JSzymczyk

it's not really going at all... every time I think I have some time to sit down and work on it, something comes up, like this whole WORK thing that keeps pestering me. Just tonight I was going to work on a deer hair bug and of course the phone rings and I'm out the door again, not even officially on duty. One more year...

I've found some good stuff in JoAnne, Hancock, Michael's etc, but in my experience they don't usually have the range of colors and sizes I've needed. I did find some heavy purple chenille that made really kick-a$$ #2 woolly buggers for largemouths once though. It was like $4 for half a mile of it. When you do find something useable in a craft store, usually it's a lifetime supply for flies.

there are now about 12.4 bazillion different types of "chenille" out there... I would say the most widely used is fine/med/large regular old rayon chenille. It works fine for most everything, and if you get it off a card and it is crushed/flattened, just steam it over some boiling water and watch it fluff back up. I usually don't bother because the first time you fish it it gets flattened as soon as a fish takes it. Then you fish it some more and it fluffs back up. Ultra chenille is denser packed on the thread core than "standard" chenille and has a slightly different look when wound on a hook shank, and is also used for san-juan worms where the chenille is not wrapped. Then there is antron or trilobal-antron chenille, which has a stiffer feel and keeps a rounder profile. It also has something of a translucency which is very attractive. It's great for wooly buggers and such. "crystal flash" chenille and "sparkle chenille" are usually antron with mylar shiny stuff mixed in. Great for all kinds of stuff. "estaz" and "polar chenille" types are made almost or completely of mylar flash material with no fuzzy stuff. Good for when you want the body of your fly to have some built in sparkle and flash. that's not the complete story, but I hope it helps. It's usually worth sticking with fly tying specific chenilles. sometimes you find stuff from the craft store that is really useful, like Disco and Tiffany, which are sort of chenille, sort of yarn.

couple things to remember about marabou: the thicker portion of the feather stem is very bouyant and will make the fly float really well, so avoid tying in the thick part of the feather stem. make sure you completely soak the marabou before you start fishing it- otherwise it will compress down into a thin strip, and it will take a while to come alive on its own. I think your streamer looks great.

looks great to me, but I ain't no pro...

roger that! black/olive/black has by far been my favorite color WB all over the world. It's just a "confidence" fly for me. I usually add a few strands of "rainbow" krystal flash in the tail. Many years ago I used to add a few strands of plain green flashabou.

trade them to somebody for size 10 ?

that's a nice looking little fishy- conehead, hook, icewing, what are the other materials you use?

I know this is coming in a little late- but my experiences with brookies in ponds and lakes in Maine taught me to avoid overcomplicating things. Light and dark woolly worms and woolly buggers, both lightly weighted and unweighted, and some white, yellow, and black marabou streamers pretty much covered things. A few generic damsel-type nymphs, and a few rather largish generic dries worked good too.

I agree, the best customer service I've had. I had a similar small issue with my last order and the folks there treated it as if it was the end of the world for me, which it wasn't. That was after originally ordering on a Monday and having the materials on Wednesday! I'm always happy to pass on the good word when a company does right. (don't) Ask me about the customer service I'm (not) receiving from a motorcycle battery dealer in Kalifornia right now.... It's the opposite of JStockard, in fact it is the Anti-JStockard, or JStockard_Not.

yes that's pretty much the recipe- just remember the field always leads, so don't tie a blue tail and a red/white body. Also lets not forget that there are an awful lot of military men and women serving here at home and all over the world, and they're making sacrifices too.

Yes you definately should have some without beads or cones or weight. Very slow, "natural" sinking fly in still water or sometimes just under the surface in moving water is often very productive. I fish big unweighted buggers on a floating line for largemouths and do very well with them. I used to fish several beaver ponds way up in northern Maine for brookies, and one of the killer methods was a #8 or #10 unweighted olive/black bugger. Used to soak it so the marabou comes alive, then just cast it out and let it sit, slowly sinking. It must have been a great imitation of a dragon nymph. See the line twitch and set the hook. Same thing happens with bass and everything else. Sometimes the best retrieve is no retrieve at all. You can always add a small splitshot right in front of the fly if you all of a sudden want to give it a "beadhead" effect. Way back thousands of years ago in the 1980s before beadheads and coneheads were required, we caught thousands of fish with unweighted buggers, using a small splitshot if needed. WB is so versatile and can be tied in so many configurations. It's worth it to tie and fish all kinds of variations.

A good friend just left to play in the sandbox, so I tied this in his honor.

