Jimboha!

I was putting together a photo college of fly tying/fishing photos for a present. I had an empty spot, so I thought I'd put in a pithy saying or quote about fishing. Obviously the old standby saying came to mind: "Give a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." I wanted something, well, a little .. more. I Googled the phrase and found many variants. I selected some of them and word-smithed it a bit. This is what I came up with. Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Give a woman a fish and you'll be sleeping on the couch tonight. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. But teach a man to fly fish and he'll always be late for dinner. Teach a man to tie flies and it will take over all his free time, a room in his house, and most of his money. -Anonymous compilation- I wish I could credit al the people whose quotes/ideas this borrows, but I don't know the original authors. Jimboha!

Interesting. I fish a wide variety and number of flies! My favorite would be dries, elk hair caddis or stimulator, or red tag, Griffith's gnat, renegade, or royal wulffs ... Of course, I love terrestrials: hoppers of all kinds, ants, beetles, and my favorite: baby blue damsel flies (adults), etc. Nymphs are fun, especially as a dropper behind something buoyant : scuds, sow bugs, prince nymphs, olive hare's ear bead head, and damsel nymphs.. I love wooly buggers and other streamers. I think I under-fish wets flies, but oftentimes my dries get soaked and start to sink - then they still get action. You may wonder how I can fish all those flies: I almost always have 3 flies on my line. Sometimes if it's windy, I only do two to avoid wind knots. And when I'm in Idaho - I fish as many as 5. Yep, gotta be super careful with the cast and when landing the fish. Sometimes you even catch multiple fish (at Clarice Lake in Idaho Sawtooths, I was pulling in 3 at a time!) But I agree with djtrout's sentiment: I enjoy tying new flies or types of flies. Always make sure to practice up a bit first - don't want to give anyone lousy flies. Jimboha

I agree wholeheartedly! We always hear about the 'buggy' fly that catches the fish. Usually that is either 1) a good fly that has become beaten up and 'ratty'., or 2) a reject fly that is either buggy or low quality from the vise. I find a large number of both of these in my fly boxes. But for a swap, yes indeed - we strive for the best quality we can achieve. Actually, I think it is most interesting to see who can consistently produce high-quality, and 'identical' flies. You can see this best as Swap Meister. You get to see about a dozen flies from each tyer. I could (but I won't) give you a list of the tyers who have submitted sets of flies that look like they came out of a replicating machine: they looked professional and each one looked the same. I strive for that level of tying! So my rejects are the ones that don't quite look like the others, where maybe the hackle length wasn't the same, or the head as too large, or the whole fly was asymmetric. But as we've already established: the fish still go for them! As for cagey - the whole pool was only 1-2 feet deep and all 20-30 fish I saw were very wary. In an hour I only managed to get three strikes, but I was fishing from a bridge and it was very difficult to get a nice, soft landing casting down. Jimboha!

Got my flies today - super flies! Now I'm trying to plan a trip to use them. I did slip out to a local creek and used one of my own (reject ) flies to catch a cagey brown trout, about 9". Thanks for hosting. Jimboha!

Any status?

OK, I've finalized on the Black Chain Gang Stonefly nymph. I can see that we already have a couple other black nymphs,but the variety will still benice. Jimboha!

Can I be in? I'm thinking maybe a Chain Gang Stonefly nymph, in black? If not, one of those ubitquitous dry TBD patterns! Jimboha!

Yellow Palmer, size #16 Hook: Mustad 94833 (dry fly, up-eye, fine) Thread: Yellow, 8/0 Tail: Golden Pheasant tippet Body: Yellow dubbing Hackle: Grizzly, brown Fairly standard construction. Tie in both brown and grizzly hackle at rear (shiny side up). Palmer brown widely spaced and tie off in front; then palmer grizzly hackle in between the brown wraps. All ready to send. Got address? Jimboha!

I've got a few more Yellow Palmers to tie. I'll likely do those tonight and get mine in the mail tomorrow. Jim

Yeah, I was the SM on a recent Blob Swap. That was the fly the friend was using, but he wasn't rocking it, just pulling it t constant speed. I'll he to tell him to rock it next time. Jimboha!

Well, if we're talkng about _my_ frend's expereince fishing the Booby - the version he was using had much larger, er, um, boobies, on a #8 hook. There really wasn't much gape left exposed. I only saw him fish it for 10 minutes and he only got 2 -3 strikes. Mabye he needed to try longer to actually hook up. Tim980's Booby Flies have a lot of hook exposed - but don't have that partonesque quality that you always hear put in that partiular way. But I am game to give them a try, without any surgery. Jmiboha!

Here's one: a 17+ inch tiger trout taken on a Hoppicator (Hopper Indicator) pattern from a swap I hosted a couple months back! Caught about 6 in this size range - VERY tasty (I only ate 1)! You can see the brown hopper hooked to its upper lip! [sorry, can't seem to get it attached. Dang it.] [i uded to be able to add to My Media, but now there is no option. How do I get it back???] I also pulled a half dozen little brookies out from under a fallen tree with my 6.5 foot Wright & McGill feather light with Martin M3 reel: no pictures of the fish but very handy to get in those tight paces and light enough to pack 25 miles without even noticing it was there!

Got mine today! Super ties. I would start calling out the ones I really like, but it looks like I really like them all. Especially the extras. Thanks to all, including our fearless SM! I will report back in the future when I have success with them. Jimboha!

Thanks. Will do, if I can get them of my phone... smart phone is getting dumb.

Do you join in swaps? YES, well over a dozen in the past year or two. Why? 1. I love getting lots of new flies to try. 2. I like to see the quality of tying that I can try to attain. 3. I like the excuse to tie multiples of the same pattern. As others have pointed out, sometimes you need that to get the quallity you desire. But mainly it gives me the chance to really figure out a fly and the shortcuts and tricks to tying it quickly but well. What makes them a good experience for you? Enough time to complete, the commeraderie on the discussion board. Getting the flies in a timely manner... What makes them a bad experience for you? ...getting the flies very late. Sometimes I have even forgotten about the flies before they show up. Is there something that bugs you about the swaps you've been involved with? I hate the ever increasing postage! Have you ever been a swapmeister? Yes, several times. Do you enjoy doing that? Yes! I actually enjoy being the swapmeister very much. Partly because it eliminates that thing I hate mentioned above: postage. As long as the participants all play by the self-addressed-stamped-envelope rule (and most do), as swapmeister, I don't have to pay any postage! Is there anything you would change about the swap experience? Well, I would require the swapmeister to use a time maching to go forward in time to see who the deadbeats will be. Then don't let them join. Other than that, I think think the swap experience is great. I actually like to get TWO of every pattern in a swap. I have not seen any swaps like that, but once as swapmeister I had to tie another set to make up for a drop-out, so I got two of each. My reason: If I'm successfully fishing your marvelous fly, and it gets lost - I have no replacement at the time, nor do I have an example to tie more later. Perhaps that comment to have people post their materials and instructions, along with a photo, would address this one for me. Then I can recognize that winner fly and tie more myself. What do you do with your swapped flies? Mostly I fish them. Some I give away, or throw away, or razor to salvage the hooks. Some are works of art that I like to admire constantly!