much before the water even resembles clear.

Slurps and dribbles are permanent, and the evidence can’t be hidden, as you and the sink are the same color of sepia.

Dyed once, about to be dipped a second time Black is the absence of all color,  it can only be approximated by adding dark colors together – and as a result every vendor’s recipe is different.

Most could be described as warm or cold blacks, as they depend heavily on purple which is a mixture of red and blue. Tossing other colors into purple will raise or lower the red or blue – yielding a warm or cold color.

To further complicate matters is the presence of many colors of black. Black, jet black, carbon black, true black, and even new black, are labels used by dye vendors to distinguish between black-as-night and dark charcoal gray.

They’re all a pain to reproduce and your only certainty is the result will be messy, stain the top half of your torso, and won’t be black enough.

What we think of as black is actually Jet Black, the darkest and deepest of all the vendor variants. Not all vendors call it as such, when presented with a choice, that’s the darkest of all.

rinsewater Many things can interfere with the coloring process, including natural colors (we assume the black will cover them up), dirt, grease, and oil, and the blend of dye itself. Dyes are made from rare earths and minerals, all of which activate at different times and temperatures – and if the bath doesn’t get hot enough, or is too hot – it’s possible to have a color misfire.

The rinse water at left shows you how visuals cannot be trusted. Rinsing a pound of loose fur in dish detergent yielded a great deal more dirt than we suspected. It also shows why scissors grow dull, not only will the dirt prevent color from setting on the material, but this kind of grit is hell on the sharpest of scissors.

Familiarity with your dye vendor is the only way to know whether your result has been influenced by other agents. Dyeing six or seven batches of material will commit the shade to memory, allowing you to fiddle with heat and quantity if you get something unexpected.

Over dyeing the material a second time, with partial drying in between can usually fix a poor initial attempt, but sometimes it’s the material itself that resists coloration.

How many blacks are shown? Guard hairs and stiff shiny materials are quite hard compared to loose fur or marabou. A rich deep black in Marabou may not be the same shade when dyeing a slab of Polar Bear, or similar tough material. Over dyeing a second time may fix a dark gray, and it may be enough to over dye it with a deep purple, or dark brown, rather than black.

At left is about seven pounds of loose fur (multiple animals), how many “blacks” do you see?

Only the foreground two were listed as Jet Black (left) and True Black (right). The rearmost is Gunmetal Gray, Purple in the center, and the rightmost dark color is Silver Gray. The True Black (right foreground) has been dyed twice with twice the amount of dye as normal, yet is still a close match to both Gunmetal and Silver Gray. This shows why familiarity with the vendor is so important – the labeled color is of little help.

outdoors_black

Outdoor light adds a bit of blue to the bucket of True Black. The Jet Black on the mound of drying material shows little change from indoor lighting, it’s still the darkest black in any condition.

For my use the current color of the True Black will work just fine, it’s a component of a larger batch of dubbing that will be a dark gray.

While it showed red in the drain (see above picture) once on the material and exposed outdoors it shows blue, suggesting that if I wish to darken it further I would over dye it with a dark brown – as the red of the brown would cancel the bluish tint shown in the photo.

The rest of the table is yellow that was fast dipped in orange, and then soaked in a weak olive, just one of many secrets to my Golden Stone mix.

I mention it only because my porcelain dye pot sprung a leak while cooking three pounds of hair. Yellow being the most forgiving color and dyeing even in lukewarm water, once I heard the burner sputter – I had time to jam my hand into the pot and cover the hole without parboiling them precious fly tier fingers …

… jaundiced to the elbow is easy for us brown water types to explain.

Test Jet Black, True Black, dyeing hair, bulk fly tying materials, dubbing, Golden Stone, fly fishing, fly tier, acid dyes, protein dyes

A better mousetrap is not without cost

freecat Wanting something more than what’s offered on the shelf is understandable, but bringing that vision to fruition can be hell to pay.

Six months ago, after a particularly dismal showing at the local shop, I’d resolved to enter the dubbing market utilizing all those techniques and foibles learned in youth, drummed into my head by the legion of old guys I looked up to …

… who didn’t mention anything about what happens to your living room, how the neighbors whisper and draw away when you hail them from across the street – nor the visitations by animal control officers, and the sexually transmitted diseases … which was my surprising initial diagnosis based on the symptoms.

