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neoFLYte

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Posts posted by neoFLYte

  1. Posted · Report reply

    If you have saved enough space for the head after tying on your wings, hackle, cheeks, whatever... you shouldn't have too steep a "cone" of thread. If you are crowding the eye, you may find yourself in the situation where your final thread wraps are unstable and want to slide forward. You don't want your whip finishes over bare hook. But that would be preferable to trying to make a head over the abrupt ends of feather butts and other materials.

     

    Although a small, neat head is nice (and is not difficult to create consistently once you have learned the knack of handling your material) it is far more important that your fly doesn't fall apart before it hits the water. Don't hesitate to even out bumpy areas with a few extra thread wraps.

     

    My flies only fall apart after having been in use for maybe 20-30 minutes and in most cases having caught 2 or 3 fish or at least having had several strikes. The flies I use are mostly Wooly Bugger or Clouser Minnow variants, usually on a 10 or 12 hook. The wrapped and hackled "Wooly Buggers" are the ones that come apart.

     

    All of my fly-fishing to date has been limited to Central Texas. Since I don't have a boat (yet), that means stillwater stock ponds, creeks, and rivers. The only two kinds of fish I have caught so far are (small) largemouth bass and mostly respectable bluegills. My strike/catch rate with my fly rig is *much* better than I ever had with mainstream "bass" equipment, so even with flies that maybe don't last as long as I'd like, I am one happy camper. And maybe what I am seeing is just part of the game. If so, it is nothing that will keep me from enjoying something I wish I had thought to try many years ago.

     

    Thanks for all of the advice!

    NeoFLYte

    Austin, TX

     

  2. Posted · Report reply

    Hi Neoflyte, all good advice so far, What brand and size thread do you use? Thread tension may be part of the problem too. Halcyons advice on a proper whip finish is very important and one of the most common mistakes I see with learning tiers. Try this, whip finish a bare hook, do not cut the tag end thread of your tie in and see if by pulling on it you can make your whip finish knot fail, If you can keep practicing with more tension and an even 5 wrap side by side whip finish.

     

    Let us know, Cheers, Futzer.

     

    I think there is a good possibility that I'm crowding the eye with many of my finishes. I *know* that I have a tendency to make a thread "cone" on a lot of the heads. Those two things are probably the biggest errors I make, judging from all of your comments. So you are saying that the final whip finishes need to go down on bare or nearly bare wire, and NOT over a chunk of head thread? Guess I need to either get a good fly-tying book that explains basics in details or take some lessons. That's cool, though. What I like about the whole deal - fishing and tying - is that it takes a little learnin' to get good at it. :-)

     

    As I was stocking up on supplies, the first thread I got was Danville "210 Denier Flat Waxed Nylon". That thread kinda bugs me because it is so prone to separating into individual strands. I'm sure there is a good use for thread like that, but I don't like having to spin it back in to thread all of the time. I have since been using mostly UNI-Thread W (for waxed, I suppose) 6/0. I haven't been keeping track of whether my Danville flies fall apart more than my UNI flies. I suspect that this is more of a finishing flaw than a thread flaw. I'm pretty sure my thread tension is OK. I wouldn't say I pull everything to near the breaking point, but I have broken the thread more than once because of pulling too hard. My wraps are what I'd call pretty dang snug.

     

    Thanks for the comments!

    neoFLYte

    Austin TX

     

     

  3. Posted · Report reply

    First, I have been fly-fishing and tying for nearly a year now. I have a problem with my self-tied flies lacking durability. I haven't fished with "bought" flies, so I don't have experience for comparison. It seems like a fair number of my flies come apart at the head end after several uses. I am not bullwhipping the flies at the backcast/forward cast transition. I use a Matarelli-style whip finisher and usually tie 3 whip-finish knots. Most of the time I use Griff's "Thin" cement and apply 3 coats over the head threads. I have also been using Griff's Thick and Rumpf lately, but I'm nor sure that there has been much of a difference. So... either it's "normal" for flies to eventually come apart, or I'm not using enough, or the right kind of head cement, or... what?

     

    Any suggestions/comments welcome!

     

    Thanks,

    NeoFLYte

    Austin TX

  4. Posted · Report reply

    The best way to get the stuff you want is to go to a place that actually sells fly-tying supplies. You can see what you're getting, especially when it comes to fur and feathers. I prefer smaller shops to the chain stores. Most of the time, the folks in the smaller shops are very helpful. As far as online goes, I usually go first to J.Stockard (http://www.jsflyfishing.com/). I've ordered a bunch of stuff from them and have always been satisfied by their products and service.

     

    Good luck with your new addiction!

    neoFLYte

    Austin TX

  5. Posted · Report reply

    Overall I think the Peak is a good vice.

