FrequentTyer

Thanks for the comments and suggestions guys. I really appreciate it. That is a nice and elegantly simple pattern Prosopium w. I love the look of the biot body. Will K, you are not alone. A lot of people assume the nymphs are black, and one of the most common flys used in a black pheasant tail. They work, but I'm hoping a closer match might provde an edge. So don't tell anyone :-) Mike.

I have been playing around with stone fly nymphs in an attempt to develop a pattern to match the little winter snow fly nymph seen here. I know a lot of guys use pheasant tails or soft hackles, but I wanted to try and do a more realistic match. It turns out these are small by stonefly standards (#16-18) and scaling down most stonefly patterns is an exercise in frustration (at least for me), and I wanted to stick to natural materials as much as possible. So I came up with the pattern (new to me) shown below (#16) and wanted to get your helpful opinion, and comments. As soon as work aligns with weather I will ask the fish for their opinon. Note, for this last picture I turned the fly upside down in the vice which led to the tail being splayed much more than it is on the fly off the vise. The odd angle of the hook is also exaggerating the length of the head. This is the same fly pictured in the first two above. Thanks, Mike.

That was full of good stuff, but all I could think was that Cooter must be an unusual looking dog.

I've been using these pliers from J Stockard for a couple of years and the work well: 4" Needle Nose Pliers

There is a company called Adventure Corporation that supposedly makes replacement parts for Thompson vises. I don't know if they make these jaws, but you could try and contact them. I recently added an old Thompson B to my collection, and I have always been impressed with the quality of the older Thompson draw collet jaws. The Thompson knockoffs that I have used have always been poor quality. I don't know the Cabela's vise you mentioned, but I would be wary. If I could make a vise that used the Thompson B jaws and had a simple rotary function for looking at the back of the fly, I would be happy.

I would be. Miller moths and carpet beetles can destroy a lot of material quickly. And once they infest one hide, they will move into other pelts or feathers. I don't know if tanned hides are less susceptible, but I wouldn't want to take the risk. Mike.

So your point is that either direction will be fine, which is exactly what I wrote above. Charlie was self taught and set up his vise the way that he thought it should be set up (which turned out to be backwards) and therefore wound up tying left handed. He talks about that and about the resulting thread twist difference in his book "Charlie Craven's Basic Fly Tying." The effect is real, and I'm not suggesting that anyone should change their dominate hand, but just be aware that the handedness and direction will make a difference that needs to be compensated for in the process. This is something I learnd from Charlie that made me a better tyer and I though it was worth passing along. It's all well and good to say that you should use whatever is most comfortable, and I completely agree with that. But I do think it is important to recognize that there are differences. The more you think about what you are doing and understand the way the materials behave the better you will be as a tyer. There is no right or wrong as long as your process gets you the desired results. Anybody want to discuss the direction of dubbing twist relative to the direction of thread wrapping Mike.

Just an FYI, the same would be true if you bought peacock eyes from a flyshop. The strung herl is never as good quality as you get off the eye, and I'm finding that I can tie some patterns with one or two herls from an eye that would take 4-6 from a pack of strung herl. So in the end I don't think the strung herl makes much sense anymore. Mike.

Bluegills are a guilty pleasure. I'm lucky to have great trout streams within an hour from where I live, but sometimes I just go to a local lake and have some fun.

That's the best 2 uses of cat I can imagine. But I'm not going to eat that white meat. I'm a card carrying cat hater. It is, in part, due to an extreme allergy that can flair up just from walking into a cat owners house. But mostly it is due to the fact that they are cats In their defense though, dogs can do some damage to the local wildlife. My late lab mix George was just unbelievably fast in his younger days and used to pick off rabbits in the back yard for an afternoon snack. He would eat the whole thing leaving just a pile of fur. He also manged to kill several birds and at least two possum, but for some reason didn't eat them. Sadly, his dream of getting a squirrel was not to be, and the local cats were smart enough to stay out of his yard.

