natedubay

Ride a bike distances most people don't like driving, ski patrol, build rods, brew a ton of beer. Those are the most time consuming hobbies, I have a few other minor ones.

I sort of feel the same way about my 4 wt rod in certain areas. I always have the same length out so why the reel... I'm not using it to fight 6 inch brookies... Anyways I threw down on a tenkara blank and boy is it different. That whole 5:5 6:4 nonsense didn't make sense until I had one in my hands. There's a vast difference in the actions of the top vs bottom sections. They are certainly not a cane pole, you can probably touch the tip to the butt without breaking if you tried. Anyways my cork should be here today and I'll get a proper handle on it soon.

Thanks, I appreciate that... and you're one of the few that can directly ask me to join a swap when I'm not really in the mood. Her startup in Cleveland didn't really start up that well due to a couple of factors. She was in biofuel development, the carbon cap didn't get renewed along with a couple of bad business decisions resulted in the folding of her company. She's been unemployed for a couple months but got hired in at a pharm company back in Kalamazoo. That's sort of our hometown so we're excited for the move. She's actually back right now starting her new job and I'm in Cleveland completing the move... well... we don't have a house as of yet so it's all up in the air. We're going to crash at out parents houses and have our suff in a Pods container while we're in limbo. I'll convince her to do another swap once we're unpacked. Admittedly I think she's been fly fishing more this year than I have which is a hard pill to swallow. I've built more fly rods though so I win in the end.

Damn, I hate when you guys do that... it always makes me guilty for not throwing in two patterns. I'm so busy right now I'm having to schedule time just to do a dozen. I threw mine in the mail today, I did an all-CDC fly that I've done in a swap or two before, but did the abdomen wally-wing style instead of furled like I normally do. I may like this version a bit better, but it's marginally harder to tie... and by that I mean still pretty quick and easy.

I think they fall short of my usual, but it was with these new cutters... which are pretty awesome I think. I should have watched a few videos before diving in. Oh well... Like I said they'll still float and at least catch the fish that don't realize the legs are tied in too far forward. Caught that in Ohio actually. Conneaut which is by the PA border. That was one of those "just one last cast" fish. I landed a nice hen out of the same pool like 5 minutes before and was in the process of trying to convince Jim Lampros (the guy that you see in every Orvis advertisement and catalog at the moment) to take his turn swinging through the pool. He put on what has to be the biggest production ever getting that thing into the net since Kristin couldn't quite land it. In her defense it didn't really fit in the net that well. Jim was running up and down the river using the net to battle axe the ice shelfs that were close to cutting the line. Anyways, he's a hell of a guy and if anyone is in the Cleveland area you should stop in the Orvis store where he's the manager and chat with him. I kind of feel bad for him being stuck in Ohio. Here's a short write up on him. http://www.orvis.com/news/fly-fishing/orvis-trout-bum-of-the-week-xxiii-jim-lampros/

I sent mine out. Admittedly they suck, I realized I was doing the wrong tie in point for the hind legs after I had them all done. I kept wondering why the head seemed so crowded, but they'll float and catch fish still. I'm about to move yet again so I have to pack up the bench in the next couple days. At least this seems to be the final move for a while at least, and it's back to Michigan so we're happy about that.

I was guessing a colored fiberglass/carbon sleeve from Riley Rods... I'm still not sure I exactly get how you did this, but kudos... Still want updated pics as you go along. What's the decal exactly? Something you made?

Woah! Back the truck up.... you're going to have to spill how you did the carbon on the handle... I'm guessing the orange sleeve first, then the all carbon end pieces, with silver thread for the trim band? Decal for the logo? If you wove that I'm just giving up rod building and referring people to you. Can I get a better macro shot of what I'm guessing is a feather inlay in the butt section? Did you use CP to hold them down?

I"m in.

I didn't know. I'm horrible on fly names admittedly. I must seem like a jerk when I get asked what fly I'm using, because most of mine are custom copies of what I see in fly shops, or craziness from the depths of my imagination. My usual response is: "Uh... like goldendoodle hair wing with this string I found wrapped on a hook... don't know what size really. Maybe an 8? Then some of my rabbit's hair dubbed with a feather I found in my driveway palmered through. Finished off with some rod building pigment mixed in epoxy..." I can't quite figure out the abdomen on the "forget me knot midge". Is it furled or wrapped around something I can't quite make out? I really like the translucence of it.

This will give me the excuse I need to get the hopper body cutters finally... I'm in.

I tied up a small two toned minnow pattern with my dog's hair. Half of it I dyed lavender with leftover Rit that was being used for my wife's pillow cover project, the other half was left natural which is pretty close to a pure white. She's my polar bear substitute... The underbody was wrapped with a diamond braid that was left over from a rod building project not too long ago. In my house that counts as a household material I guess even though someone probably uses it on flies all the time. I'll get them in the mail as soon as I have an addy.

50% is good, we get 40% on most things, but when you take shipping into account then it starts to drop fast. I was looking into some Nikon binos for the store the other day and scrapped that after seeing the margin was less than 10%. Buying for a store can be fun but really nerve racking as well. We have to unload stuff pretty much at cost way too often.

Ok good, I was getting ready to bang out another dozen in case. I'm leaving tomorrow to go fishing until next wednesday so I would have been a little short on time.

Let me know so I can tie up some replacements in time.