JSzymczyk

that's the big problem with insects (and everything else) - there are so many local names that it's basically worthless. You're better off just saying "a tan mayfly about an inch long." It really is beneficial to learn the correct "scientific" nomenclature of your bugs. That way it's impossible to get them confused in conversation. There are several field guides which give pretty good identification keys.

there is a lot of crossover- a general rule, and it's very general, is LMB will eat anything it can get it's mouth around. i.e. you can generally get away with very large flies for LMB. From my experiences, both LMB and SMB will eat all the same stuff. USUALLY LMB aren't found in moving water, I mean MOVING water like riffles and runs like SMB can be found in. LMB will hang in the holes and slack water areas of a river or stream most of the time, while SMB can be found in fast water as well as the still water. Conditions might dictate going with a smaller fly for SMB, but that's about it- Poppers, sliders, deer bugs, streamers, crawdads, woollys, nymphs, they'll all catch both LMB and SMB. Again, these are very general observations.

I think it's a great magazine and I especially like the way the articles are presented- there is no "Continued on page ..." after the first few paragraphs. I noticed quite a few editorial errors, a couple typos, and some grammatical errors, but I'm betting that will get worked out in future issues. There was a misplaced paragraph in the bluegill flies article, the Allie Worm and HumBug paragraphs were transposed- that kind of thing. All in all though, it was the best fly tying mag I've ever seen. It's one that won't get thrown away after a few months. To keep it relatively light on advertisements and keep the continuous flow of articles, it's worth every penny of the cover price. If JStockard keeps up the offer of a free copy with a $50 order, I'm pretty sure I'll keep taking them up on it... Great job guys!

Mustad 3366! About 2 seconds with a diamond hone and they can be scary sharp. BTW if anyone wants to pay $9 per hundred, I'll sell them to you for $8 per hundred!!! I use round-nose pliers and give the hook eye a SLIGHT "turned down" bend- I've found this helps the minnow ride correctly, although it probably doesn't matter at all. I also use the 3366 for deer hair bugs, crystal buggers, LMB "seaducer" style buggers, all kinds of stuff.

VERY NICE!! great flies and great work. Your english is fine, better than most of my neighbors!

simple old reliable woolly worm. hook: 2x or 3x long, #12-#6 tail: red hackle fibers or fl. red yarn body: black chenille hack: grizzly add lead wire or a bead head, and leave some unweighted. also tie some in yellow, and medium olive. go as small as 12 in clear water, up to 6 in murky water. I simply would not go to a trout stream without some. prepare the materials and you can whip these out in well under a minute each.

I had some leech wrap when I lived up north. I always had a hell of a time getting those dam' things to stay still when I was wrapping them up in it. Didn't seem like it made them work any better, but I think they stayed warmer.

depending on the pattern, you might consider gluing some eyes on the fly just aft of the cone or bead. You could also paint eyes directly on the cone or bead.

I got mine free with the special offer from JStockard.

FAST! I ordered some materials online Sunday night, and had them in the mailbox today. They also appear to have charged what it actually cost to mail the stuff, not some over expensive made up shipping charge. Imagine that! JStockard has great service, something more and more difficult to find nowadays.

Dnthmn, I was just throwing it out there, I never said it was THE cause, just a story about it. 10ug/L of a LOT of things is a health risk, not just lead. Another thing to consider is the time it takes for a 20g sinker of lead (just as an example) to "dissolve" into 2 million L of water? It's not like lead dissolves in water like sugar. Lead-containing compounds in industrial waste are the things to be concerned about. I applaud anyone who makes the effort to go lead free when fishing. I do not think lead-free fly fishing is going to make a noticeable difference in environmental lead levels though, and I haven't seen any peer-reviewed research which has proven it will, on any large scale. There may be some out there, if anyone has some we'd like to see a link. If you're going to make the commitment to go lead free though, you better stop using anything with batteries, and get rid of any electronics equipment which has soldered components (meaning EVERYTHING)... like your computer. This is like any other so-called Environmental Issue... we can go back to living in the stone age and after a million years the earth will return to it's pristine state, maybe. Otherwise we can enjoy all of our modern conveniences like information technology, transportation, medicine, and clouser minnows, and deal with the byproducts. The seven or eight ounces of lead I've lost in 30 years of fly fishing hasn't made a difference.

