buggybob

I'll bet that poor little rodent didn't want to be drug out of that hole in the first place !

Moscow Hide & Fur also has small bags of scraps a lot cheaper so you can experiment. Look in the miscellaneous category when you look at the fur listings. It's in the list on the top left hand side.

Clousers, chartreuse over white, olive over white, blue over white, white. I think you get the idea.

What you don't want to do is allow the tips of the hair to come in contact with the vessel you are dying in. Polar bear hair is very sensitive to heat and will curl. Choose a dye like Jacquards that will allow you to dye at lower temperatures.

I'm going in for fixing the hernia in about a month and a half. My tying room is up some pretty steep stairs. Anybody got an idea if that's going to be doable soon after the operation ? I wouldn't mind getting ahead on filling the boxes.

Jerry McBride of Spokane, Wash. developed the balanced bead fly you are talking about. He ties leeches, damsel fly nymphs and other flies in that fashion.

The wire size you use for nymphs should relate to the pattern you are tying. You don't want to use wire that would hide the body, but the other side of that is that you don't want the ribbing wire to dissapear in the body. Use what looks good on the fly. In general I would use x-small on 16 and under, small on 12 to 16, and brassie or medium on anything larger unless you want the ribbing to be extremely dominant and not worry about the color of the body showing through then bump up the diameter to large. Some things in fly tying don't have hard and fast rules.

What pattern are you tying ? Sometimes matching the color generally to the pattern coloration works, sometimes a constrast is good.

I've always used the tying thread, you can always switch to a finer thread to finish the fly. Usually the hair hump is gone long before the body comes apart.

Not a bull trout. I've caught a lot of them. Bull trout have no spots on the dorsal fin. I'd go for a very sad looking laker or splake.

The way to make sure that the colors don't leak into each other is to let them dry completely before adding the next color. In many cases that may take 24 hours.

If you want a stacker for small amounts of hair use a 22 cliber shell casing. I used to know a commercial tyer that had a set up of 5 dozen shells he would use as stackers when tying elk hair caddis.

Lamiglass and Fenwick both made rods in that color back in those days. Lamiglas looked more like a honey color and Fenwicks was more yellow.

The Daiichi 1180 is Daiichi's dry fly hook under size 16. The 1170 is the "standard" dry fly hook but only goes down to size 16. I use them for dries all the time.

Unfortunately the craze is still going strong in Europe, since it took a while for them to discover the "style". Chickens only grow so fast so it will be a long while until there is what was the normal supply for fly tiers.

Everything looks good except for the hook. A scud style hook is usually used.

If you can't find scissors with a fine enough tip use a file to take down the tips from the outside. You can get a needlepoint on the scissors.

You might also look into using a 1X or 2X longer hook. Since the bead takes up so much of the hook shank this gives you a bit more room to work with.

Fly Rite is a synthetic dubbing consisting of long strands and is a bit coarser than fine& dry. It may not blend well with natural fibers.

Peter Schwab thought it was a pretty good idea to tie steelhead flies with wire bodies too, except that he started tying them in the 1940's and 50's in California. Too bad the colored wires weren't around then.

Chase Creek - Start digging in the garage, miles of material waiting to be used. I don't want to scare you but my brother still has his 8-track recorder !

Got any old cassette tapes around ? It makes a great shellback for nymphs.

If you want to hinge it like Kelly Galloup, put the wire through the eye of your trailer hook after you have tied the materials to it. Then attach the wire to the lead hook and tie the front half of the fly.

He's a contract tier for Pacific Fly Group, they tie and sell them for him. He may still tie them himself sell them through other fly shops as well.

Dave used to sell them from his shop Classic and Custom Flies in New Hartford CT. and sold some through e-bay. I see that he is tying for a shop also called Classic and Custom Flies in Pleasant Valley CT. and has a slightly modified Dirt Diver being tied and sold by Pacific Fly Group.