Even less well known is the absence of automation to assist, how you have to make due with Momma’s food processor until she’s spitting guard hairs from a smoothie – and spitting mad moments later.

If you really want to make a difference you’re busy listing all the qualities your stuff will possess that the current fare lacks, then start the slow and methodical search for materials that won’t drive the price upward, are readily available, and can be coaxed, shredded or dyed without violating zoning laws, wastewater treatment permits, or turns your backyard into a superfund site.

That’s your first inclination you’ve bitten off far more than anticipated, and the enormity of what a hasty vow in the parking lot really entails.

As most dubbing products are synthetic, or just rabbit, and monochromatic of color, all the easy stuff is taken. So you range far afield of fishing and acquaint yourself with industries that use fur, threads, yarn, synthetics, and anything resembling hair – and wind up with an education about how car upholstery is made, who makes it, and why it’s unsuitable for flies.

Then you start ordering test snippets by the ounce, pound, or boxcar, hoping in all of that wallet-lightening one or two gems will emerge. They don’t usually, so you’re on to the next vocation hoping their materials are softer, longer, or doesn’t melt when you add water.

A sample arrives and hold plenty of promise. A stiff synthetic fiber that has a nice sheen and would offer wonderful texture to nymph dubbing, as it doesn’t slim down when damp. The fly you proportion in the vise would be same dimensions when fished – instead of resembling a drowned cat when it’s removed from the creek …

Naturally I dye about eight or nine pounds into 20 colors, and my new neighbors are peering over the fence line wondering when the rest of the Gypsies show…

… and I’m not at all bashful when displaying my stained tee shirt, where the rust red slopped over the lip of the pot and I threw my body between it and the linoleum …

… intercepting most of it from neckline to mid torso. Now that my “slasher” outfit was complete, I turn to the curious folks on tiptoe at the fence and shuffle toward them woodenly moaning, “ … mmm, Brains …”

The sliding glass door snicked shut – and I heard the muted sound of a bolt closing on a Remington.

Indoors I’m torturing and mixing the dampened mats – teasing them into 96 colors, of which nine are indispensable, 43 are questionable, and the remainder should be husbanded only because no one else has them.

Monday dawns and I’m back to real work, but can’t help noticing the occasional itch at the waistline or below. As I’m wrappered neatly by a desk I scratch as needed …

A couple days later, I’m thinking … fleas? … or Crabs? Entomology being a strong suit, it’s the only thing I can imagine that’s possibly biting – yet small enough to remain undetected. Monogamous or not, you can’t help but have your life pass before your eyes. How do you pose the question to Momma, much less explain their presence in light of complete chastity?

… all this suffering, just to make a couple fly tiers happy? As with any new material, half the fellows will think their familiar standby is better, the other half will tinker with a pack and shrug, and the last two fellows will think it’s worth purchasing a second pack.

It was neither critter as you might suspect. Texture is a desirable quality, but wrapping the synthetic equivalent of fiberglass insulation around thread and the itching that results is just not worth it.

Rinse and repeat.

Natural fur allowed me to resume my acquaintance with the new neighbors. Each weekend featured all manner of stuff dripping gaily from the clothesline, yet most days I was semi presentable and hailed them while dumping a big bag of shorn animal skins into the trash.

“Hi, my name’s Keith, do you fish?”

“No, I golf.”

Golf. Sigh. I’m determined to make the fellow less twitchy and ease his fears a bit, “Ah, well neighbor, welcome – and if you need dogs looked after or the stereo’s playing too loud, feel free to bang on my door.”

“We’re cat people.”

I notice his gaze fixated behind me, I glance around to see what’s so compelling, and realize that red fox tail has been shorn to resemble a medium tabby – just the right length draped outside of the garbage can to give the fellow real drama.

The garage door slams shut, and I hear frantic whispers then silence.

I return from work to see the crowd in the street huddled over something. I walk up to the onlookers and inquire, and they’re pointing at the “flatty” in the road.

A victim of automation is the way I see it. When the truck emptied my trash into the back, one of my fur donors had slipped out to lie spread-eagled on the roadbed, and shaved opossum can resemble Siamese if the light is right …

The fellow across the street joins the crowd holding the “Missing” poster from the mailbox, “… it might be the same cat” – and while the crowd cranes forward in forensic inquiry, I ease back into the safety of my house – wondering whether it’ll be pitchforks and swords, or just searchlights and SWAT.

