Bryon Anderson

I bought my peak last October and I have been very pleased with it. I like the pedestal base with the cutouts (or whatever they're called) to hold hooks, beads, etc. I do wish the base was a little heavier, but I've yet to use a pedestal base on any vise that I didn't wish was a little heavier. It will move a little bit if I'm really cranking on the thread when tying bass bugs or big streamers. The jaws hold great and are easy to adjust. It holds the range of hook sizes I tie on (2-20) rock solid. Haven't bought any of the add-ons yet, but probably will get the accessory shaft, material clips and the Peak LED tying lamp at some point. I thought for sure I'd want the D-arm for the rotary since my last vise was a Danvise which has that type of rotary handle, but I find that I don't miss it at all since I don't really use the rotary function to wrap materials or hackle that much. With the Peak plus my Regal and the Danvise, I ought to be set for life.

Your bugs look good -- maybe not just like the pictures but certainly good enough to hook some fish. I've been trying to perfect spinning hair for quite a few years, and I've got a few to go before I'm "there", but I've stumbled upon some helpful tidbits along the way, one of which I'm happy to share now: The best advice anyone could give or take when it comes to spinning Deer Hair is to familiarize yourself with the works of Mr. Chris Helm. He is the Yoda of spinning hair bugs, the acknowledged master, or certainly one of them. He has written several books and done a series of DVDs on the subject; the DVDs are part of a larger series called "Hooked on Fly Tying" -- if you Google "Chris Helm Spinning Deer Hair" all of the ones he's done should pop up, as well as many, many articles by or about him. Here's a particularly helpful one for those just starting out: http://archives.flyfisherman.com/content/how-tie-better-deerhair-flies. Chris is not only The Man when it comes to techniques, but he really has the tools and, most importantly, the materials down to a science. All deer hair, as you probably know, is not alike--it varies greatly depending on the type of deer (or elk or caribou or whatever), where on its body the hair comes from, what time of year the hair was harvested from the animal, etc. Chris knows this stuff forward and backward. As an added bonus, he's a super, super nice guy -- I know at one time you could call him up at home and he'd answer questions and walk you through tying problems (he used to run a tying materials/tools business out of his home). I don't know if he still does that anymore, but regardless, availing yourself of his wealth of knowledge will carry you a long way toward learning to spin hair the way you want to. Chris's website is www.whitetailflytieing.com Hope this helps. Keep spinning.

I would second the suggestion of John Voelker's (aka Robert Traver) books Trout Madness and Trout Magic, and I would add to that list his small collection of photos and essays called Anatomy of a Fisherman. This last is out of print and is a really sweet little book, so if you lay hands on a copy, either hold on to it or sell it to me. No one yet has suggested Thomas McGuane, so I will recommend his The Longest Silence -- he's a bit more crafty with the language than Gierach, but the humor and humility are still there, as is the essay format. Jim Harrison doesn't write "fishing books" per se, but he's a Yooper (from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) who grew up fishing for native brookies, and I don't think he's written a novel yet that didn't have some fly fishing in it, and you'll look long and hard to find better writing (poetry or prose), in my opinion. I would also second the suggestion of any of Jerry Dennis's collections of essays--The River Home is almost exclusively about fly fishing, but, like Harrison, almost everything he's written, if it isn't actually about fishing, is about wild places and other things that fly fishermen usually find rewarding to read and think about. He's a Michigan guy, too, and the only famous author I've ever had the pleasure of meeting and fishing with--he took a buddy and I fishing for carp on Grand Traverse Bay a few years ago, and it was one of the best days on the water I've ever had. Just a terrific guy. I've also enjoyed collections of essays by James Babb, William Tapply and Jim Enger, although I can't remember their titles at the moment. All very reminiscent of Gierach. Hope this helps.

I tie them in fuzzy for the segmented look. I was thrilled when turkey biots appeared on the market a few years back and I could start using biot bodies on larger dry flies. I also use them on a lot of wets and soft-hackles, since mayfly and caddis fly larvae and pupae are segmented, too. I've had the biot-bodied fly draw a strike when I couldn't get one on a dubbed-body during the Hendrickson hatch on the Au Sable here in Michigan. I tie an unnamed pattern with brown hackle fiber tails, reddish brown turkey biot body, thorax of darker brown dubbing and a medium-to-dark dun parachute hackle, and I use this whenever the "correct" fly or an Adams isn't working. I tie almost exclusively parachute dry flies, so I've never used biots on a comparadun (don't tie them at all) or a standard collar-hackle dry. I like other substitutes for dubbing, as well--hackle quills, turkey- and pheasant-tail fibers, and ribbed floss or thread. I once heard a well-known tier by the name of Dennis Potter say that no dry fly smaller than a #14 should have a dubbed body because even the smallest pinch of dubbing makes the body bulkier than the naturals. Food for thought.

