Category Archives: Fly tying Materials

Where to find them cheaply

Free Range Dubbing: Unless you’re looking at it in direct sunlight, you’re not seeing what I made for you

Free Range Label I figure my sudden foray into dubbing was like McDonald’s adding salads to an otherwise lard-based menu. How the lights abruptly dimmed and the sudden demand for lettuce left most of the country rediscovering Broccoli for their evening meal.

Like the gals and their hair extensions, I was unfazed that I emptied most warehouses of everything furry. I started with the wholesale furriers, worked my way through the local stuff and fur coats on eBay, and when I’d exhausted the obvious sources, I’d make the call to my contact at the SPCA to see what was chilling rapidly …

A couple of months worth of effort turned into the better part of a year’s worth of research, failed automation, test groups and test colors, research on color mixing, dyes … and worse, suddenly needing to find vast amounts of odd animals to include once refined to their final formula.

Failed automation meant having to do it all by hand in the kitchen. Meaning it’s been a lonely year – bread, water, and solitary confinement does that to a person …

All of this started off simply enough, a general indifference to the dubbing products available in today’s fly shop, most of which featured some sparkly synthetic as its only real quality. Absent from the shelves are the natural dubbings of the past; crafted to make it easy to apply on thread, or coarse so its stubbled profile resembles something comely, or all natural featuring aquatic mammals to make gossamer thin dry fly bodies.

Instead were pushed towards some glittering turd that is about as easy to dub as a Brillo pad, and sparkles like a perfumed tart.

So I brought the manicured styles back; finding in the process that few tiers are left with the skills to refine dubbing to specific tasks, fewer relay the ritual to print to teach others, and most new tiers are content with products the way they are as they’ve not been exposed to others. It’s as if the qualities of fur and the skills to turn them to our advantage are disappearing.

As mentioned in previous posts on dubbing, there are three distinct layers in a crafted dubbing, allowing you to insert distinct qualities as part of each layer’s construction. I’ve likened dubbing construction to a cigar, where the finished product contains binder, filler, and wrapper.

The Wrapper is the coarsest material, often made of animals with well marked guard hair, suitable for adding spike and shag to the finished blend.

The filler is often the coloring agent, made up of semi-coarse or semi-fine materials that comprise the bulk of the dubbing…

… and the binder is the softest component, which is often added in proportion to the filler and wrapper to hold all three layers together in a cohesive bundle.

Somewhere in all of this can be a fourth layer, not always present, that I call “special effects.” Shiny or sparkle, pearlescent or opalescent, some quality that natural materials lack which can be added to liven it with color or a metallic effect.

Free_Range_Dubbing2

The Free Range Difference

What I’ve constructed is a dubbing designed to assist both beginner and expert tiers by including specific desirable qualities that should belong in any quality nymph dubbing:

Ease of Use: The material isn’t unruly nor possessed of qualities of some Brillo-style gaudy synthetic. The soft binder layer entraps the spiky wrapper and makes dubbing the fur onto the thread easy.

Sized for 8 – 16 hooks: All the fibers present in each color have been sized to best fit your most common sizes of nymphs. That means you won’t be yanking too many overly long fibers out of your dubbing, or off the finished flies, as even the multiple guard hairs used have been chosen for length as well as coloration.

Minimal Shrinkage When Wet: The fibers of the filler layer, which comprise the largest part of the dubbing as well as most of the color, are chosen for their curl, so they will maintain their shape wet or dry, and what proportions leaves your vise will be retained when the fly is soaking wet.

Blended Color versus Monochrome: Each of the colors is the result of between 5 and 11 different materials, each with different shades and tints that add themselves to make the overall coloration. Like Mother Nature, whose insects are never a uniform color, each pinch yields a bit of unique in every fly tied.

Spectral Coloration: The special effects of each are often synthetic spectral color components, containing a range of colors that are sympathetic with the overall blend color.

Only Buggy Colors: We chose to concentrate our colors into traditional insect hues leaving the lightly used colors out of the collection. Most fly tiers have a drawer filled with colors that are rarely used, we’d prefer to focus on the “money” colors like olive and brown.

Rather than a single color of Olive, we’ll offer a half dozen olives – as they’re far more useful than coral pink or watermelon. We’ve done the same for brown and gray, and even added effects to make more than a single black.