… and while I’m close to the final prototypes, with just a bit of adjustment necessary before picking the primary color selection – from napkin to product there is a lot of more than meets the eye.

Marker bulk dubbing, fly tying materials, fly tying humor, do it yourself, opossum, red fox tail, fly tiers, blended fur, capitalism

Are you predisposed for fly tying?

Dark Humpy

–via R.M. Buquoi Photographics

Which do you see?

Three deer.

One deer and two fawns.

One deer, one fawn, and a mess of Dark Humpies?

OK, don’t answer …

eyechart

See the last row clearly?

Congratulations, you are now a management trainee, guaranteed a heady career with minimal supervision, long hours, and low wages.

Marks / fly tying vision, fly tying humor, dark humpy, Horner deer hair, goofus bug

The Demise of Animal and the rise of the Big Box Small Shop

The Original Animal, The Scrounger The other day I was in one of the better shops, and my non fly tying buddy asked me why the Whiting neck was $85 and the J. Fair Saddle was only $20. My explanation was overheard by the smiling fellow behind the counter and he stopped to correct me, “ there’s over 30 years of genetics in J. Fair chickens … “

With my best devilish grin I exclaim, “really? Is that more or less than Foster Farms?”

I was expecting an answering chuckle, but all I got was a furrowed brow and “… will that be Mastercard or Visa?”

We had good reason for our unwavering loyalty to the local fly shop, it being a niche sport and offering a marginal income for both owner and staff. Prices were often higher than the big stores, but there was value in convenience and speed, the ability to run over at lunch to resupply our dwindling pink hackle.

Being a regular had benefits. Usually small; the ability to help yourself to coffee from the stained pot, be the first to paw through the Metz or Hoffman shipment before it went onto the shelves, or to just stand around jawboning with kindred spirits and the owner.

Shops were intensely individual in those days, the mixture of staff, expertise, and brands gave each store unique talents and inventory, but what really distinguished one from the other was their “stockroom animal” and his ability to conjure rarities on a whim.

“Animal” was the guy that could produce anything given enough time, and if you were on first-name-basis you got access to items you’d read about in books – fabled stuff that you’d never seen, always wanted to own, and carried a prison term if caught.

The fly tying section was a mirror of his personality and preferences. It contained what everyone else had, but had Grizzly necks dyed for the local specialty patterns, the occasional uncommon brand of hook because he swore by them, and rarer colors of the standard fare geared to local flies and nearby watersheds.

When the discussion turned to seal substitutes, he’d produce the real thing so you could judge yourself whether Sealex was better than Angora goat. And while visions of sugarplums increased with your proximity to rare exotics, he’d regale you with tales when substitution was unnecessary, as the real thing was cheap and commonplace.

He used his powers to assist in your quest for greed and avarice. He knew the fellow managing the plucking service at the pheasant club, where the pen raised birds had tails of brown and purple, the whole tail and not just the edges…

His minions pillaged the feathers from the gut pile at the bird refuge, yielding bronze mallard, blue winged teal, gadwall, and sprig – whose tips were intact and feathers oily, resilient and well marked.

He was the Scrounger, aka James Garner in the Great Escape, possessed with a web of contacts and shadowy pals that fed a steady stream of hard to find, high quality, and dripping treasures into your hands.

Every shop had one, and we gladly went out of our way to high grade what each was best at – be it elk hair from Montana, Metz and Hoffman capes, or hand dyed materials whose colors you couldn’t find anywhere else. We gladly paid the price as our loyalty was repaid in kind.

It has been one of the most sacred tenets of fly fishing, unflinching support for the local shop, coupled with dropping a double sawbuck on consumables at the destination equivalent, ensuring both remained afloat.

But Animal is gone, along with the coffee pots, the custom materials, and the table where regulars held court.

In their place is the plain and vanilla. Pegboards with tidy little rows of glassine bags each emblazoned not with the shop name but the out of state jobber who sells it. The rarities left with the animal, whose position filled by a retiree or fresh faced youth that are interchangeable with neighboring shops, as they look like each other, act like each other, and offer little to distinguish one retail experience from another.

The backroom is well lit, the linoleum swept and sterile – and the treasures they once contained are long gone.