I've found that light tan streamers outfish white ones in stained water. The tan bugger -- especially if you tie it with reddish-brown hackle--makes a very passable crayfish imitation, according to the smallmouth bass around here.

For the record, there are trout streams and lakes in Indiana: http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/files/fw-2012_Trout_Locations.pdf As for the other fish that swim in Indiana, I would agree with the suggestions made so far, but I would also add a simple "bunny streamer" -- regular rabbit strip tail the about the length of the hook shank, body of palmered cross-cut rabbit strip, and conehead/bead/eyes of your choice to get it to the desired depth and give it the all-important "jigging" action. This is always my first choice subsurface fly (even before the hallowed Woolly Bugger). It will mimic every freshwater baitfish and crustacean in the correct colors, and it has a far more fish-attracting action underwater than a Bugger or (especially) a Clouser Minnow, in my opinion. My go-to topwater fly is a simple deer-hair popper or slider in sizes 2-6. Configuration and colors are your choice: If it makes noise and has some feathers and/or rubber legs that wiggle, the bass and panfish will eat it, bless them.

I agree with Grey Brook about the Double Bunny being a juicier-looking offering than the venerable Zonker, and also about them being much easier to tie. If you decide to try a Double Bunny, I would offer you my alternate method for tying them, explained here: http://truenorthtrout.com/2009/07/the-improved-double-bunny/ In answer to your question, I believe the Zonker was originally tied so that the hook would ride point-down, which is why you don't see the rabbit strip being pierced in instructional videos. However, the Zonker can be tied "inverted", in which case, yes, you will have to pierce the rabbit strip with the hook. My Improved Double Bunny uses that method also. Also, seconding what Grey Brook said, if you want your Zonkers to ride hook point up, you will have to attach enough weight to what is normally the top side of the hook shank (i.e., the side of the shank opposite the point) that it will "flip" the hook underwater. You can do this by attaching weighted eyes just behind the hook eye, or by weighting the front half of the hook shank with lead or lead-subsitute wire. The lead tape that is used by some to weight Zonkers isn't heavy enough to do it, in my experience. You're definitely on the right track tying streamers with rabbit strips -- you can't beat them for action and profile in the water. I tie very few streamers that don't incorporate them. You can make a fly that will catch any fish that eats other fish with nothing but a rabbit strip and a hook and thread--use a cross-cut strip, leave a hook-shank length tail, and palmer the body with the remainder of the strip. Weight as needed/desired. Takes a couple minutes to tie, catches the bejeezus out of fish, and is nearly indestructible.

If you're tying traditional, "Catskill sytle" dry flies where the hackle is wound around the hook shank, with the fly then balancing on the tips of the hackle fibers and the tips of the tail material, you're going to find that getting them to land upright is just not going to happen every time. Unless the hackle is very evenly applied and the fibers of perfectly uniform length, the odds of the fly tipping over on its side are better than even. (This is why these types of dry flies are best tied with very high quality, very expensive genetic neck or saddle hackle.) Other factors that can contribute to this are the wings being too long, making the fly "top-heavy", one wing being longer than the other, the wings not being perfectly centered over the hook shank, too much bulky material concentrated near the head of the fly...a lot of things. I eventually got so frustrated that, pretty early on in my fly tying career, I abandoned the Catskill-style collar hackled dry fly all together in favor of the parachute style dry fly. Parachutes are tied with the hackle wound around a single upright wing (sometimes called a "wing post") instead of around the hook shank. Seen from below, the hackle fibers radiate out from the wing post in a circle, like the spokes of a wheel, or like a parachute, hence the name. The wing post is usually made of calf tail, calf body hair or some synthetic material like poly yarn. Some people will tell you that parachutes are harder to tie, but I don't hold with that. Whereas Catskill-style dries have to be perfectly proportioned to consistently work correctly (i.e. land upright), parachutes will land upright 99% of the time, even if you're off just a bit on the placement of the wing and hackle. Additionally, they offer the advantage of a much more realistic silhouette from the fish's point of view, as the thorax and abdomen lie flush in the surface film, just as do the analagous parts of a real mayfly. When was the last time you saw a natural mayfly riding with its entire body out of the water and balancing on its tippytoes and its tail? The only time I use a collar-hackled dry instead of a parachute is if I'm fishing very rough, choppy water--in those conditions, the collar-hackle and the body being up away from the water can aid in floatation. However, if you fish Michigan, you know that, outside of a few streams in the U.P., rough water is not an issue here. Most of our gentle gliding spring creeks are custom made for the parachute dry fly. Which brings me to my second point... Where are you located in Michigan? I live in Holland and fish quite constantly through the spring and summer and a fair bit in the fall and winter as well. I'm actually on the lookout for new fishing buddies as all my old ones have up and moved away. I fish mostly the West side -- the White, the Pere Marquette, the Manistee, the Litte Manistee, the Muskegon, and the Jordan are my mainstays, but I can pretty easily be enticed into fishing anywhere in the state. Email me off-list ([email protected]) if you want to talk more about fishing sometime. Welcome to this wonderful art/sport...you have chosen wisely.

