Mark Knapp

My, you sure have big nickles. Nice fly.

I may have spoken an un-truth earlier when I said we don't have anything purple in our waters up here. Grayling have hues of purple in them (or lavender), they are in almost all of our fresh water and, of course, they would be a common forage fish.

Put a handle on it and use it for splitting threads for dubbing.

Yes SD, it's called damascus. It was developed about 2000 years ago to get the best properties from two different steels by laminating them together in thin layers. Today we do it just for aesthetic reasons, because now we have the ability to make steel that has all the properties we need. I'm making a very special fly tying vise with damascus and mokume in it. I'm also thinking of making parts of it (maybe the jaws) with tamahagane which is an ancient kind of Japanese steel that I smelted myself from Alaskan Iron ore. The word tamahagane means "precious metal", it's the purest form of damascus and was what traditional samurai swords were made of, (and still is in some cases).

Thanks bud.

Your pictures are getting better. I bet the fly will catch fish too, probably catch pike no problem. What is it intended for.

Loving the scuds Kimo

Heres the video I used as a reference Im a big fan of Ryan Houstons flies and techniques, especially his muddler heads. Regards, Scott Thanks Bud, I'm going to check them out.

Good for you and good for them. Way to go Mustad. I actually thought this was going to be a horror story when I clicked on this.

Thanks guys, the guard and pommel are made of what is called "Mokume Gane" (pronounced mokoomay gonnay) it's a Japanese metal art using non-ferrous metals, in this case it's brass, copper and nickle silver, all fused together much like damascus is. Translated mokume gane means wood-grain metal. So...yes, mike, you are right. I'm including mokume on the fly tying vise I'm making.

Mark, I havent got $5400 to my name. If it wasnt for cheap rent from my landlady Id be living in a cardboard box! I did save for a CAE vise though, which is a carbon copy of the LAW. Very good quality and Im satisfied with it. How much do your knives sell for? I bet some of the custom jobs are up there with LAW prices. When waldron was making vises I bet he didnt make much money as does Charles of CAE I sell a few jars of honey from my bees, it doesnt even cover the cost of keeping them. So I guess a serious collector will think nothing of forking out $5grand. Just look at the prices of cane rods! Anyone want to start a fund me account for my next bottle of rum I once built a custom knife for a customer for the agreed upon price of $2,500.00. One year later he sold that knife for $10,000.00. That's collectors for you, nothing will ever surprise me. In case you want to see it, here's the knife. It's a nice enough knife, it took me about 100 hours to build it. It's the only one in the world like it, and it's worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it.

That looks like everything but the tutorial. Is there a tutorial of this fly somewhere? It looks like he messed up your tag, but it's worth it. Beautiful, I love it when a plan comes together.

Very cool.

Interesting observation Silver

Congratulations Barry

Those sure look nice Sandan

I got them on the internet. They were a Christmas present to myself. They're made by Firehouse. They're expensive but really nice. They keep the hole from freezing and keep the blowing snow out.

It won't be long now, two inches of ice here.

Thanks Norm, I like it. And some from my vise. We were also talking about acetate floss in another thread so I decided to play with that some too. These are some ice flies of no particular known pattern. I like the acetate because it gives the fly some translucence that you don't see with other flosses. The acetate dried immediately, I didn't have to wait before starting the next step. This is a Russian style nymph hook I found in some of my stuff. A bead head acetate soft hackle.

You bet, thanks. The ice is almost thick enough here to start again.

Purple egg sucking leaches are magical up here. We don't have anything purple up here and we don't have leaches either, just the purple egg sucking ones.

OK, I was pretty sure you'd say that. Just let me know if you ever need anything. I'm here for you buddy.

That there's a beauty Noah but don't you think it should have more hackle? Of course I'm just teasing, it's really nice.

That just don't seem right, you not having any CDC. I just got a bunch in an estate sale I went to. I'm gunna send you some. No quid quo pro or obligation implied. I am gunna tie some, but mine will surely look like cripples. Not all pretty like the ones in the videos.

Mike, that's too funny. Let's see some Last Chance Cripples, since they are on our minds lately. I'm gunna try one. Writing an application for a patent right now so my "spare" time is limited. It's worse than tax season.