–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 …
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 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
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?
… another dozen. New dubbing color?
A bronze olive accident in the dye pot and … you guessed it.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
Call me a slow learner, but the aerial display of the fourth will have nothing on the fireworks tonight …
I Figure 26 colors run through the same sink, tracked across identical linoleum – each with a 100% chance of a gaily colored spill outlining big hammy footprints headed toward the Man Cave …
Naturally I’ll spring for roses and chocolate hoping to confuse Miss White Glove, but even with all the innocent looks and promises of romance her spider-sense is liable to tingle.
It’s why I save all those extra Fly Shop ziploc bags, the lecture on “How much fly tying stuff do you need” carries less penalty than the “you dribbled Olive crap all over the living room” variant. By witching hour, all two and a half pounds of dry fly dubbing, plus those sixteen animal hides will be packaged neatly, allowing me to look appropriately shamefaced while she administers the former – rather than the latter, while I distract her with dinner and a glass of fine red.
I was working colors mostly, a new set of dyes and a new vendor always requires an exhaustive trial to see how labels and reference colors stack up to the end result.
I use the “21” method for evaluating new dyes, as the range of payload color can be fairly drastic even among the lightest tints. Take two identical hanks of material, soak one in the bath for one minute – soak the other in the bath for twenty minutes, dry and compare.
The upper row shows four colors dipped for just 60 seconds, the bottom row shows the same dye bath after 20 minutes. The rightmost “Maize Yellow” produced a Golden Amber with an extended dip – yet the label reference showed the light maize variant. The leftmost color was “Safari Gray” – a color similar to Khaki, but the extended dip became nearly brown.
The rust brown and dark olive (two middle colors) were labeled as the bottom row, both dark colors – and quite vibrant in intensity. The one minute colors yielded a sage green and a creamy orange – with the cream-orange a huge bonus as it’s used extensively in most of the watersheds I fish regular.
This is why it’s so important to test dyes before using them on precious materials, sometimes the reference color is one minute – other times it’s gained only after the long steep. Knowing which yields what minimizes mistakes and the unforeseen colors.
Here’s another four dyes with similar issues. The leftmost medium gray and rightmost khaki are only true to the label color after a one minute dip – after that they darken incredibly fast. The center two, medium olive and brick red match the label only after a twenty minute soak. The one minute olive is also a huge color, it’s the Pale Morning Dun pale olive – something I thought I’d have to craft, versus just dipping it in a jug of nymph dip for a minute.
Each of the dyes shown was measured identically, one tablespoon of dye and three tablespoons of fixative, each used identical amounts of water.
Each dye is capable of three distinctive colors, the 1, 20, and 11 minute shade.
A canny fellow looks at the colors available and the 1, 11, and 20 minute results and can exclude certain colors from purchase. Most browns have only minor adjustments in red or black pigment, having it steep longer will match a russet or dark brown which you won’t have to buy.
The above picture is 13 dyes yielding 25 colors – not to mention the most absolute black and bright red I’ve ever seen.
Get Out of Jail Free Card
As no points are scored for being banned from the kitchen, it’s important that the how to make a complete mess is tempered with how to extricate yourself from a screaming and angry woman.
It’s like watching all those crime shows and getting pointers on how to hide the body.
At left is the corpse after three days of desiccation. “Her” corn grabbers being the blunt instrument we need to cleanse – as well as the assortment of ugly gray, red, and yellow driblets that line the strainer area. Each capable of bringing the Wrath of The Gods onto your narrow shoulders.
At right is the Righter of Kitchen Wrongs, cleanses fingerprints, restores the Pristine to the porcelain, and is capable of making you innocent of all imagined crimes.
… and don’t nod your head like you knew it already, this is the Goods, Babe.
Lay a generous dollop onto the porcelain and cover the afflicted area completely, give it 10 minutes to work magic, then rinse.
… and don’t buy the lemon as it coagulates in the jug rendering the contents useless. Unless you like driving to the store – blowing through all them red lights.
Along with pink fingers, the immaculate sink is the only means of extending your dyeing career, providing enough cover to enjoy a second or third session …
The pot scrape remains but all coloring agents are scoured from the surface. The shine has been restored as has the ability to see one’s reflection.