Food-based Names: Everyone knows that colors named with food references are twice as tasty to fish. We got’em, they don’t – ’nuff said.

Twice as much: Earlier in the research phase of the project I discovered the average dubbing vendor now only gives you 0.91 of a gram with 2 grams of brightly painted cardboard. I’ll give you a couple grams of goodie, and a biodegradable slip of paper instead …

Free Range Dusky Olive

What it isn’t …

It’s not going to leap onto your thread unassisted, nor will it make your fingers less tacky and curb your propensity to grab too much. It’s not some painted harlot made gaudy by too much color. Special effects are nearly invisible to the eye, representing about 2% of the fiber, and until the fur is moved into direct sunlight, only then can you see the refractive elements that make the mix glow and sparkle.

Naturally once someone says, “ … and the trout see …” Everything past that is a leap of faith. Millions of nice fellows have roused from their cups to pound  table and insist trout love something or other. This entire collection is my sermon on colors and textures, imbued with everything I hold sacred.

Until I can get some automation in place this is more a labor of love than  profit. I managed to incur some fierce loyalties to the end result from many of the folks testing, and with a new season about to debut and them tying to make up for lost time, they’re looking for me to live up to my end of the bargain.

I have 20 colors completed and am planning about 10 additional colors to fill gaps. Most of the Olives and Browns and Grays are completed already, I just need to see what I reach for that isn’t there.

Yes, we’re a bit ahead of our supply lines still, but the season starts next weekend, and I can’t have you feeling naked and resentful. I figure after a couple trips into the season I’ll know exactly what’s missing.

If you would like a sample of the dubbing, drop me a note. I’ll put something in there you’ll like and you can send me a stamped envelope to cover my expenses …

… and whoever said “Crime doesn’t Pay” wasn’t a fly tier

HandfulofSaddle Those of you old enough to remember Dan White and the Twinkie Defense are about to make bank, but only if you can hold a straight face while being pummeled by Gendarmes and hairless screaming females …

No, we’re not interested in a mundane purse snatching, we’re about to score acres of free 12 – 15 inch saddle hackles that we can turn around for obscene profits on eBay.

US citizen Edwin Rist, 22, who admitted burglary and money-laundering at a previous hearing, was described as a James Bond fantasist by his solicitor.

St Albans Crown Court heard he acted on his “obsessive interest in birds”.

The court was told that Rist suffers from Asperger’s syndrome. His prison sentence was suspended for two years.

Our museum loving “poor little rich boy” has evaded jail time despite stealing 300 pelts from a priceless collection and then parting them out to his buddies overseas (to the tune of about $30,000). It appears the jury bought the tale of misspent youth, video games, and James Bond, which along with Pop Tarts, coerced the lad into a lifetime of antisocial behavior with a hard on for Macaw …

That’s okay, for Dan White it was Twinkies and Coke that made him blow daylight through Mayor Moscone, Harvey Milk, and anyone else that got in his way.

Now that we recognize that I’m showing the symptoms of “an obsessive interest in birds” – and after a lifetime of watching Wiley Coyote fail to capture the Roadrunner, I’m liable to be set off by the sight of dyed saddles, and grab an entire fistful of hair in one big wrench …

… followed by falling prone, curling into the fetal to protect the jewels, enduring the beating while babbling about pyramids and tin foil.

As loyal as its next handout

Leave it to friend Leaping Bluegill to disclose the depths of our despair, how deep that hole is, and how our dry flies will be held hostage over the next couple of decades …

When it was wives and daughters we were bound by the laws of society,  now that the enemy is a quadruped all we’ve got to worry about is angering PETA eco-pussies, and absent a life sentence for us patriots, Old Fat Ass won’t know what hit him …

He’ll crack an eye to the sound of the clip slamming home – but once those tracers start skipping off the wainscoting he’ll realize his days of farting on the sofa are gone.

I’ll wait until he hits that turn into the kitchen, when those trimmed toenails start to lose purchase,  “skritch-skritching” on the linoleum and momentum requires trading paint with the fridge … flick that selector switch into full auto, put the front blade where he’s gonna be and lean on that trigger hard …

I seen “Old Yeller” and it sucked too. “Best Friend” was what we called you, because we never could remember your real name, you foulsmelling, fleabit, Prick …

puppylocks

puppylocks_advert – photo via Puppylocks

Adorable little ruffian with Whiting neck hackles highlighting those dark eyes so fetchingly … We’ll see how well the anchors hold when I chase the little SOB through the dog doody area while four snarling steel belted radials seek to make “Foo Foo” a throw rug.

