nrthcsteel

Hey James. Meiser, Beulah, batson, sage (and Im sure I missed a few!) all offer switch rods, as well as speys. Youll find about every pricepoint depending on maker or manufacturer. TFO will soon be releasing there Meiser/Kinney switch rods also. They are 11' and will be available in several weights. I was able to cast a couple recently and they were a very nice casting rod! And the price should be a good one. Im sure youve been doing some research on spey rods/lines/casting and such and as you can tell it can be quite confusing at times. I would say that if at all possible try and get to a spey gathering or take a class or hit up some friends who have some rods and lines you may be able to try. Finding a rod with an action you like and that works for you is very important. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY finding the correct rod/line marriage is VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!! Someone made a great comment that was along the lines of. Theres not to many bad spey rods out there BUT ALOT of BAD rod/line combinations. If at all possible try and get some instruction and try and cast as many rod/line combos as you can. You will begin to get a feel of what type of combination you prefer, and then when it comes time to lay down the money you will know you are getting a good setup for yourself Then after a month or two you will start thinking about your second rod and how that rod would be nice and so on..... Just kidding( BUT REMEMBER I DID WARN YOU!) Good luck and if you have any questions feel free to pm me and I will do my best to help. Oh yeah two words of advice when it comes to casting. SLOW DOWN@@!!!!! Kevin

Sounds like a very cool project. So Ill give it a go. The Green Butt Skunk is one of the all time great classic steelhead hairwing patterns. It was developed by the late Dan Callaghen. Heres the recipe from Trey Combs Steelhead fly fishing Tail : Red Hackle fibers Butt: Flourescent Green Chenille Body : Black Chenille ribbed with flat silver tinsel Hackle: Black Wing: White Bucktail Your questions 1. The green butt skunk is a classic hairwing steelhead fly. Youve got your tail body hackle and wing. Techniques for tying would be much the same as any hairwing steelhead fly. Each tier may have his/her own techiques for tying it. Especially when tying in the wing. There are several differing ways of going about tying in the wing. Which would take a LOONGG time to fully go through. 2. Proportions . Again each person has differences in how they want a fly to look and the proportions of the fly and each individual part. Generally I would say a tail that ends at the back or slightly past the end of the hook. The green butt may be anywhere from 1/5 to 1/4 the length of the body. Five wraps of ribbing is a pretty standard goal on steelhead flies. Wing length the length of the body or slightly longer. Again these are all just preferencesn Some may like a longer or shorter wing some a longer,thicker or shorter/ sparser hackle. 3. Subs. tail Golden pheasant crests dyed red, Gp tippets dyed red Butt. Dubbing of your choice. angora, seal fur or a floss butt. Body. Again a dubbing of your choice. Angora goat seal fur wing. Calftail, polar bear( legalities may be of issue on the polar bear) white skunk hair. There have been countless variants on the Green Butt. Many spey style flies , slip wing, dee flies, and even married wing patterns have been tied based on the green butt. Thus many materials have been used with these variances, yet they still come down to being a green butt skunk -------- (fill in the blank.) 4. For a beginner there are several good books out there that take you through the basics of hairwing steelhead flies and the various ways of tying in a hairwing. John Sheweys Steelhead Flies comes to mind. These books will also take you into some more advanced steelhead tying speys, dees, dries , wakers , shrimp patterns. And this board right here has some EXCELLENT steelhead tiers and info on steelhead flies. And once the basics are learned the great thing about steelhead flies is the creativity. In trout fishing matching the hatch is essential but not so much with steelhead flies. steelhead have been caught on thousands of patterns, some well known some unknown! With steelhead tying you will develope a unique and personal style as you will tend to want to fish flies that you like the look of and have confidence in. But you will also have endless possibilities for creativity. Your bare hook in the vise is like a bare canvass to a painter. Sometimes youll know what you want to paint other times you just start painting and see what your mind thinks up. Fun stuff. The Green Butt is a classic for sure. A top producer from the past and the present and well into the future. I have heard rumor and had confirmation from a few sources that this was a HOT fly this past summer on a well know summer steelhead river. Classic river, classic fish and a classic fly. Doesnt get much better than that. Your project sounds great. If you need any help or have any questions feel free to pm me or email me and I will do my best to help you out. And please keep us updated. Good luck. Kevin

Howard thats a great looking box. Really like your Black Gordons also. Ive been tying up some flies myself in preparation for some summer trips to your neck of the woods. Looking forward to it and your flies are certainly adding to the anticipation! Kevin

AHHH a classic for sure. Dont leave home without at least a few of these in the box for sure. Paid off BIG time for me this winter! Nice tie Marty and cool pic. Kevin

"A bit bulky"........ Looks a bit fishy to me Frank. :thumbsup: Youve been putting out some great flies Frank. You need to get yourself to a steelhead river and do some swinging my friend! Keep it up. Kevin

Hey all. Well the winter steelhead season ends at the end of the month. River conditions have been tough lately. REALLY LOW AND CLEAR, making for some real tough fishing. So Ive had a little more time to spend at the vise. As you can see Ive been on kind of a spey overload lately. Really like fishing speys in these lower conditions. They just feel like the right fly you know. Great flies being posted by all lately. Bobfly, e oregon midge you guys are on it, nice ties. Good to see some flies by FGS III ,flatwing steelhead flies hmmmmmmmmmmmm.. that gets me thinking. And of course davidstrout, holy PRAWN!!! Hey David those tubes oughta work for you back east but if you want to put them up against some steel out west Id be happy to swing a few for you, I think they might just work. :whistle: And of course all the others who Ive failed to mention great flies. Someone in a past post mentioned wanting to see some fish so heres a little teaser for you all. Oh yeah I love to tie up new patterns and fish em but if you notice that red thing in the corner of that beauties mouth, well that theres a good old SKYKOMISH SUNRISE!! :headbang: I never leave home without a few tried and true classics in the box!!! Figured Id better get some pics of these up as Im headed off tomorrow to take these babies for a swing. Hope you enjoy and take care and as always hope your getting some time on the water. Kevin

