AlexC

Are you fishing for any particular species in particular?

Beautiful as always, Steve.

Wow. You can judge a rod without even casting it? You must be pretty good.

Modern Streamers for Trophy Trout by Bob Linsenman and Kelly Galloup is your bible, http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Streamers-Trophy-Trout-Techniques/dp/0881504661

I both wax and tape the ferrules on my two-handed rods before using them. Doesn't have anything to do with keeping them from coming apart, though. Helps prevent any of the individual sections from twisting. If you tape, or wax, or both, you'll still want to check that each segment is still properly aligned with the rest every now and then.

I'm sorry, but who is anyone on this forum to say a product is overpriced? We're not talking about chinese-made fly rods that see an insane markup, we're talking about a U.S. made product that I don't believe sees much markup at all. Sometimes, stuff just costs more to make, plain and simple. Just because you want something to be less expensive, doesn't mean its overpriced. The problem here, in my opinion, is that the owner of Clear Cure Goo probably fell for the illusion that the people who were bashing his product actually know what they're talking about- like so many others on these forums. Had he known these guys spend more time on the internet talking about fly tying and fishing than actually doing them, he would have disregarded their statements for the pure BS they are. We used to have a very solid core group of guys on this forum who would have called these guys out on their ongoing douchebaggery long before it came to something like this, unfortunately for us, they spend more time actually fishing and tying these days.

spammed by a bait fisherman. man, thats awful.

about effing time, just sayin'

As far as wordpress goes, a person who wants a blog has three options. One, get a wordpress.com hosted blog. pros: free hosting cons: you have limited access to themes, and if you want access to others you have to pay for them. you have to pay for plugins, you have to pay for domain name use, you don't get full control of everything, some plugins and themes aren't available period Two, get a wordpress.org hosted blog pros: you have complete and unlimited ability to do anything you have the technical know how to do at your blog cons: you need technical know how, you have to pay for hosting, you have to rely on support forums for help Three, get a flyaddicts hosted blog pros: free hosting, free domain name use, free help and tech support, you're part of a fly fishing and fly tying blog network which will increase your blog's traffic (and if you didn't want people to read, you wouldn't be writing it), access to any theme or plugin you can find (wordpress has a theme library and a plugin library), you cal also have your blog's RSS feed included in the FTF hatches forum- so whenever you publish a new post it shows up here in the hatches forum on ftf. cons: there is only one con, and that is you aren't able to directly edit your site's html or php. This is more of a safety feature than anything as it prevents Will from having to worry about hackers, etc. If you want any of these types of edits made, you just let us know and we take care of it for you- so really, this is a pro, cause you don't have to deal with that stuff. to get a blog at FA, just go there, create an account, and let Will know you want a blog, he or myself will set it up for you, so all you have to worry about is creating content.

yes, and if you're having any problems, Will or myself is glad to help- another bonus you don't get with a blogger hosted site- free tech support. As far as the admin interface goes, it is very intuitive once you figure out what all of the buttons do. Personally, I could care less if anyone uses it or not. Neither Will or myself make any money from it, its just a fun side project. But for what its worth, there is a reason the blog writers who have been around a while use wordpress. Its like using photoshop instead of MS paint.

are you talking about the themes or the admin panel?

why aren't you guys using FlyAddicts to host your blogs? 1) it is owned and operated by the same person who runs this forum 2) it is powered by wordpress, which is like a gazillion times better than blogger/blogspot 3) You have access to thousands of free themes and wordpress plugins which allow you to do all sorts of cool stuff 3) you can use your own domain (www.yourdomain.com) if you want, or just use flyaddicts.com/yourblogname 4) you're part of a network of other fly fishing and fly tying blogs, and a facebook-like social network, which will drive more traffic to your site 5) if you already started a blog somewhere else, you can import it over to flyaddicts in about 2 minutes 6) all of these services are completely free (unless you choose to buy a domain name) http://www.flyaddicts.com

damsel patterns work great for panfish and even a few incidental largemouth on a small pond I regularly fish.

I paid $3 or $4 for a matarelli style whip finisher like 6 years ago, rotary version. I can't see this being a case of you get what you pay for.

I think the generally accepted length is 1.5x to 2x the hook gap. However, the second you start tying your flies to imitate other flies and not actual insects, you're going to start missing out on one of the greatest advantages of tying your own flies. As a beginner, go ahead and use the classic proportions when filling your fly boxes, but when you're out using them, catch the naturals you're imitating and pull out one of these. By measuring the real thing, you'll find out what your proportions are really supposed to be, but the fun only begins there. Tweaking your proportions for various water speeds is where the real fun begins.

the flymen guys had a bunch of these at their booth in somerset, most were tied the jig and pig route as they added some rabbit and used jig style hooks. They also had the rattle systems you mentioned, but with the addition of those plastic strand weed guards you see on the spinning gear jigs- I can't stand those weed guards.

Now that I found CCG, my roll of duct tape has a heavy layer of dust on it.

I've tied a ton of flies with CCG and have had no issues whatsoever. It comes in tack-free versions and has no issues with yellowing or fracturing when your backcast sends it into hard surfaces such as rocks. When a pressure line in my car sprung a leak last winter, I used CCG to patch the hole, and it held no problem. When the chock that holds my driver's side window to the track that guides it up and down broke over the summer, I used CCG to fix it. In each case the CCG underwent extreme temperature fluctuations and didn't fail. The stuff is bombproof, and will never lose clarity. Great product, great company, great service. And I don't get anything for saying all that.

Nice, whats the purpose of the wire on the hook bend?

If I was going to buy a piece of "professional" equipment, it would be a D net We used them a lot in my field bio and ecology classes in college and they work awesome for covering an area in a hurry. Take a few scoops or so and dump the contents into a dish tub, then go through with a turkey baster and suck up all of the critters- then transfer them into debris free vials, jars, etc.

when I lived in Michigan, it usually took 3 business days for the cheapest shipping option. Where I live now, it seems like I never have to wait more than 2. I placed an order early today and the UPS tracker says it will be here tomorrow, and that is for the cheapest shipping option as well.

Check out this interview with Chris Helm, he talks a little bit about hair selection among other things. http://www.hatchesmagazine.com/page/may2006/175

A new addition to the fly pattern database has been submitted by AlexC: Hare's Ear Variant

Don't be embarrassed, you're closer than you know to having that moment where this deer hair stuff will click for ya. My local smallies would eat that in a heartbeat.