lead IS toxic and at a certain threshold it can cause all kinds of nasty things to happen including miscopying of DNA during cell division. No question lead is bad for you. If taken at a dose of 230 grains at 800 feet per second, it's REAL bad for you. BUT there are many valid reasons our water pipes are not made of lead anymore, etc. One very convincing story about the ultimate fall of the roman empire is that they used to store and drink wine from lead vessels. LOTS of wine from lead jars and tanks. Eventually over many generations it caused a sort of widespread idiocy... There's no doubt lead is bad stuff, but the amount we use in fly fishing isn't going to harm the environment, or us as long as we don't eat it.

what's going to kill the bird first, a rusty hook stuck in it's gizzard, or a couple grams of lead? I agree that lead is toxic in many ways, but the amount used in fly fishing is so small as to be irrelevant to "The Environment."

I'm gonna say YOU NEED TO GET THE BONE OUT OF THE TAIL. It's not difficult,especially when it's still attached to the critter. But you're OK still. Work the skin back from the bone and muscle at the base of the tail, clamp a set of vise-grips on the bone/muscle. then use a couple of long bolts, nails, or pieces of dowel in your other hand, one on each side of the skin. Squeeze them down hard and pull back away from the vise-grips. The bone and muscle should zip right out. Now, the next thing is to carefully split the tail skin with a sharp knife. The tail is a tube-shaped piece of skin. Insert the knife EDGE-UP in the tail and carefully work it toward the tip, splitting the tail into a flat piece of skin. there is also handy tools called a tail stripper and a tail splitter that you can get from a trapping supply or taxidermy supply place. After that, you can salt or borax the skin side of the tail. This whole procedure will greatly reduce the chance of rot and hair loss. You can even go through a tanning process if you want, which makes the skin into leather. Tanning is not too much trouble, but it isn't worth it for one squirrel tail. You can probably get by trying to just dry out the tail with the bone and meat still in, but you run a good chance of rot, stink, and hair slippage, especially if you live where there is any humidity. Properly taking care of a tail is really fairly quick and easy, and you owe it to the critter and yourself to do it as best as you can. BTW it works for all kinds of animals, I have a bunch of coyote, fox, and deer tails I've done this way, and they're several years old but still in perfect shape. You'd also be amazed how much nicer the hair is if you wash the tail a couple of times in cold water and some cleaner such as Woolite. It's amazing how much dirt comes out of a wild animal tail! You can find much better directions and pictures of what I'm talking about on trapping and taxidermy websites. oh, one other thing, the fresher the animal, the easier it is to do... If you unzip the tail right after you kill it, the tail usually slides right off. Joel

unfortunately that's like asking if it's OK to use a knife as a screwdriver. You might be able to do it, but they are different tools for different jobs. Sewing thread is not fly tying thread because it's built differently, behaves differently, has different characteristics, and is intended to accomplish a different task. You could sew up a torn jacket with fly tying thread and get by. You could tie flies with sewing thread and overall just barely get by. Sort of like "all trout are fish, but not all fish are trout"--- All fly tying thread is thread, but not all thread is fly tying thread. This is one of those things where you'll be much more satisfied when you spend the buck-and-a-quarter for the real stuff than try to get by with sewing thread. As Day5 said, when it comes to tying flies, thread is cheap.

yeah, what bowfin said! Don't use it to floss your teeth, don't use it to suture a cut, don't stick it in your eye. Some places have "outlawed" lead sinkers, and lead shot for waterfowl hunting has been banned for many years. Lead comes from the earth, and it will all go back to the earth eventually. I think the lead used in flies has about as much impact on the environment as a fart in a hurricane. The artificial dyes, synthetic materials, and chemical coatings on steel hooks probably cause as much negative affect. There are lead substitutes available for lead wire and lead eyes

well, first you get a hook. Then you put some MAOL on it. :dunno: (I don't know what MAOL means. Google turned up something to do with the Algerian Army.)