Thanks Guys. Hey Rocky the akroyd is a pretty popular pattern. These two pretty much follow the same recipe,with a couple little tweaks. I used yellow schlappen stripped on one side for the one and if I remember correctly I used black schlappen on the front half of the other Been in kind of a schlappen mood lately... Oh yeah and I was dying to use a pair of florican feathers I scored so thats the wing, GREAT stuff!! Ties in like a dream...and really digging the looks for sure. You should be able to find the original pattern somewhere using a search, maybe even in the fly archives, if you cant let me know and Ill get it to you. Whats up Mark? See your hitting the shows hard as usual. Good for you. One of these days I will make some time to get to more of those. I guess the Oregon one is coming up soon eh? Youll have to give me a full report on what I missed out on, yeah feel free to rub it in. You know on that chenille I have NO idea what it is. It was in a mixed box of stuff/CR_P that I bought for one specific thing but the rest of the stuff was garbage. Im not a big chenille fan but this stuff is really small diameter and a great shade of purple and when I saw it I was like HMMM> I kinda like that. Its on a card that isnt labeled so I really cant say what it is??? Its kinda twisted up so I think I might hang it in the bathroom see if it steams itself straight after a couple of hot showers. Take care Mark and you and your wife travel safely. Have fun at the shows. Kevin

Hey All! Well with steelhead season in full swing(so to speak) Havent had much time to really sit down and tie much, just enough to keep the box stocked up. Been having a good winter so far. A couple of grabs, a couple of LDRs and a couple of nice fish landed. All in all pretty darn good year so far. Been swimming a lot of new creations and for the most part have been happy, although a few tweeks have been made here and there and a couple of "well thats not to good(s) Live and learn live and learn.... Been lurking around here once in a while and its great to see alot of new flies being posted by some familiar names and some news ones. Everyones been putting up some great stuff and it would take me the rest of the night to reply to all so heres one for everyone.. GREAT FLIES !!!!!!! Well the past ten days or so have been a virtual downpoor so the rivers are quite out of shape for a bit so looking at all the flies lately got me inspired to sit down and have a little fun. Peatymans two great videos were the inspiration for fly 1. Great stuff Davie! anyone who hasnt checked em out should do so IMMEDIATLY!!!!! Love the gap in the rib for the hackle@!!! Gonna put that one to good use. Although I see in the pic I missed one or two gaps, DOH!! where are those darn glasses...... The other two just an akroyd and another with some different colors thrown in. Well thanks for the inspiration everyone and hope you enjoy and as always hope youve been getting out on the water@! Kevin

Very sad news. Thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends. Im sure Mr. Howell is in that better place, knee deep in the heart of a run,mid swing waiting on a grab, Thoughts of new patterns running through his mind...... Kevin

Hey DT. Whats up? Long time no talk. Hope all is well. Yes it is hard to know what to look for. Its like David said its a search and sometimes things show up there that instantly make you go OH YEAH! --- click---BUY IT NOW!!!!! Sometimes you take a chance and it pays off other times you get a bunch of C___! Personally I open every thing OUTSIDE and thouroughly inspect it. IF it looks ok then it makes it to the kitchen where it is washed if needed and/or placed in the freezer for a few days. Fortunatly (although sometimes its not so fortunate) I am currently single so my kitchen has been transformed into a feather cleaning,dying,debugging and and prep area. And also makes a great rod finish room. The counters are literally lined with all kinds of feathers and the freezer is full of skins,saddles fur and feathers. Only after they pass the detox area do they make it to the fly tying room(that would be the living room to all you non single people out there)If the materials look sketchy straight into the outside garbage can. Anyway rivers are open so I will probably be kind of absent the next few months. Take care all and good fishing. Wish I was at some of those shows to take some of those feathers off your hands David! Kevin

Ok I see my topic starter name is a different one than my screenname. :dunno: Anyone have any idea how to change this?? sorry for any confusion. Kevin

A new addition to the fly pattern database has been submitted by kgiusti: Orange flow

Thanks all. Mark I have Alec Jacksons video on Northwest patterns. ABSOLUTELY GREAT video. It really was influential in my tying. Some of his techniques really turned the light bulb on for me and as you can see I incorporate many of them into my tying. Dont know if I recall his hook color choice in that one, it may be in the spade video, gonna have to get that one. Debarbed for sure, not only is it the law here but I feel it should be done always, especially for steelhead. If they come unhooked "Oh well" and if they do come to hand a quick release is all the better for the well being of the fish. A debarbed hook does less damage to a fish and aids in the quick release so they can be on there way TO MAKE MORE :headbang: . Ray I will work on getting some recipes up as requested. Take care all and good fishing Kevin

Hey Still (and Mark) these are pretty much off the "cuff". I get an idea and just kind of go with it. Sometimes it comes out OK and sometimes I have to say "whoa, bad idea!" Ray I will work on putting these recipes on the database, have to go dig them out of the box and off the fly patch and remember what I used . Thanks for the comments all. Kevin

Well the local rivers are still closed due to low flows so in between trips out of town in quest for steel have had some time to tie a few more up. Great ties by all lately, hope everyones had a chance to get out and fish them! Kevin