BuzFly

Another thing that will help is to tie three or six of the same flies at one sitting.

Consistency is more about material prep than the actual tying of the fly. Layout all the material and precut/portion it for every fly in advance. For example, having to much/little of a material or three strands of flash vs 5 strands can make a difference.

Some good and not so good information here. Use a good acid dye to start. Also, you have to prewash the hide with a detergent and make sure that all the hair is completely saturated. This is especially true for feathers. Fat, Grease and dirt are you biggest enemies because they block the dye form being absorbed. The cleaner and more relaxed the fibers and the cell walls are the better your dye will be absorbed. Before you wash it, you should weigh the dry deer hair or the item you are going to dye. Most acid dyes you will use 1.5% to 3% dye per pound of material. For deer hair you can get away with a dye bath at about 140F but higher is ok and sometimes necessary for difficult colors. You should also add about 3% to 5% salt to your bath and that is also true for your acid. Pre mix the dye in a cup or two of hot or boiling water and then add it to your bath. Add your material to the bath and keep an eye on it and stir it often. A well run dye bath can take 15 minutes up to a few hours to complete. I like to add my acid about half way through the dye bath. If you are doing dark colors, you may have use about 5%, but any more is a waist. Also, be patient and let the dye do the work. Most dies are mixtures of other dies. Some colors will take up faster than others. So you may start off with your material looking gray and then yellow and then the final color. You know you are done when you reached you desired color or the dye bath is clear. Also, your material can only absorb so much dye so adding more dye will not make it darker in most cases. Adding more acid at the end of the bath after you are sure the material has absorbed as much as it can will often help it absorb more color. Also, sometime you just have to turn off the heat and walk away and let it cool down. Black you an let it sit overnight after you turned off the heat. Clean materials and a clean dye bath are important. Although people like Cool-Aid, I avoid it like the plague. All the other additives and flavorings are getting in the way of the dye particles and you are overpaying for the minuscule about of dye you get in the pack. Last note, just because a dye is labeled one color, does not mean that is the color you will end up with. Trial and error and taking good notes of your weights and measures is what it takes to get a good dye job. Black and Olive are very difficult for many reasons to get to come out the same every time.

Since you have all the Light Cured Acrylics laying around, you should also test the markers on them on a Fleye like a Surf Candy. Also test them with Devcon 30 minute epoxy. Some markers bleed, change colors or disappear when coated with LCA's. I know Sharpies done like CCG but love Devcon Epoxy. This is a problem I have everyday using LCA's. Brad

Since your space is long and narrow I would design it around the chair and table you are going to use. You might want to put the computer under the window with a desktop spanning wall to wall so you won't be blocking the air duct. On the floor I would get a few of the plastic pads and make them go from your computer to your tying desk regardless if you have carpet or hardwood. Tying desk I would get three or four of the multi draw plastics draw sets like you have so they will slide under your desk. Make sure they are deep enough or wide enough so they can hold you saddle/necks. If you get the same ones you can swap the draws around at will to rearrange you materials. This is a big thing to me. Don't use them to support the desk. You should be able to slide them under your desk. The sides could be plywood with the same wood banding run verticle. The desktop could be a sheet of plywood with a 1 1/2" wood band around it with a few stiffeners running across it. The top could be polyurethaned or gray Formica. Put a plywood back on it to make it free standing. Make sure you chair will roll between the two areas. You might have to make the left side of your tying desk narrower to let the chair pass. The last part is good lighting. The more light the better. Best of luck.

What material is the popper made out of plastic, soft foam or balsa? What kind of paint did you use and how long did you let it set. It looks like it is from the popper or paint shrinking or moving.

great info given her guys. how about you ask some of your friends what they use and if you can barrow it and tie some flies on it. when it comes to vises, cheep is cheep. if you want true rotary they you will have to look at vise like Renzetti Traveler, Griffin Odyssey, Griffin Montana Mongoose, Peak. Norevise are great if you tie flies the way he does. What it a Vise - Something to hold a hook. What Can A Vise Be - Your Hands, Vise Grips, Simple Bench Vise or a Fly Tying Vise. What Does It Have To Do - HOLD A HOOK like the boxer and briefs decision. the only way you will know what is good is if you try one tying what you will tie on it 80% of the time. Ask a friend, go to a shop or go to a club fly tying night. first hand experience........... Brad

Here is one of them. Very simple video that I did. I have shot a bunch of theirs. The best vidos are the ones produced by Tight Lines Video Productions in N J. Have you shot any of the?