Thanks for the replies all. I'll be cutting them up this weekend. And I should have thought of the sharpie on the back idea. Great advice! PGH, I wish I knew how to tan them. I think that is an excellent idea. But I don't need another hobby right now! And if my fur and feather collections grows much larger I'll have to rent storage space I don't like to use mothballs or crystals for long term storage because of the toxicity and smell. For almost 20 years now I have been treating the newly arrived stuff in a plastic bag with a couple of moth balls for a few weeks. I then move it to a bag with boric acid crystals. I have never had a problem (knock wood). I did receive some infested materials a long time ago and the boric acid was able to completely clear that up, so I am confident it is effective. I'm not really sure why I do the quarantine with moth balls, but if it aint broken... Thanks, Mike.

I recently acquired a nice beaver and grounhog pelt that were dried raw and a processed red fox pelt. With other critters like muskrat and squirrel I usually store the individual pelts in large ziplock bags with some boric acid and that has worked fine for years. These are much bigger and too stiff to easily fold, so that is not an option. I'm wondering what you guys might do in terms of parting up the pelts for storage. I can cut the tail and mask off but I'm not sure if I should just cut the body into pieces and if there is any need to pay attention to back vs side/belly hair etc. Any advice or experiences would be appreciated. Thanks, Mike.

I saw a couple of these vises at the Somerset show last weekend and got to play around a bit. It is a very nice quality vise and I can fully understand why J Vise owners love them. The off balance issue I was worried about on rotation is real. As mentioned, it is not really the best vise for fast spinning (i.e. Nor Vise style), but I don't do that much. What I do use the rotary function for is winding materials like biots or quills, and the bump that occurs with every revolution would drive me nuts. I also noticed the knurled nut that Flytier mentioned, and it was a sticking point for me. My plan was to confirm my original observations of the vise from a few years ago and buy one, but in the end I decided to pass and take it of the list. I'm not writing this as a criticisim of the vise, which was a top notch piece of enginering. Rather I want to reinforce the point that you really have to get your hands on a vise before you know if it is the right one for you. Mike.

Thread will twist with each wrap and will either flatten or tighten depending on the direction you wrap and the hand you wrap with. It may be different for different thread manufacturers, but for the most part CW RH winding will tighten the thread. You constantly need to counteract this effect as you tie, so either direction will be fine, However there is a subtle difference that may make one direction better or worse for you.

When you move from roadkill to eyeing still animate objects as a source of dubbing. Yesterday I caught myself eyeing the fur trim on a woman's coat. I was at the FlyFishing show surrounded by vendors selling dubbing. But she had just the perfect shade of pale cream fur :-)

I've been thinking about buying one as a new travel vise but want to tie on it again before I do so. I really like it when I tried a few years ago, but I didn't use the rotary feature enough. I'm concerned that the center of mass is unbalanced with the gooseneck and vise jaws lying fully below the axis of rotation. I could be wrong about this, but i want to make sure. If Wasatch shows up at the show in Somerset next week I just might pull the trigger. I'm not sold on the base either. It is pretty expensive for a block of drilled wood. I'm sure it is functional, but I like to lay things out the way I want, and I'm not sure I would use or like the features of the standard base they sell. Mike.

Nicely done for a beginner, you are off to a great start. Are those hooks 37160s? I love the lifelike sweep they have. You are lucky to have found a good mentor. Utyer's post are always worth reading so I'm sure you will learn a great deal from him, and it is great to know that guys like him are willing to help. Focus on the fundamental techniques. If you master a difficult technique, it becomes easy. If you try workarounds and shortcuts, the technique will master you. Mike.

Beautiful trees! You are make me feel a bit lazy though :-) Bonsai are intriguing, but if I pick up one more hobby I'll have to either stop sleeping or quit my day job. I don't know how you do it Steve, but it is a pleasure to see it well done. Mike.

Your not going to like this, but I think you are right. The fish see the post. Wings on dryflys or naturals, and therefore posts on parachutes are the first thing that they see as the fly floats into their window (See Vince Marinaro's "In the Ring of the Rise" for some great photos). As far as not worrying about it, just don't. The popularity of the hi vis posts tells you that it makes little or no difference in the end. I think one of the hardest things about flytying is that we develop theories that really seem to be correct but lead to prejudice that in the end limits us. I'm more guilty than most since I avoid synthetics like the plague and wont use a bead on a trout fly anymore. But I know that this is just a choice of style that leads me to tie flys I like to fish. If you like being able to see that big pink circle and you are confident enough in the pattern to catch fish, then why worry? It is supposed to be fun!