The Singlebarbed Guide to whether your Dog is worth keeping

1. Less than ten unassisted retrieves of live game last season, the dog is worthless and a potential harbinger of Satan.

2. … a hamburger is neither “live” nor “game”, see #1 above.

We had a chance when it was a fad, now … now it’s personal.

Don’t act so surprised, you knew they were going to do it

Them girls bought them all, honest! It’s like turning on the living room light to find your dog frozen into immobility as he rearranges that warm dent on your sofa cushion. It’s that same shocked expression that’ll bring a smile to your face as you kick his butt off the soft and fluffy …

There’ll be shock and amazement aplenty when all those fly tiers realize the folks pimping Whiting saddle hackle to women for hair extensions is their local fly shop.

Naturally, Whiting promised their first priority will always be fly tiers and fly shops – and the faddish teenyboppers that wanna-look-like-Miley-Cyrus can all go without (meaning they can lightfinger Poppa’s stash) .

So the fly shops pump their fist along with their customers, as it’s a boy’s life and “no gurls allowed …” – even though them counter-men adore all that taught flesh giggling their way through the upstairs dander.

Now that their supply is assured by Whiting, they’re onto eBay by the bucketload, selling dyed Grizzly hair extensions by the fistful. The Whiting shipment received and hustled into the back room where it’s dismembered into little 5 feather packets and sold for $10 – $15 each on ebay…

… giggle …

…while you mean old men have to do without.

grizzhairebay What’s not so smart is most of them are selling under the shop account, and was I the Whiting Hackle Company I might want to be bring a couple of those vendors up short, as I have enough troubles keeping the fly tying market in feathers without some sharp SOB hoarding all the good saddles in the back room – claiming them damn girls bought it all ..

Just click the Nomad Anglers picture above to see what they’re telling their customers …

The only reason I’m not completely incensed is because the selfsame idea crossed both our temporal lobe about five minutes ago, and you’re suddenly wishing you’d paid more attention to my articles on dyeing.

… and for those shops poised to unload onto the marketplace, don’t use words like “Cree” or “Furnace” to describe your hackle, hair dressers don’t use words like that, dummy.

Traverse City Orvis

Nor is it surprising that I’d find Orvis selling hair extensions to the gals. The seller above appears to be the Traverse City, Michigan Orvis store, called “Streamside Orvis.”

With Opening Day just over a month away, I’d accuse these shops of really poor timing at the minimum. Nothing like a shortage of hackle just when the customer base seeks it most.

It’s nearly as much fun as eating sofa as a breakfast food

After three or four months you look down at the handkerchief and the sodden remnant of flaming pink raccoon tail you just sneezed up, and your first thought is about the fly tying “15 minute rule” and whether you’re allowed to recover and rebag it once dry …

Thirteen “pillows” of fur isn’t much to show for four months work, given the nearly 20 additional colors completed in theory, yet lack any physical manifestation.

14 actually, I started “Dreamy Mint Julep Caddis Carapace” this morning.

It’s the sum of every rainy weekend, all the frosty winter mornings, evenings after work, and why you should have listened to Poppa when he mentioned college – and how if you were as smart as claimed you’d be using head instead of back …

WMD

In the current economic environment, especially since both Tripoli and Wisconsin have fallen to revolutionaries, it’s a bit of a comfort knowing that I won’t be pressed into service as a short order cook, given my second career and the vast potential it holds.

Making little ones from big ones being a cornerstone of the US penal code, so I’ll have plenty of company with a single misstep.

Many of you participated in this experiment, and I owed you an update. Some picked colors and offered feedback, some fiddled with textures, most experimented with it, and at some point it will be available. My initial attempts at automation have failed miserably, so everything above has been made by hand.

Looking at all that dubbing makes me think of Edwin Teller, and the amount of suffering a handful of raccoon’s backside could mean to most of the major watersheds in North America …

… and how easy it’ll be to sleep at night, given the circumstances.

