tferg

If they don't hit standard trout dry flies, always give a black color a try. Simple Black Gnats have caught a lot of grayling for me. On lakes with grayling, even more so.

I hope all goes well with your eye Norm. Always look forward to and really enjoy your stuff.

Love the Hares Ear Hedgehog. The grouse in front really caps it. Thanks

I fished with a friend who used a fly just like the Teacher years ago. He called it an Uncle Ed as his uncle tied it and it was the only fly Ed used. I was using a humpy same size and he out fished me two to one. Simple effective pattern. Flytire, thanks for giving my old brain a jump start to take me back to a fond old memory.

That's a beauty

Thanks- Used it today to cut a ton of foam body's for Chubbies and Hippy Stompers using your sites gape widths and transfering to the cutter. Saved me time and allowed me to use precise measurements.

Journey through the past - I think this was an awesome "project" and it sounded like a blast.

Perfect. I just ran out of reading material. Thanks

Great to see the Potts flies utyer. My father and I used the Sandy Mite and the Lady Mite pretty much exclusively on the Big Hole River and Rock Creek back in the sixties. Very popular fly here in Montana. We swung them and sometimes added lead if we had to. They came from a time when durability was premium. Delicate flies didn't cut it with my dad. As I recall, Potts used chinese boar hair - not elk - and they would really last. I tied some years ago, but they take a lot of time to do them the way Potts did them. I can't tell you how many fish they accounted for. A friend of mine bought all of the chinese boar hair from a Butte Montana shop some years ago as it became impossible to get the right stuff. When we didn't have enough money to buy them ( I think they were 45 cents), we would buy a knock off fly called the Black Bear Brown and the Brown Bear Black. These woven flies worked too, but I never fished them as confidently. They were 10 to 25 cents. Sometimes I could dig a dime out of the couch. I still have a couple that I tied, but I won't fish them.

Rapunzel the rooster.

That fly looks great Gene.

Excellent tip. Thanks.

Keep us updated on how these flies perform - I'm liking them.

Thanks for the awesome story as well as the steps to tying. Really enjoyed that.

Bimini15- I've found that stretching closed cell foam really kills it's floatation properties. I stretch as little as possible.