This corpse is buried deep.
Note the replaced strainer from my earliest attempts. All chrome with no tell tale rubber gasket to stain. It’s the perfect crime.
Tags: dyeing fly tying materials, dye reference colors, chrome strainer, dye stains, soft scrub, 21 method
If fly tying wasn’t such a mood based hobby your flies would be twice as good. A big order of tiny, upthrust, and gossamer locks the poor tyer into a mayfly mindset and when a big black ant is up next – being a “slab” of protein completely out of place on water, the result is tiny, gossamer, and neat …
… which has no parallel when imitating a drowning Chuck Roast.
Knowing my coworkers will be demanding ants by lunch hour, and armed with a half dozen photos from yesterday – whose details are still fresh, I eyeballed a couple of the larger catalogs and noticed every ant was an upright aquatic insect … none were tied as a dead bug, and fewer yet were tied screaming in terror.
The Gods had smiled ever so briefly, and while it may be five or six seasons before I need them again, I learned my lesson.
First of all terrestrial insects don’t ride the surface upright like mayflies. Most of them are dead, the rest are struggling to free a big terrestrial wing from the water’s surface and will expire on their back or curled on their side, and there’s nothing neat and orderly about it.
Wings aren’t gossamer as they’d get in the way. They’re stubby thick affairs that once dampened lose most of their aerodynamic qualities, trapping the insect in whatever position was first contact.
Fish (bless them) are entirely unsophisticated when the equivalent of a Virginia Ham is struggling on the surface, and it’s likely that color and size is all that’s needed.
… and something that allows you to see that flush-in-the-film imitation so you’ll know when to strike.
I dubbed the traditional ant profile using black deer hair, which left fibers poking in every direction looking like big black legs. I slapped some brown and black permanent marker on the lettuce bag from the trash, posted some closed cell foam upright and wound a brown-dyed grizzly hackle around it to add a bit more brownish tint to the overall fly.
Those wings will flop onto the surface and stick as the saran is so light it won’t hold its tied-in shape.
Contrast the dead ants with the live picture at the top. Orderly and shipshape versus cold and curled – wings splayed. This was the look of the wet insect we fished over Sunday.
Surely, if a large Adams was all it took to fool the fish we’re splitting hairs, yet if you’re taking the trouble to imitate something lose the live bug bias and get disjoint and nasty.
Coifed and combed is for that sweet smelling fellow with the droopy backcast, and was never meant for the bait …
The last piece of my stillwater arsenal has to be the dry flies. All are custom patterns I keep tinkering with as shortcomings and frailties become pronounced. The Calibaetis mayfly doesn’t help much as it’s seems to be a different color on every lake it inhabits.
I like to position myself on the side of the lake the wind blows towards – as the emergent adults are content to ride the breeze for great distances – instead of popping off the water immediately like a stream borne insect. The breeze will deliver all that food right to me and in the right bay or shallows the fishing can be spectacular.
For most lake mayflies I’ll toss the classic proportions and make special flies tailored for an extended float. A traditional size 16 will get the wing and hackle of a 15 (sometimes even larger if the lake is known gusty) – as the tall wing is what fish see when cruising for prey.
… and it allows me to pick my fly out from the pack, allowing me the courtesy of setting the hook when it’s eaten – rather than yanking when it’s the natural next to mine … On breezy lakes, the tall wing allows me to maintain visual contact despite the fly dipping into a wave trough – increasing my chances of seeing the strike.
I cast about two thirds less than the average fellow, as once positioned on the windward side I’ll usually find the fish cruising at my feet. As that ever-present breeze blows my “sailboat” back towards me I’ll slowly take up the slack and recast only when the fly is within a rod’s length.
It’s flirting with bait fishing, but that extra breadth of hackle and light dressing allows a greased fly to float forever.
I’ve settled on both brown and a grey bodied flies for the same hatch. One will have a distinct brownish appearance, the other will be tied mostly gray – and as the emergence is midday – there’s ample light to discern color. I’ve given up theorizing or second guessing and just make sure I have a couple dozen of each.
The nymph is the easiest part; somewhere between a Pheasant Tail, a Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear, and a Zug Bug is the proper flavor, and like the dry fly it varies a bit each year.
