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Fly Tying

bowmike

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About bowmike

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    Rainbow trout
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  1. This is the purple heart nymph. I am doing 100 of these to raise money for an event at Kettle Creek in Northern PA for Wounded Veterans. I'm also giving some of these to veterans who have received the purple heart. Each one will have a card with the Serial number, and such to go with it. I love doing tribute flies for causes and this one is a great cause. I really think it will catch fish as well.
  2. Yes permanent marker for the colors. This thing is heavy though. I had my spinning rod in my car from taking my boy fishing so I snapped it on a snap swivel and chucked it out. 10 wt fly rod will be needed to cast that thing. LOL Which I have so its not and issue.
  3. This ones color scheme is based off of a nymph I tied in honor of a baby with cancer.
  4. Tied this one up last night after watching a video on facebook. A tip in the video really helped me get my bucktail to flare. I tie thousands of nymphs a year but musky flies are by far my favorite thing to tie. I love that there are not set rules on them, no real proportions to keep in check and such. I have never caught one yet, but hoping to change that this year. So with that being said, what type of fly really trips your trigger to tie?
  5. Tied these up for a buddy of mine "Aught East". Read that in your best YINZER accent.
  6. LOL no I am from SWPA. LOL yeah I am a brookie guy at heart but every once in a while its nice to go out and catch some big boys LOL
  7. LOL I am lucky as these were less than a mile from my house.
  8. Had a great few hours on Sunday. Caught some beautiful browns on some of my coyote nymph patterns. I caught a small stocked brookie, and stocked rainbow as well. Also tied up some trout sized game changer patterns. My streamer game is weak, and get tired of throwing them so I put on nymphs. LOL
  9. I think the arms and attachmets are cool. Mainly the cell phone one. But I cant see that many benefits of this. I tie on a regal revolution now, and it truly is my dream vise. I doubt I will ever by another vise. IF they had that cell phone attachment but that would go off of a vise stem I would probably buy that.
  10. I like to use streamers for native brookies. I use a larger gap barbless hook. IMO they cant get the hook that far in their mouth so 99% of my hook sets are right in the top of their mouth. As with most of my brookie streamers these coyote streamers are super quick and easy to tie. I like to use natural materials when fishing for natives. This one is tied on a Firehole Outdoors 633 size 10. I use small lead eyes with the pupil. I take a snip of white coyote fur from a coyote mask for the belly, and a snip of the brown/darker orange, fur for the back. When I take the fur for the belly and back, I pull out the under fur. This will give you a bit more movement, and a lot lighter fly. then I take the brown, underfur, and use it to dub over my thread. Really just a 4 step fly. 1) tie on your lead eyes to make the fly ride hook point up 2) tie in the belly of the fly using white coyote fur, found on the outsides of a coyote mask (remove under fur before tying) 3) tie in the brown/dark orange fur found in the center of the mask between ears (remove under fur before tying) 4) take the underfur from the brown/ dark orange fur and dub over your thread 5) whip fininsh. This fly has been killer for me on brookies. I had scouted this stream while I was rifle hunting for deer. I could see a few in there so decided to give it a try. My wife gave me the best Christmas Gift I could ask for by letting me go out for a little on Christmas eve. I fished about 300 yards of stream in an hour and a half. I love this kind of fishing. Most of it I was on my knees trying to flip my streamer between cover without spooking these guys. I love fishing for them in the winter as there is really no other sound, but you and the stream. It is miles to the nearest house. The fish are beautiful. I really don't take much with me. I have a small plastic container to put in 5-10 flies. This trip I only used one. I take my fly rod outfit, and some 4# fluorocarbon. You can really pack light when fishing for these guys. No waders needed as well. ITs nice because you don't have to worry about hurting any spawning beds as you are never really in the stream. IF you need to switch sides you can just hop a few rocks and cross. I am going to set up a fly rod specific for these tiny streams. I believe I will go with a 6' or 6'-6" 2 weight. Maybe put a redington zero on it. I am going to run just straight 20# mono on it for fly line, tie that to a small barrel swivel, and the just use 4# flouro for my leader. I don't fish dries that often on these small streams and if I do my max casting distance might be 8-12'. Fishing for Native Brookies is definetly my favorite thing to fish for. I love the simplicity of it all and being connected to nature. And on this trip I was gifted with a beautiful almost black brookie. I have never caught one so dark in my life. Really cool fish, who is now my desktop screen saver.
  11. I used allen for 12 years and their hooks are pretty decent. But those GAMAKATSU hooks are in a whole other league. I am not bad mouthing Allen as you will never hear me say one bad thing about that company, its owners, or products but after picking up some of those Gamas and fishing with them they are just lethal. I found a fly shop on ebay called Old Florida Fly Shop that has them about the most affordable that you can buy without being set up with GAMAKATSU wich is a song and a dance within itself to do. I attached a picture of a mud sucker I caught this past winter. It blew through that fishes jaw bone. I also thought I had a hit and set the hook. The Gama actually pierced that sandstone rock and I reeled it in. It wasn't wedged in there it was pierced, hence why I took the pic. I use them on my larger stone fly patterns at times. I use them on my baitfish patterns and larger bass stuff on the 2/0 as well. I would make the investment and try a box of them. In size six it was like $26.00 for 100 hook through that fly shop on ebay. Yes it adds about 10 cents per fly, opposed to Allen. But they truly are in my opinion not in the same class and comparing apples to oranges.
