salmobytes

....today's experiment. It should evolve a bit. Next few days. Duck flank wing. Zelon right hackle. I need to figure out how to spin that Zelon 360 degrees around instead of left and right, like a bow tie. The duck flank has a small clump of deer hair and fabric cement underneath the tie-down spot, which helps to keep the wing from standing up.

How do I find out more about your necks?

...one more, made this moring. #20 hook. Badger gurard hairs, olive-dyed duck flank, Senyo Laser Dub and grizzly hackle (if I had olive-dyed grizzly I would have used it)

Needle flies don't have to be dry flies. I like tying without a hook in the way.......at least until the last step

RE. shape Excellent question. You can heat a beading needle with cigarette lighter and bend it,. and tie on top of that. But then it becomes too hard to slide the fly body off the needle. I tie on a straight #10 beading needle, with the point of the needle flush with the base of the tails. Tie it. Slide it off the needle. Bend the body as needed. Set it aside to cure. Some fabric cements cure hard. Aleene's Flexible Stretchable says soft and gooey. But still holds. These are NOT stiff fly bodies. They do flex. But they also remember what ever shape they had when the glue first cures.

Here's an old one, from last season. Pale Morning Duns don't have brown legs so this one is a bit mongrel.

I need to make video. I'll get there. Most sewing needles are too fat. A #10 beading needle is good. Wet it with fabric cement. Tie on top of the wet needle, any way you want. I make the body with long fibers (Fibettes or Badger guard hairs or squirrel ail) ...with duck flank on top. Now add the Laser Dub wrap-around wing. But you can tie the body any way you wamt Slide it off. Mount it LOOSELY on a short shank hook. Wind parachute between body and shank. Don't whip finish. Use glue instead.

This gets trimmed up front and then mounted loosely on a short shank hook that has a hackle feather attached, but not yet wound. Then, after mounting LOOSELY, wind thread a dozen times between body and shank. Then wind the hackle, also between body and shank. Leave bobbin and hackle pliers hanging. Turn it on its side. Add a micro drop of glue at the fulcrum of the parachute. Trim off the hanging stuff. It's done. Floats like a mayfly. Stings like a hook? Finished fly photo in a day or two. .....mount a #10 beading needle in a vise horizontally. Wet the needle with fabric cement. Tie the above on the wet needle. Slide it off. Any fabric cement will do but Aleene's Flexible Stretchable is the best for fly tying. light olive-dyed duck flank feather body badger guard hairs tails Senyo Laser Dub wing

This is the best new internet fly ever For me anyway. Holy smokes. When I was a Paradise Valley Montana spring creek guide the sparkle dun made a lot of tips happen for me. However. When tying with coastal deer hair comparadun wings are tricky to make and there isn't any color flexibility. This fly opens the doors of perception, into a new frame of reference. Datus Proper used to tie a "Perfect Dun" that was a bit like this. Datus used one looooong front to back figure wrap underneath to splay a traditional hackle out sideways on bottom, a lot like this. But this technique I like better. Ding!

I didn't know that trick. Good stuff. You could also add a micro drop of fabric cement after shaping the fibers with the not needle--if there was any question about long-term durability. It may not be necessary, but a needle -tip stroke of Aleene's Flexible Stretchable fabric cement would absolutely make it permanent.

Here's a closeup of the bottom of a Right Hackle, manipulated with a photo editor to make the criss-cross long figure eight wrap stand out. That one loose wrap holds the hackle in place just long enough to apply some glue. Any glue will work. I've used them all. A Right Hackle can be soft stuff that goes on the bottom of a nymph. On dry flies I like Snow Shoe Rabbit, carpet scraps and Zelon. On the fly at the top of this thread one clump of duck flank forms both abdomen and wing. But wing can be a separate material.

On a #20 Kumota K2457

..........still working on a good name. Paragon? Paranormal? Feathertail? Duckbutt? Catskiller?

........tied on a #18 short shank hook

I'm on a keep it simple stupid roll

it is too light to cast with a spin rod

Skinny Minnies (generic fly rod wigglers) .... 2015 photo Diving bill snipped from a Costco orange juice bottle, roughed up with sand paper and CA glued to closed cell EVA foam. Adorned as you like it. Tungsten bead in front of a shelled hook, with snell going through a hole in the diving bill makes it wobble considerably. A hole low down on the bill makes it dive deeply and vibrate. A hole high up on the bill wobbles wider and slower but doesn't dive as aggressively. The weight of the bead effects action and dive.

Photo editing is easy. It only took me ten years to learn.

shooting in sun? I'm not sure who you are asking. If you shoot jpeg white balance and exposure are critical All that stuff is less important if you shoot in raw mode and then use image editing software to make the jpeg manually, instead of letting the camera do it robotically Lightroom and Photoshop are as good as it gets. But expensive. I use Darktable and Gimp Mostly Darktable Both are free

How are the Silvercreek/Loving Creek hatches holding up? It's been 15 years since I fished there. Back then the public meadows were crowded but the hatches were good. The fish were so spooky and well educated I had to fish hard for 3 or 4 fish. I did better swinging micro-streamers, even during the hatch. I've found that to be true at Harriman on the Henry's Fork too. I've been hearing depressing reports about the Henry's Fork. But I haven't been up there to see it for myself.

No no. I suspect Roundup and other pesticides. The mayfly decline on the Paradise Valley spring creeks has been going on for years. I went five or six years ago and found a meager hatch. In the 1990s the mayfly hatches were so thick you had to see it to believe it. Today I found no hatch at all. I didn't see a single mayfly. Not one! I was there at the right time too. There has been a major grasshopper event this year in Eastern Montana. They've been spraying like crazy East of Billings. Wildlife groups are all up in arms because they will be killing all insects there and not just grasshoppers, which kills the grasslands birds too. Are they spraying for grasshoppers in Western Montana too? I'm not sure. They have been spraying for weeds here for years. At DePuy spring creek I have watched a four wheel ATV with a big white plastic tank on back zooming around for hours at a time spraying for leafy spurge. They spray for thistles and broad leaf weeds in the hay fields. They spray for wild oats in the wheat fields. I'm not sure if they are using grasshopper pesticide this far West. But I did only see semi-microscopic hoppers. The big locust like hoppers that clack and fly used to be common this time of year. I didn't see a single one. The only hoppers i did see were all so small you could barely see them, like the following mayfly-sized micro hopper. This guy was less than 1/2" inch long. The Montana tail-water hatches (primarily the Big Horn and Missouri) are not what they used to be either, but they are holding up better than the valley spring creeks. The BWO hatches on the Missouri are still a fun time to fish, although nothing like they used to be.

Ouch. I went to O'Hairs Spring Creek today to photograph Pale Morning Duns. But. Ouch. There weren't any. The hatches on Montana's Paradise Valley Spring Creeks (O'Hair, DePuy and Nelson) have been declining for years. It appears they are now near extinct. I stopped in at a local fly shop. "They only hatch well on cooler days" they said. Back in the 1990s when I was a spring creek guide they hatched every day. On good days they were thick as hair on a dog's back. But even on the slow days there was still a hatching event, usually between 11am and 2pm. On cloudy days the PMD hatch would last even later into the afternoon. Now it's..............not even a thing. The guy at the fly shop said "You shoulda been here yesterday." ..............it was 10 degrees cooler yesterday. But still. This is not a good development. I have my hunches about why. But I won't say it now. Not without some evidence anyway.

Sony ar7iii body $2000 90mm macro lens $1100 macro extension tubes $129 macro ring light $169 ....it's worse than fishing tackle.

:=))