IMO you should start with the basics- so some training on the basic techniques is needed before you get complicated. The good thing is that the basics are fairly easy, and all of fly tying is built on them. When you get down to it, fly tying is just binding stuff to a hook with thread. Also, remember, that very often the basic, simple flies are the most effective! A simple one or two color bucktail, not even as "complicated" as a mickey finn will catch all kinds of fish. Some decent tools and decent materials, and a book or two will get you started. If you have more specific questions as you go, I'm pretty sure the good folks here will be happy to try to help. On-site tech support is most valuable, so if you know of anyone around you who ties, get with them ASAP.

woolly worm= one of the absolute BEST flies for panfish and stocked trout (and allegedly fussy "special" trout too!) I tie mine with a short tail of flourescent red yarn. If I had to survive with only one fly for freshwater fishing, it would be a #8 black woolly worm with a red tail and grizzly hackle, with a bead head. It's suggestive of about a billion species food in freshwater- anything that will eat a bug can be caught with it.

you missed out- should have just invited her over to teach her things about feathers... you'll have another chance when you go back to buy a few balls of yarn. I know, it's a little weird feeling. "oh SURE you're gonna use it to catch fish."

+1 There are a lot of great tyers and great artists out there.

That material looks identical to "Boa yarn" which you can buy at any craft/sewing/fabric store for about $3 per mile. If you go to the warmwater forum and do a search for "tiffany" and "boa" you'll get a couple old threads with pics of flies some of us have made with it. Tiffany is another kind of yarn with a similar construction. It is way softer and furls much nicer into a very leechy extended tail, but colors are somewhat limited. If you also do a search on "disco leech" you'll find the original pattern all these yarn leeches were inspired by.

3FL2, this is what you're looking for: http://www.jsflyfishing.com/cgi-bin/item/N...addle-Pack.html they are graded according to size, and they range from 12 to 18 so they should be right up your alley. they're kind of spendy. You could dive in and get a complete saddle patch, and have plenty of each size. I do need to call Chris Helm and get a bunch of good quality deer hair. As soon as my financial manager (wife... ) approves the request.

cat whiskers?!?! I could start tanning cat's masks and selling them to you guys! Folks have been buying hare's masks for decades, and here comes an unfilled market niche. Time to dust off the old pellet gun and get to work! But seriously, when I was a kid(11, 12 maybe), I had a good buddy who also was avid about tying. His sister had a pet cat. He was eyeballing those whiskers for a long time, thinking "mayfly tails." One day he couldn't resist any longer. I held the cat with his Dad's welding gloves, and he snipped all the whiskers. That cat went NUTS for a couple days! He made some real nice dries though. A little while ago my wife spent way too much money and got her hair dyed a real nice auburn brown kind of color. About like what you see in a very nice piece of walnut rifle stock. I called it "rifle stock walnut" in fact, and she got a little PO'd, "no it's autumn leaves blah blah blah blah something something." A couple days later I thought it would really add a nice touch mixed in with the bucktail I was using to tie some clouser minnows. I asked her if I could snip some and you can guess the answer. Then I tried to sneak up on her with my tying scissors while she was falling asleep watching TV. Well I got caught (she was tipped off by my son, who thought it was no end of funny) and belted in the ribs too. At least I tried.

someone will interpret this as blasphemy I'm sure, but... If you have access to a walmart or other store with an average outdoors section, go pick up a package of appropriately colored soft plastic "bass" worms. Use a razor blade to trim slices of the worm in the sizes you need. Carefully tie these to your hooks, be careful the thread will cut through the plastic pretty easily.

I've already replied that I get nearly all my stuff via internet (what we used to call "mail order") That's always fine for synthetics and fur for dubbing, bunny strips, necks, etc. The three great frustrations I have are ordering deer hair for spinning, bucktails, and saddle hackles for large streamers and bass flies. I can't estimate how much total CRAP deer hair I've ordered, really bad bucktails, and "5-7 inch" saddle hackles that have 4 inches of worthless fluff. Whenever I have the opportunity to buy good deer hair, bucktails, and saddles, I'm happy.

macro macro MACRO! you can also use the flash on the cam. Most of the time in macro the flash will be very harsh on the subject because of the close distance. I underexpose 2 full stops, and cover the flash with layers of white tissue paper or paper towel until I get the exposure I want. Also depending on your camera, the flash will be "off center" of the subject at the closest focusing distance in macro mode. Takes a little goofing around but you can get good results.

no, your not alone. When I lived in places with local fishing available, I'd tie maybe two or three of whatever pattern I wanted, maybe only one, at a time. If I lost them I'd just tie up another one that night. If I get the chance for a trip once every couple of years or so I tie up a bunch of the patterns and sizes I know I'll need. On a regular basis though I tie up one or two of this and that. Most of my flies are of a certain "type" rather than a specific pattern. Some, like a black and grizzly woolly worm, or a chartreuse and white clouser deep minnow, are pretty hard to deviate from, so I guess those are pretty true to pattern. I find it becomes very tedious to tie more than 3 or 4 of the same pattern in a row... I don't think I could ever be a commercial tyer.

I think it was great because it did NOT focus entirely on trout flies. The mix of articles covered a broad spectrum and I salute the folks for bringing it all together. In my opinion, even with a few stumbles, it blew away several of the "big name" fly fishing rags out there.