I like the speckled hen saddle wings as they present the perfect opaque silhouette, and when riding among naturals are nearly indistinguishable. Note the oversized wing and hackle mentioned earlier. Once damp those wings can overpower a traditional hackle and flop the fly on its side. The broad footprint of the oversized hackle stabilizes the fly and ensures it’ll ride upright with wings prominent.
All these unknown experimental made-it-yourself flies comes with a hideous burden, after the fellow next to you inquires and you tell him to “try an Adams” – you’re obliged to hand over a double-fistful, it’s the law.
Tags: Adams, stillwater dry flies, oversized wing, speckled hen saddle, Calibaetis mayfly, parachute flies, hairwing, dyed elk, grizzly hackle, fly tying
It was a bit of an imposition, watching the steady upward march of a horde of damselfly nymphs – and realizing I’d never considered my camouflaged legs part of any textbook underwater migration. Science held me in it’s grip until the first slimy little sucker made it past the neckline of my shirt and insisted on molting somewhere near my navel.
… and they swim like true fish, not awkward or ungainly like other aquatic insects. That elongated body with the three-bladed gill tail is put to good use. And it makes perfect sense that a stillwater insect that swims as gracefully as a minnow would have his gills where the tail should be – as the swimming motion would allow those appendages to slurp all the oxygen needed – even more when flight was necessary.
I liken them to Stoneflies of the Lake, larger than most of the Caddis and Mayflies, yet slender and elongated – giving a fly tyer the opportunity to practice his craft with larger hooks and plenty of shank – versus the minutiae that comprises the balance of a fish’s diet.
I don’t favor the traditional “wooden” long-shank mayfly imitation, as a small tuft of marabou just cannot substitute for the graceful swimming motion so characteristic to this species.
Instead I’ll opt for the tail and body as a single unit, coupled with a short shank hook to provide just enough room for lead wire and a wingcase. Three or four strands of medium olive with a like amount of brown over the top gives me a couple of colors that are proven tasty.
Most of the damsel nymphs I’ve fished over are dark Olive – but occasionally I’ll find them in brown. I take my cue from the lake bottom and its weeds – as the naturals are tailored to match. Putting both colors in the wing allows you to remove one later by simply tearing the fibers off – a modification you can do on the water.
Motion is the key, especially when faced with the color dampening effects of deep water, where warm starts to dull and the fish measured in pounds cluster.
Tags: Damselfly nymphs, fly fishing in stillwater, lake flies, fly fishing for trout, marabou, baitfish, graceful swimmer, sink tip, short shank hook
The gals in the lunchroom give me a wide berth as my work reputation has fallen from Epsilon Semi-Moron to neo-primitive Undateable. It’s what happens when the really soft – brightly colored tuft of hair in my hand is identified as real animal. In their mind I probably kilt the SOB in the driveway and don’t dare ask what my sandwich is made from …
Monday and Tuesday was Shad flies, and the brightly colored tufts of whatnot scattered about my vise were a magnet for the curious, until they found out they were real.
Watery Armageddon sank all plans of Shad and Wednesday I had shifted to trout, which has even more gross and despicable things that add to my legend …
Now the American has dropped 2000 CFS in a couple of days, and I’m back to bead chain and 0.20 lead. A wide gulf of empty tables separates me from the rest of the diners – but that’s not all bad.
At least I don’t have to answer the 10 Sacred Really Obvious Questions that You Shouldn’t Ask:
1) Is that a hook?
2) Do fish eat that?
3) Is that real fur?
4) are you a serial killer?
5) Did your Mother cut the crusts off your sandwich when you were little?
6) Does this make up for your having a small …
It’s scheduled to be only twice its normal size this weekend, but after six months of watching rain fall – my waistline is twice normal, allowing me to hold ground in everything but the fairway.
Next week I’ve got a date with trout again, so I’ll secret a couple of pheasant skins in my bag so I can sail them into the crowd whispering over at the Coke machine …
Makes you wonder what would happen if the butcher left a few feathers on those boneless skinless chicken breasts – and whether it wouldn’t induce mass hysteria or famine in the metropolis.
Tags : cro-magnon, trout fishing, shad fishing, serial killer, pheasant skin, undateable, American river flow, fly fishing, fly tying humor