The fly tying equivalent of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

He looked both ways before passing me the baggy, and being as it’s California I didn’t leave it out in the open for prying eyes, quickly tucking the goods into a breast pocket, before returning to the truck whistling innocently.

I might have been less eager if I’d known more about songbirds and whether you’re even allowed to keep one, let alone how many in possession and which warbler gives the electric chair without the luxury of trial.

Once the evidence was tucked into the freezer I did a little unrefined search to determine that I was now in violation of most fish & game legislation, both federal and state, and in addition to tempting fate with my “salvage” of three dead birds, the next knock on the door is liable to be the National Wildlife Service in full body armor.

Your cats can keep killing birds with no threat of legal reprisal. I don’t think that you can be held responsible, unless you have the feathers in possession. A few feathers in your backyard probably won’t get you into trouble. You, however, can’t legally even pick up a feather that incidentally falls off of a protected songbird. If it isn’t a game species, you probably can’t legally keep it. This is what we have to do. First, we need a federal “special purpose salvage” permit from US Fish and Wildlife. This give us the right to pick up dead migratory birds, as the feds have jurisdiction over migratory birds. Second, we need a state salvage permit as all songbirds are protected. In addition, I must keep detailed records as to what is done with every bird that comes into my possession. That is, is it turned into a study skin, disposed of or released. Finally I have to have a federal permit for any federally listed threatened species and another permit for any bald eagles. That means a separate permit for each specimen. Then there is a state permit for all state listed threatened species. What does this mean if you come into possession of contraband material without the above permits? Basically that you should leave it there, or dispose of it.

Assuming I was gifted the alleged animals, and my sense of utilitarian overcame my traditional adherence to the law, besides the five to life without parole, there’s a right way and wrong way of receiving some dripping lifeform your buddy, or circumstances, presents at your door.

First and foremost the legality of the affair, whether game animal or otherwise is always in question. Second, is the amount of time that transpired before that car bumper intersected the flock of dove, and whether you’re on the fresh or odious side of the bell curve.

If the corpse bounces to a stop at your feet, consider toeing it into a bush, given that there is still plenty of livestock on the creature, none of which will be leaving until the body begins to chill. Tomorrow would be much better to collect your booty, given you can bring gloves and a sterile baggy, versus carrying the bleeding SOB in your shirt pocket …

As did my mysterious benefactor, a couple of days in the freezer ensures that everything living on the host isn’t – and pretty much leaves a scentless little ice cube of sparrow, warbler, or linnet, or finch.

One or two is plenty, and given the wonderful soft hackles they possess, you’ll be gripped by this selfsame dilemma at some point. One or two only because most of the bird resembles every other songbird on the planet; a dull drab brownish gray top and a few gaily colored feathers on the breast or near the tail.

In ice cube form a couple of delicate pinches will remove most of the useable – too big a pinch brings the skin with it, which is undesirable as it’ll add moisture and a hint of decay into whatever drawer is utilized. Small pinches will remove only feather – and due to size there’s only about five pinches of feather worth having …

It_Was_A_Gift

I’d guess these are some form of finch or sparrow, as they have little in the way of color to identify them. As I often wander the owner’s field picking up turkey tails and flight feathers in the fall, my appetite for feathers is well known.

Small birds have small feathers, which is exactly what our traditional materials like Partridge and Grouse lack. Other than using a distribution wrap or something similar to reduce the flue length, soft hackles are often wildly disproportionate to hook size … which isn’t necessarily always a bad thing …

The issue is that small feathers can’t be wound or gripped by hackle pliers, as our hammy fingers lack the finesse to avoid breaking them.

Tiny hackle inserted into dubbing loop

I use them by throwing a quick dubbing loop, inserting the hackle into the loop with my fingers, then spinning the loop to reinforce the stem with thread. As long as the hackle is not tied onto anything, either by its tip or its butt, it will not break.

We've created a tougher stem

As the feather spins with the thread it will shorten, which is why neither end can be attached to anything. The feather will spiral about the thread and consume some of its length in those wraps. Two lengths of thread give it a real “stem” and we can attach hackle pliers and wind the hackle (while brushing it backward).

