DoubleHaul

Nice fish. Wish the picture was bigger... Do you have the "coppernose" 'gills up there?

I couldn't find them locally. I bought 100 for $10.40 on Amazon.

sborgf - Others share your disappointment, including me. My feeling is that DK at some point changed the metal used in jaws (maybe when Ron A. retired??). FYI Rainbow27 started another thread on this topic. This thread seems to be an update. http://www.flytyingforum.com/index.php?showtopic=76100&hl=

I've got an old Professional that holds small hooks just fine, thousands of flies tied on it. My new Barracuda doesn't. When I first got it, the difference was so marked I sent it back to them. (They wanted to charge me for cleaning the jaws). No change. I think they've change the metal in the jaws. My tying now is all bigger salt/warm water so I just use the hook slots and not the tips of the jaws. One tip I've read is to fold a bit of paper around the bend before clamping it. Haven't tried it though.

Bruce - Nice work! I didn't realize that Pat had some DVDs out until I saw one of your other posts. I bought the duck one and a Jr Packer tool. Cool stuff. I'm thinking a redwing black bird version will be deadly... -Jeff

I think if you tied it, its a fly. They look great. I've seen flies like that but figured they were kind of a gimmick. I mean do they work better than something tied in a more traditional style, like say with bucktail?

The major cost of UV compared with epoxy is the the UV light. Some say they've bought lights from Amazon or Ebay that work well with CCG or Bug Bond. You might want to look at some of the products from Solarez. They have made UV resins for surf board repair for many years and now have kits for fly tiers. Their UV light looks nice. http://www.solarez.com/productsnew/uv_flashlight.html

You've got some good suggestions here but my confidence "big flies" are a Clouser Half and Half or just a big Deceiver. I think Larry Dalhberg did a show on striper fishing in some of those rivers. It looked crazy!

There is Venice LA and Venice FL. Flies are going to be very different...

Most them in my area are dark olive with orange undersides. I usually add some blue somewhere on the fly too.

Interesting to see so many use Maxima, its good stuff and I've used it for a long time. Recently I been making twisted leaders and bought some Berkly Big Game. It's decent and a good value in the 1/4 lb spools. It comes in 40, 30, 20 etc. I'm fishing salt and lg. mouth.

That's a nice fish. I wish I could crack the code on tilapia. They are bedding here now but so far no takers. I got this one a few months ago blind casting

Very funny! I must have missed Uncle Ken's other videos.

Good looking fly. I've seen some pretty big largemouth blast dragon flys when they dip down onto the surface, usually in lily pads.