Joseph Kissane had some interesting things to say about fluorocarbon in is book "Drag-Free Drift." The fact that it is less likely to pick up dirt (aka camoflauge), and that the refractive index close to water leads to some odd lensing effects actually can make it much more visible from a fish perpective. I highley recomend his book which includes a great picture of the two materials side-by side in water and photographed from below. We should all use what we like and what gives us confidence. For me, fluoro means stiffer material, more difficult to knot, more likely to pull my fly under or create micro drag by sinking a portion of the tippet, environmentally unfriendly, possibly more or less visible, and more expensive. I use nylon or copolymer mono.

Turkey flats. I think they post easier than synthetics. If you prep then right, they make a really nice post.

I'd say that is a fair statement. If you make sure you finish the hackle wrap along side the hook eye, there will be no noticeable buildup. Getting a good thin stemmed hackle also helps, which brings up another point that hasn't been mentioned. While Whiting saddle hackles are incredible dry fly hackles, the thicker stiffer fibers do make them harder to tie off neatly. With a few exceptions, I use cape feathers for my dry flies. I'm a bit confused by your reply because earlier in the thread I though to indicated that you tie off the same way I do, without bending back and wrappig over. If you are bending back and wrapping over then I don't think tying to the side of the hook makes much of a difference. You still will be increasing the head by at least the diameter of the stem. You may notice it less because you are looking at the fly from the side, but it is still there. I doubt it matters much, but I just don't like it. On technique, I'm trying to figure out how you guys that wrap back over the stem manage to do it without trapping fibers from the stem. On smaller flys this always gets me. The fibers slant back into the hackle collar and it can really make a mess out of an otherwise nice looking dryfly. That is the main reason I tie off without wrapping back over the stem. With a good whip finish and varnish I doubt it makes that much difference in the end. You make a good point on capes vs saddles, I also use capes most of the time. Of course a good cape will have stiff barbuels too which is exactly what you want for a dryfly. Ignoring size selection and length of feather, the real difference in usuing capes and saddles in my opinion is that the stem on cape feathers is always thicker than the stem on a saddle feather. So bending back and tying over a saddle stem might be a very different beast than bending back and tying over a cape stem.

HI Yuba, I really feel for you. We lost our 15 year old Lab mix George the day before Thanksgiving, so I know what you are going through. I would offer to help, but based on the style of flys I tie I don't think I could do him justice. I saved some of George's hair to do exactly what your thinking, but decided that the best thing to do would be to incorporate a few strands into the signature design on the next fly rod I build for myself. That way I will rember him when I'm on the stream. I'm sure you will get a lot of offers of help, but feel free to send me a PM if you need anything. Mike.

I try to keep the tools on the bench to a minimum or I loose track of them. 1) Sixth finger scissors 2) smooth jaw barb pliers 3) no-name hackle pliers 4) bull dog artery clamp (best hackle pliers/third hand I've found) 5) homemade bamboo bodkin 6) Nor-Vise auto bobbin 7) home made bobbin threader (brass post from a kit threader and maxima mono) 8) piece of bamboo skewer with velcro on the tip (dubbing picker/eye clearer/varnish remover) 9) serrated tip tweezers 10) Ott light (probably the best tool I own) Everything else like dubbing spinner, hair stackers, hackle gauge, extra bobbins, etc stay in drawers unless I need them for the pattern I am tying

Well, this may seem like a small point but: When you take 2 turns of thread over the feather you force the tip to slant forward, away from the collar. If you then begin your whip finish immediately in front and whip REARWARD 2 or 3 turns you force the feather tip back AND wrap over the stem. Thats why I said you could wrap the collar right up to the eye and still have room for a small head. Ahhh, I see now. Thanks for the explanation. For me at least I find that if I am too close to the eye that method traps fibers off the stem and makes the head bigger (by at least the thickness of the stem). It might not seem like much, but on an 18 or 20 it looks bad to my eye. I do it on big flys, but not on the little guys. I probably just need to work on the technique.