:bugeyes: that thing's a trophy! I was under the impression bowfin have some nasty teeth, yagotcher finger in it's mouth. That's an excellent catch. The ones I've seen around here were not that big at all, but I'm sure there are some big ones.

since my original post, I haven't had the opportunity to try for them. the owners have been digging out and expanding the pond, so the water has turned the temperature and consistency of hot chocolate. I also find it strange how people arbitrarily hate one species of fish over another. Bowfin is another kill-on-sight species here. Along with gar, it's another one I've never caught.

thanks for the compliments on the fly! I caught a few smallmouths on it this summer in Pennsylvania. what I've been using is wool from J Stockard. It is NOT on the hide, it comes in sort of almost a giant chunk of yarn, without the twist. Separate out a chunk of the desired thickness, cut it off, and you're good to go. http://www.jsflyfishing.com/cgi-bin/item/N...ulpin-Wool.html one thing to remember- unlike deer hair, this stuff retains a lot of water. Makes it sink much better than deer hair, but sometimes feels like a sinker tied to your leader.

tying a clipped wool sculpin head is easy if you already are familiar with tying a deer hair head. You won't spin it as you might a deer hair bunch, you stack it. You don't dub it on your thread, you tie it in exactly as you would a bunch of deer hair. Hold it in place with your fingers, and make a couple loose wraps, then pull them tight. One bunch on the bottom, then one bunch on the top, then another bunch on the bottom, another on the top. Two bunches might be sufficient, or even one, depending on the size. Whip finish as normal, then use a needle or a comb to fluff up the wool, and trim to shape.

1. wooly worm. When you can tie those good, move to woolly bugger. When you can tie those good, start moving on. 2. Lots to choose from- pick one with lots of good photos, or just keep reading this site and looking at links. 3. Hand. 4. Peak. 5. Practice- work on a fly and intentionally pull hard enough to break the thread several times so you know how much tension you can apply. Make sure you're using good thread, like 3/0 monocord- you can go to smaller thread later when you get comfortable. 6. practice, read, and if you know someone who is a good tier, get them to help. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

You need to send some of your bass down my way! Bass (especially Largemouth) are notoriously moody around here. Sometimes anything will work, others nothing will. Most of the time it's somewhere inbetween, and I'd hardly call them easy to catch. I've fished in Michigan's UP before and the bass up there were ridiculously easy to catch. Not down home though. my experiences have taught me bass / panfish / sunfish, typical warmwater, southern gamefish, can be just uncooperative especially in still water. They don't need to continuously eat like fish in moving water. Quite often, expecially decent size LMB will eat a giant meal then not need to eat again for a long time. Other times they just go nuts over anything. I think weather has a lot to do with it, and when the water gets hot in summer they kind of just shut down.

I tied for 25 years on a "master" vise like this: about $30 from BP or Cabelas. It's not all frilly and full of bells and whistles, but it does the job well. I wouldn't spend $80 or more on a vice unless you know you will stick with the hobby. The only way to know is to tie for a while. I'd say if you are just starting out, get a vise similar to this, and use the extra $$ for tools and materials. In a year, you'll know whether you want to spend more money to upgrade or not.

all great info so far. You didn't really say whether you were after largemouths or smallmouths, but WB is great for either. I tend to dress my WBs fully, nothing sparse about them. For largemouths I've had good success with WBs as large as I can tie them, #2 4xl streamer hook. That's about as big as I can get using an extra large schlappen hackle and still get the full dressing I like. Sparse works for some people, but my opinion is that a more heavily dressed fly works better for BASS. Like Oatka said, use some outrageous colors too. I've had good luck with chartreuse and yellow, blue, red, orange, and purple. Time after time though I've had consistent success with a black and olive. It's a confidence fly for me. For smallmouths, usually #6 is a good starting point, go bigger if needed. Remember the fish have never read all the rule books that we have. Tie some unweighted, some with bead or cone heads, and some heavy with lead eyes or lots of lead wire.