  12. I like multipurpose flies. Kind of reminds me of a marabou muddler or something like that. Others have said it resembles a sparrow nymph. lol either way it just popped in my head and I threw it on the vise. LOL
  13. This "hybrid" fly has been working great for me the last couple weeks. I kind of refined it a bit from my concept. I have caught wild fish, native fish, and stocked fish on this pattern. I wanted a fly that I could fish dead drift like a nymph, swing like a soft hackle, and strip like a streamer and so far it has produced all three ways I have fished it. the recipe is as follows: Hook: size 6-10 3xl daiichi streamer hook bead: 3.8mm tungsten black thread: Danville 140 denier in tan tail: coyote mask (pick a decent section from below the eyes and on the nose area) ribbing: French tinsel, oval, in gold body: coyote fur (I pick from the area around the ears and try to mix in guard hairs) hackle: reverse tied coyote fur (pick from the back of the mask, include guard hairs, pick out under fur, turn hair tips away from tail of fly, push hair over the bead, keeping in centered, Make a few wraps to secure, snip off excess, if you didn't trim the fur before tying in, use hollowed pen to fold hair back over itself, and secure) collar: coyote fur, pick from same area as body I went out this morning before work to a stream I have never fished before. It is truly a tiny little PA mountain stream. I was in awe with the nice native I landed on this pattern. He was under the small rock in the shallow pool in pic Stream5. I honestly say these guys have replaced wild brown trout as my favorite fish to catch. The colors, the scenery, and the overall experience is just amazing when fishing for native brook trout. The fly in the picture is just a "stock" type photo. I use barbless but that one was hot off the vise before I pinched the barb.
  14. I understand the point of what the thread is for, and took a lot of the comments, and things that irked viewers as constructive criticism, but was just wondering if those who are making the comments have ever tried to put a tying video together, or how-to video if you will? Its not that easy, and is especially tough if you don't have the camera, or area to do the tying video. I have a lot of people on facebook who often ask me to put together a tutorial on certain patterns and such. As of right now I don't have the money to invest in a good camera, so often would have to just use my I-phone. If you think about it, it really wouldn't be a sound business investment anyway. LOL If you teach people how to tie your creations then you cant sell them right? LOL. But I do them anyway, and really enjoy getting people started in tying flies. I have done a couple "face time" or "live chats" with people who wanted to learn to tie something that I tie. I enjoy helping others, but am limited on my equipment, and facility if you will to make these high quality videos. Another issue is limited time. Hammering on a list you want to get out also plays into this. I don't have the time to spend and extra hour prepping for a how to video. I am tying from 10:00pm to 1-2:00 am almost every night. I have (3) kids under the age of 5, (2) of them are twin 2 year olds. So its tough to use time for that sort of thing. I am not really in it for the money as it is, but would rather spend that money on other materials, or into my rod building excursion I am about to take. I am not out there trying to sell videos, so I can see the anguish some of you had shown in buying a $30.00 video or what have you, and then get something that did not meet your expectations. But many of the videos you see are just from your average guy out there who got a request for one of their patterns. LOL The videos I have done would most likely end up in the "trash bin" of this thread, but many people learned to tie a new pattern with pretty decent instruction. My approach to it, is try to give a full breakdown of why I am tying the way I am, as opposed to just showing how to tie something. Maybe tell the person I am overlapping this material to make the fly durable and such. Just to name a few of the things that would drive you guys nuts: ratty beard, camo hat, tying in my shed most likely have a chew in pause to take a drink of beer poor lighting dropping the phone in the middle of a video, so I had to make a part two. I would say that I may "over explain" a lot in my videos. I like to make the instruction as more of a WHY instead of a how. I think it is more beneficial that way. If you show someone just how to tie something, they my do something close, and it may look the same, but may not know why they tied it a certain way I feel it sticks more with them. I would say my videos have been less on the zoomed in to the hook style as the have been with me in the back ground describing why I am tying the way I am. Or describing how the material will move in the water, or why I chose squirrel instead of grey dubbing...etc I can take criticisms and really appreciate them. But I think it is better to take criticisms from those who have done the thing they are criticizing first, but on the same token in this subject matter it is the audience who would make the best critics. I didn't want that to come across as snide, or anything like that in the comment I first made on this topic, but wanted you to understand that there may be a reason that the person posts a "fail" type instructional video. I think "fail" may have been the thing that made me question. I guess "fail" is kind of subjective. If people can learn to tie the pattern I am try to help them with, and get a better understand on why I tied it that way, then I would chalk it up as win. I think it is more of what your expectations are. But would like to add the old phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" you may miss some pretty good instruction if you hit the back button, or next button too soon, because the video is dim, or tyer has a beard, or pauses to drink a beer. LOL!! And just have to say that many of these comments are appreciated, and I am definitely going to re-read this thread a few times, to get a better understanding on what I should be doing differently that I did not take into consideration before, or just didn't think mattered that much.
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