The underpinnings of the entire support-your-local-shop idea has always been based on their merit and uniqueness, the quality of their service, the hale fellow well met, and the fellow in the back room and his legendary horde.

When the Internet absolved us of sales tax, yielding an immediate 6% – 8% savings, we were in a horrible quandary and our loyalties divided. A Sage rod or Hardy reel was the same in California as it was in New York, and unlike a chicken neck you didn’t have to inspect it to select the best one. Merely pressing a cheek against the glass was enough to determine the size needed – and the search for the best price a paltry two clicks distant.

It’s time to reevaluate our loyalties and ensure our continued support is warranted. With UPS and FedEx a couple days away, is a Wapsi or Spirit River pack of tungsten beads really worth the extra expense?

I no longer think so.

I will always support the destination shops, as they provide the hard fishing intel as part of the purchase. Where are they, what should I use, when should I fish, is a component of that value-add and lost individualism. The destination shop with their proximity to fish and constrained by short seasons are largely unchanged and worthy of my diminished dollar, my shortened vacation schedule, as they continue to provide value beyond the simple sale.

The local shops are another matter. Many have slipped into that “Big Box feel” in their uniformity and inventory, and their staff are no longer memorable enough to distinguish one shop from another.

Most are too neatly coifed to make me feel at home. The surroundings sterile and businesslike belying the earthiness of the sport. No one cursing or sweating over a balky reel, and no coffee stains from the forgetful fellow that parted his hands to show how big the fish was – and forgot the mug they held.

I don’t feel I should linger, and when the coffee pot left, so did the sweaty welcoming crowd that knew me by name.

The animal could tell me things about feathers that I never suspected, stemming from a couple of decades dyeing, grooming, bending them to his will, or haggling over them. With him went the odd merchandise as well as the connection to the local materials and merchants.

Whatever the jobber sells comprises most shops entire color spectrum, and despite hot pink being the money fly for local fish, an out of state vendor dyes and stocks what’s in demand from all their distributors and doesn’t cater to local demand.

Fly selections are in similar shape. Where once they reflected a blend of local talent and offshore volume, now they’re delivered by jobbers and largely uniform. Managing local tiers is nightmarish, what with the drain on materials supplied and with delivery always in doubt. The presence of those flies assisted in differentiating the selection, customizing it to local conditions and utilizing the talents of local anglers.

Those locally tied flies were just as important as the custom materials, they drew the non-tying angler just as the fly tying materials drew me – out of my way and in proximity to the register.

The Elk Hair Caddis purchased at the Cabela’s Superstore, Orvis showroom, or my local shop are all tied by the same hands, why shouldn’t I seek the best price?

There are plenty of skilled fishermen, and even more skilled customers, making it incumbent that sales advice and council walks a razor’s edge lest it appear strident and opinionated – and risk offence. A fly shop isn’t Home Depot, where the cute orange vest and name tag makes you a plumber.

The old days and older ways weren’t better, just different. It was appropriate to insert formal business plans and professionalism, just to slow the hemorrhaging of shops started with the best of intentions, and little head for business.

But professionalism didn’t need to eliminate customer value, or chill what used to be our only outlet for “girl” shopping; where we poked, prodded and flexed, daydreaming that we possessed the disposable cash to own one.

Tighten the operations, introduce the concept of business plan and mission, use the broadening base of the Internet to expand sales beyond the township, and insert a capable manager, rather than a hopeful and underfunded owner.

The coffee pot and table consumed aisle space but translated into long term loyalties and longer term dollars. It gave the shop a welcoming and palpable presence – something that assisted us in husbanding our precious funds and ignoring the brusque big box experience and their savings, from our longer term allegiance and support for the little guy.

Instead we have successful yet chill commerce, a polite greeting when we enter, and a farewell when we exit, and damn little betwixt the two.

… and while I’m happy to refresh my tippet each season, picking up some thread or minor item needed, it’s the Internet that receives the bulk of my purchases, reward for those nimble enough to exploit technology.

Certainly, it’s impersonal, but the UPS driver always greets me by name.

Test – the big box small fly shop, Internet, Elk hair caddis, Wapsi, Spirit River, J Fair, fly tying materials, fly tying animal, Cabela’s, Orvis, Sage, Hardy reel

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,