Eaglerapids

Very nice Chefben, a great start. As you get to know your equipment it all falls into place and gets easier:-).

That is an awesome fly Jax, wow. BTW, a beautiful photo also.

That would be an awesome lens Jax. I shoot the Pentax K20D and I take my macro shots with the old Vivitar Series 1 105/2.5 macro and use extension tubes with it on the small stuff. The lens was made by Kiron for Vivitar and as I understand it Kiron was formed by a bunch of Nikon engineers who broke off to to start their own company. It's an all metal and glass old school lens, heavy and built like a tank and I love it. But then dedicated macro lenses are almost always the sharpest lens you can get, that's their function. My kid shoots Nikon and he has their 60mm macro and it's bleeding sharp. Congrats Chefben!

Good luck, I'm looking forward to seeing your pics:-).

Ok,now this would be a good way to get going. http://www.thelashop.com/16-photo-cube-studio-light-tent-box-5500k-bulbs-kit.html For $50 you'd be in the running and you would have backgrounds. This is kinda how I got started but I made the tent myself, it didn't look very nice but it worked and these lights would be better than halogen. Halogen lights are very bright but man they get hot. The advantage to this is with continuous lighting what you see is what you get, there can be a lot of fiddling with flashes but you have even more control. For instance, I can do more with my background because it is separated more from the main lights and I have more room for props. On the other hand it has taken me years to collect the gear I have. With the light tent you could be up and running in no time and gradually get the other stuff after you found out what works for you. There is a lot of other stuff we can talk about and we haven't even gotten to post processing, but this should get you going and if you have any other questions feel free to ask. Like flyfishing and tying it's pretty easy to get me talking about photography:-). You know, I'd say use what looks good to you for backgrounds, blue always seems to work as well as shades of gray. I like to find a color that works with the particular fly I'm photographing and I like to mix it up.I have had a hard time with orange, I have seen some photos where it worked but I have never gotten it to work for me, yet. Experimenting is fun and with digital it's easy to do and cheap. Don't be afraid to take a lot of shots!

Chefben, did you take the photos on your blog? If so you are doing pretty good, you just need to control the light a little better. I have never shot with the G7 but it should be easily up to the task. Especially shooting macro, you should always be on the tripod. On top of that I always shoot with the mirror locked up and on a 2 second delay and I fire the shutter with a remote. Camera shake of any kind is the biggest enemy. You need to decide what kind of lighting to use whether it be some sort of continuous lighting or flashes. I started out with halogen work lights but they were very hot and I gradually have transitioned to flashes. Basicly you want to get away from any direct light from the hotshoe of the camera. This is a very harsh light and leaves shadows on the background. Let me describe what I'm doing and then we can discuss alternatives. I have one flash camera left, another on camera right and another on the background. I also have a slave I can fire from above but usually I bounce the camera left flash from a reflector above the fly and use the sub flash. I have a piece of cardboard on either side of the fly just out of the frame to try to keep the flashes that light the fly from hitting the background and then light it with it's own flash. Two of the flashes are fired with cheap Cactus V2 radio triggers and the Metz 60 CT-4 (the camera left flash) is fired from the PC connector on the camera. Generally, all are fired manually and I dink around experimenting with their power output and distance from the subject to balance the light. This sounds kinda complicated and it does take a certain amount of equipment to do it this way but you don't have to start like this, I sure didn't......... to be continued...

Nice fly and great idea, I never thought to dub the tinsel, going to go try this.

Jax, hang in there, I hope everything works out for you. There is still plenty of time in this swap. I got my flies in the mail to you today Li'lDave, I'm curious to see how long they take to get there. The Post Office lady said 7 to 10 days.

Yes Li'lDave, I've tied 6 of each to send you. That postage isn't bad, I actually expected it would be a little more expensive. Famill00, as I understand it, there is no need to tie one of each for yourself and send them to the SM. It just adds to the postage. So if there are 7 tiers you send 6 of each, making a total of 12 flies........correct? Of course this doesn't mean that a guy shouldn't send a few extra to the SM for his work in organizing the swap in the first place.

Hellgramites have largely flown under my radar so I'll take up this challenge and tie Murray's Strymph for this swap if I may. I'm very curious to see what everybody else ties and I know of some bass ponds nearby to test them out on.

The Cockroaches are tied, just have to get a couple more coats on the heads, the toe tags and figure out a container to get these guys to Australia:-). I don't have a clue how much this postage will be.

I got the Bunny Leeches tied today. I have feathers I could use for the Cockroach but I want better so I ordered an American Rooster Cape which should be here tomorrow. I may have got one of the only ones in the States, I looked and called for 4 hours till I found one available in Michigan. There were dyed ones around but a natural grizzly was tough to locate. I'll give a shout out to Dereck, a great guy, http://www.leroyflytying.com/store/

My attempt at a Francis Fly.

It's fine with me!

Oh, sorry, I didn't reply before Li'lDave. I will tie the Leech with the dumbbell eyes. I have little experience fishing these flys which prompted my question. I wanted to be sure what was the best solution. Which brings up a question on the Cockroach. I can weight the body but I wonder if that would affect the balance or I could add eyes to it but would it still be a Cockroach?

Oh man, those are some nasty teeth! I wish I could hand deliver the flys to you, that looks like great fun. I don't think any of my flies has ever caught a fish in Australia so I'm hoping you can do it for me Li'lDave. Ahh, looking closer at the pic I see you're using dumbbell eyes so that may have answered my previous question, or are those bead chain eyes?

I hear you Forrest, where I live we call the flats a prairie:-). Li'lDave, are we sure we want the Bunny Leech tied with dumbbell eyes? I just tied a prototype and tested it in the sink and it plunges straight down. Tied on a 2/0 hook. With regular eyes it still sinks well but is more neutral. If I were fishing this in deep water like a lake the dumbbell eyes would be great but I'm not so sure about the flats.

Thank you Li'lDave. I'll tie the Cockroach Tarpon Fly and a Bunny Leech with dumbbell eyes for some weight (on the Bunny Leech).

Li'lDave, I'd love to get in on this if you will have me. I'm still deciding on what I'll tie if I can get in.

The Tungsten Beadhead Pheasant Tail is my alltime favorite. The Copper John is probably it's equal but I have fished the Pheasant Tail much more and have confidence in it and confidence is the name of the game when nymphing.

including the odd sizes. I never knew that, ty.

I can't find a 3xl straight shank hook in size 20 either but I agree with the others in going with a curved shank, the Tiemco 200R can be had in size 20. The idea of a 1xl or 2xl size 18 is good also to widen the gap which is always nice on these tiny flies. How about a Daiichi 1710 size 18? http://www.jsflyfishing.com/cgi-bin/item/HK-051710-0000/50500/Daiichi-1710-2X-Long-Nymph-Hook.html Wouldn't a 3xl size 20 shank be equal to a 2xl size 18 shank?

Nice work, I like that bug!

not for everything but it can help with the most ruley of dubbing materials. if you need a little wax to achieve your goal in dubbing neat, tight and tapered bodies then use it. wax is an option and not a forbidded tying aid and nobody should be telling you not to use it. as you get better at dubbing bodies you can always begin to eliminate the amount of wax until you a finally using no wax, if thats what you want to do. if you watch davie mcphails tying videos he is almost alway waxing his thread and always has a blob of wax attached to his hand. you can always rub your finger tips in the wax and dub that way and good all saliva works too. This is one of the best answers I've ever read concerning this question.

I have the Standard vice and after over 15 years of use this is the only problem I've ever encountered with it, a touch of lock-tite cured it easily.