I'm going to put in my vote for Skip Morris' Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple. The title says it all, and it doesn't lie. I learned to tie from it and I have used it successfully in tying classes many times. What I like best about it is the section that accompanies all the trickier (for beginners) tying steps called "Problems, Solutions and Suggestions", which tell you what's likely to go wrong during that step and how to deal with it. I found that invaluable as a beginner, when Murphy's Law was all over me like a bad odor from the moment I sat down behind the vise. I also learned to build rods from Morris' book The Custom Graphite Fly Rod; at this point, it kind of feels like the guy is my uncle or something. I would also agree with those who said that The Fly Tier's Benchside Reference is too dense for beginners. The stuff that a beginner needs to focus on takes up just a few pages of that mighty tome; the rest is for after one has a handle on the basic techniques. I have not yet read the Kaufmann books, but based on the recommendations here I'm going to check them out

When I did classes at my local nature center (this was several years ago), I just used the same camcorder that I used to shoot my kids soccer games, etc. -- put it on a tripod, zoomed in on the vise, ran the camera straight to the tv mounted on the wall behind me and above my head level, and it worked beautifully--just as you said, the students could see every thread wrap. As a bonus, I could throw a tape (remember tapes?) in the camera and record my classes for future use, too. The camera at the link you posted looks like it would work very well, too, and would surely be less bulky.

Hello Everyone - I'm fairly new to this forum, and very glad to be here. There's certainly a wealth of knowledge being shared here. I've been tying for almost 15 years, and I'll certainly contribute what I can, although I suspect I'll end up asking more questions than I answer. My question today is about about a classic Michigan fly pattern originated by Earl Madsen. Madsen created several patterns that are still popular on Michigan streams today for their beauty and effectiveness. The particular pattern I'm interested in is the Buzzsaw (or Buzz Saw; not sure how he wrote it). It is a streamer-type pattern featuring a tandem-hook configuration, a body of (I think) red yarn and silver tinsel, and a black skunk hair wing. I've been all over the internet looking for this pattern, but it seems like every page or forum that mentions Madsen focuses on his more well-known patterns like the Barber Pole and the Au Sable Skunk. Not one mention or photo of a Buzzsaw that I could find. If anyone on here has the original pattern recipe and/or a good clear photo of one, I'd love to see it, especially the recipe. The only picture of one I've ever seen is in Bob Linsenman's River Guide: Au Sable River , but it's not a close-up view. I could probably piece a facsimile together from that photo, but I'm working on an art piece for my tying room that is to feature mounted original Michigan flies, and I want to tie them all using as close to the "original recipe" as I can get. Thanks to anyone who can point me in the right direction! Bryon

I started with a very inexpensive vise that my wife bought me from Hook & Hackle Co., I think they called it the "AA" vise at the time - came with two sets of jaws, adjustable head angle, and a rotary function, though it was not a "true" rotary. It was a good vise to learn to tie on - versatile, sturdy and user-friendly. After 3 or 4 years it was getting hard to adjust the tension on the jaws - the mechanism for this on the vise was not so well-made - and eventually it just couldn't be made to hold a hook so that it wouldn't slip. Upgraded (significantly!) to a Regal and that took care of any and all hook-holding problems and no mistake. Got the c-clamp but eventually bought the shorter stem so it could be converted to a pedestal vise and liked it better this way. It's a beauty, still sitting in a place of honor on my bench, ready to be called into service when I need serious hook holding power for big hooks (although I tied down to size 20 on it for years with no problem). A few years ago I bought a Danvise, wanting to try a true rotary but not wanting to drop big bucks on one until I decided if the rotary function would be worth the expenditure. I really, really liked that vise -- that's why the Regal got relegated to heavy-duty jobs involving big hooks. For the money (about $80 at the time), it was a terrific bargain. One thing that mildly irritated me about the Danvise, though, was all the plastic ("Delrin") parts. I could never get the nut that tightened the stem into place in the c-clamp completely tight, so the stem always had about 1/4" of side-to-side play in it. It didn't seriously interfere with my tying, but it was always there and it annoyed me. You know how it is. The other thing was the odd-sized stem. It didn't fit my pedestal base, and none of the many accessories out there that fit every other vise in the universe would fit the Danvise. It's a little like being stuck with a VHS in the Blu-Ray era. Then, last weekend, with the money I earned from the publication of my first-ever fly fishing article, I drove up to Grayling and purchased a new Peak Rotary pedestal base model. I'm still getting to know it, but so far we're getting along great. Very solid tool, holds the hook sizes I tie on most (6-16) rock solid, very little screwing around with the jaws required, and Peak makes lots and lots and lots of add-on gadgets for it. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.