     

    I think if you're looking for "bang for the buck", I think the Peak is as good as anything out there. The Peak is the second vise I've bought. The first was a Griffin Montana that I still use (and prefer) for simple flies. I completely agree with JSzymczyk about the Peak vise and the jaw adjustment threads/collar. My flies are pretty much limited to Size 16 through Size 6 hooks, with most of them being on the smaller end of the spectrum. My personal preference is for "pointier" jaws such as Peak's "midge" jaws. Changing jaws is a minor pain, but I don't have jaw-changing experience with another vise to compare it to. It's not something I'd care to do more than maybe once a week. Peak recommends their midge jaws for Size 16 hooks and smaller. The rotary aspect is nice, and it looks pretty nice on the Peak pedestal with all of the brass options. Another good thing is that the Griffin vise fits in the Peak pedestal - both have a 3/8" stem.

     

    neoFLYte

    Austin TX

  6. Posted · Report reply

    Personally, I don't quite buy this "barbed" theory. I'll have to stay with barbless hooks. Disclaimer: I am in Texas. My fishing experience, with some deep-sea and trout stream exceptions, my catched have included bluegills, bass, catfish and some other warm-water species. In my younger days, I never considered using (or had even heard of) a barbless hook. For keepers, I never worried about hook injury. I always hated when I had problems getting the hook out of a juvenile fish. I don't know about everyone else, but my ratio of keepers to throwbacks is fairly low - maybe one keeper per 20 catches. I've had a ton more problems removing barbed hooks. Now, all of my hooks are either de-barbed or manufactured that way. If I lose a fish because of a barbless hook, so be it. For me, fishing is as much about making that perfect cast and relaxation as it is chalking up another catch.

  10. Posted · Report reply

    The first fly I tied with the intent to take it to the water was a wooly bugger. Before that, I fooled around with some simple flies that weren't much more complicated than tying on a small tail of some sort and wrapping a bunch of thread on the hook. Someone earlier here said they'd heard if you can tie a wooly bugger, you can tie anything. I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, but wooly buggers do give you a good introduction to "planning" your fly if you get interested in tying variations or coming up with the next famous fly pattern.

     

    neoFLYte

    Austin TX

  11. Posted · Report reply

    Quite a gizmo. I'm not sure that a "dubbing brush" is the proper term for this machine. I'd think you'd need the kind of brushes you see in automatic car washes to use as actual dubbing brushes for the products of that monster. For me, the "old fashioned" dubbing techniques work just fine.

     

    neoFLYte

    Austin TX

  17. Posted · Report reply

    Both the hmh ad the peak are great vises. The peak is a true rotary the hmh is just a rotary. I production tie on my hmh I love it. I plan to get a peak just to play with some day. But I will tie on my hmh forever.

     

    I don't have a Mongoose, but I have a Montana Pro. I also have a Peak Rotary. In my opinion, my Griffin vise is WAY better as a pure vise. If I could put the Griffin jaw mechanism on the Peak rotary mechanism, I'd have what I would consider to be a very good vise.

     

  21. Posted · Report reply

    You did better than I, number-wise. I only got 2 bluegills on my first outing this season. In fact, it was my first fly outing ever! The first was about 3" long. The second was a fat, hand-sized keeper. I bought a fly rig in December and have been practicing casting and tying flies since. I LOVE this stuff! Wish I'd gotten into it many years ago!

  23. Posted · Report reply

    I'd also like a recommendation for a good beginner fly line. For the time being, my quarry is stillwater panfish. Mainly bluegills and the occasional bass. Despite the apparent popularity of panfish popper flies, I have much better luck with weighted wooly buggers and such.

     

    I already have Cortland 444 WF5F "Rocket Taper" line on a 5wt rod. Does anyone have any experience with this line and how it compares to other line? It seems hard to properly cast with it. I know... I'm a beginner and the best thing is practice and all of that. But a friend has a 7wt setup (he doesn't remember what kind of line is on it) and despite the fact that his rod is an old fiberglass model that weighs a ton, I can cast reasonably consistently with his setup. I'd hate to have to sling that thing all day, though!

     

    Thanks!

  25. Posted · Report reply

    Most of the time I use a Peak Rotary Vise. As I'm writing this, I'm actually wondering why I use the thing. The only thing I like about the vise is the rotary aspect because I can rotate the fly to check for "balance" as I'm tying. I don't like the fatness or the finish of the standard jaws. If you let your thread flatten, the surface of the jaws can actually catch the fibers and cause problems.

     

    The Peak midge jaws are finer but, as indicated by their "midge" designation, you'd better want to tie true midges if you use these jaws.

     

    Overall, the Peak vise takes a lot of patience to work around its quirks.

     

    I also have a Griffin Montana vise that I like fairly well. It's a no-brainer vise for when I'm tying "easy" flies. The jaws are nice and pointed and they don't snag flattened thread fibers.

     

    I am on the verge of buying an HMH Spartan vise.

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