Olive Yellow Flymph

Note how the hackles are in proportion to the hook size. These are not stiff like Partridge fibers, they’re actually so soft and mobile that I’d characterize them as marabou with a hint of spine. Breathing on the fly will make all the hackle move to the far side, making them incredibly lively in the water – more so than the traditional soft hackles.

I’d recommend not using any head cement. Like marabou the fibers will soak any slop instantly, making them much less effective – and ruining the fly.

No legislation needed your Honor, I’ll handle this trifling outbreak

starling_adult1 I guess I’m a bit less notorious with the authorities than the Trout Underground would have you think. In light of my sudden fascination with European Starling and then a mysterious kill of same – with carcasses scattered across most of Sonoma …

… the county next door that I never visit, ever.

Given a good bit of downhill and a tail wind, a silver Toyota pickup could resemble a big rig, especially when broadside to traffic and host to some idjit flailing around with a butterfly net …

It’s the perfect crime, given the fact they’re an invasive species and the Fish & Game folks wouldn’t  flinch if they caught me harvesting them with a Death Ray …

Where we pay a little homage to the cockroach of the Skies

At times I think even PETA hates starlings, universally reviled – it seems even little old ladies consider them cockroaches of the sky …

When I lived in the woods the local rice farmers would pay for your ammo, sending great groups of killers onto the paddies to blow hell out of yellow-hooded and redwing blackbirds. I tried desperately to come up with fly patterns that would allow for an orderly disposal of so many carcasses and failed miserably…

… something about black makes it an absolute must-have – but like licorice, you “must-have” in small doses …

Having re-upped the half dozen skins I keep around, and flush with small, soft black hackle – I’m reminded of all the other uses it was put to back in the day…

Starling_Skins

Strangely enough outside of using it for black hackle on all forms of sinking flies, mostly I used it as Poor Man’s Jungle Cock …

Starling_Feather

Most of the hackle feathers on the back and shoulders have a nicely defined yellow tip. Grab a pair of them and slide one down about a quarter inch …

starling_cocque A bit of wax or vinyl head cement (flexible) is all that’s needed to transform a tawdry little bird into something a rich kid that likes flutes is willing to steal for …

… knowing where he’s headed we’ll observe a brief moment of solemn knowing his fly tying is bound to suffer in the face of the sudden demand for his flautist skills …

Different medium yet same avaricious compulsion

Onion skins, how to score them in quantity It all started with five years spent on graveyard shift. Sleeping during the day and working all night appealed to me in some odd fashion, mostly I attributed my ease at being the only fellow in 48 floors of offices was all the time spent afield, as the quintessential antisocial fisherman.

My co-workers never saw my savage coupling with the leftovers from the office party, didn’t have to watch the thin veneer of civilization stripped away as I stalked loose change in the return mechanism of candy machines that dotted the employee lounge.

A note on my desk and half empty plates left in the fridge was my only interaction with the rest of the planet.

With my metabolism completely corrupted by the odd schedule, I resumed working days with little outward issues. I had to remember to bathe again, and observe the societal pleasantries associated with co-workers that were confirmed humanoid; a nod, a wave, an occasional smile.

… but I never was able to sleep past 0600 ever again. Which is why it’s my habit to buy my groceries on Sunday, while the rest of the planet sleeps blissfully.

… and while the medium has changed, natural materials capable of staining holy hell out of pants and fingers, fur and feather alike – I find myself schmoozing the stock clerk at Raley’s the way I would fly shop staff …

… because I’m staring at that monstrous bin of white onions, with the doubly monstrous bin of red onions as its neighbor, and my voice gets all silky and friendly like, “You guys ever empty that onion bin and sweep out all the husks?” says I, all caring and neighborly.

The problem with natural materials is there’s nobody to ask what’s enough, or how many dye baths will crushed walnuts shells make before I should toss them.

Instead, as I’m the only paying customer in the store at that hour, I look left – look right, and then dig out all the white onion skins while the clerk is busy restocking the orange juice or granola bars.

All the while I’m expecting the firm grip on the shoulder, and the command to ten finger the potatoes, so I can be featured on the front page of the paper all pasty and pale in the hot white light of the overhead fluorescents.

If I play my cards correctly it’ll be me and the bums fighting over dried daisies in the dumpster, but only after I convince the checkout lady that her first impression of me as a vile creep, was a bit wide of the mark …