Yes it is. It s harder for the companies to ship their products and receive them. Some companies would harves there birds, skin them and then send them overseas for processing and dying. Now they are getting shipments flagged. Whiting is still selling their long saddles direct to the fashion industry overseas because it is still a hot thing overseas. They are also making it harder for dealers to get saddles because they are forcing them to purchase capes with them. Whiting is not supporting their dealers as they should. The growers have to have their facility test clean for three minthing in a row before they can harvest and ship. Strung feathers are also being affected. It's a shame but the synthetics are taking over. Brad

I also prefer First Person. Head On Belly Shit is the most annoying view. I don't care what shirt you are waring or what you eat because of the stains on it or the ever moving background. First Person can be done shooting with the camera between you and the vise. I shoot mine a little different. My camera is mounded about 6 feet behind me and about 6 feet off the floor shooting over my right shoulder. The only trick is to turn your vice a little bit to the side to get it almost parallel to the camera lens. Just zoom in really tight and your will be fine. Another trick I do is once I set my pedestal vise and it is in the proper spot, I mark its location on my dest with Blue Painter Tape. Lighting is key. The more light you have the better. Also, the further you can put the background behind the vise the better for me. I can then light the background with one set of lights and then light the vise with another set. This way I can get rid of any shadows and hopefully when I tie I wont cast any shadows on the background. I will replace the audio and will do a voice over. When I shoot a video after every step I purposely let go of my thread and let the bobbin hand straight down out of the frame and then count to three and then go to the next step. This gives me fixed editing point. I will always cut out as much dead air out of the video. My goal is 4 to 7 minutes videos. You will loose you audience after it. Also, a picture of the finned fly at the begging and a list or material before the tying that you can read is a must. MY BIGEST PET PEAVES: - Annoying Backgrounds - Looking at your Chin or Beard or a Hawaiian Shirt - Hearing the Kids or Cat or Your Mom calling you for dinner in the background - Making me with while you run to the basement to get your Possum Ass Fur - The "Speed Up" Videos or Turbo tying - Showing you Drinking or smoking during the video - The person that must tell a 7 minute story before the tying boasting about him and how great he is. I am a flyting GOD.. - Putting the bag of material or thread up to the camera for 1.743 seconds to show us what you used - Not zoomed in tight - Loud and obnoxious music Just my thought..... Brad

Look into getting a rechargeable Dremal tool. You can do wonders with them on foam. Look around for the bur bits that are round to do cupped faces and the small drill set to drill recessed eyes up to 1/4".

Most of my saltwater hooks I will salvage. I tie on mostly Gamakatsu and starting to use some of the Partridge hooks. Very rarely do I try to save the materials because they tend to get all over the place and hard to use when they get all out of sorts. Flies I don't like I will fish myself or use them for toothy critters like Bluefish. The ones that are not bad but I can't sell I will give to friends or others that are new to the sport.

Great tips. I do think that many people think what a wet fly looks like out if the water is what it will look like in the water. In the salt a series of flies called Buffy Flies used this technique 20 or more years ago. I find that this is not always true, especially if you are using limp materials like Marabou. The spreader technique using tubing or other materials will work most of the time. The only way to know is to tie up a few, get time on the end of your line and toss them in a water. Putting flies in the sink or bathtub and motorboating them around is not that good. I think it is useless test for most flies I tie. Another way to make Marabou "stand up" is to put it on a dubbing loop, especial if you can do it on stainless wire. Brad....................

Most of the time cheep is cheep and cheep quality.... Hooks are hooks and eyes are eyes, but natural materials and some of the synthetics can varry a lot from pack to pack. I see so many people try to squeeze pennies out of a rock. If you are going to deal with an online retailer, fined one that is small and you can talk to. A simple phone call or email saying I am looking for a pink widget do you have the one I am looking for or asking I need this thingamabob do you have it or what else will do or or do I really need it. The big online stores just go to a bin location and pick the first one they see. They won't pull three or four out and look at then and see if it matches what you requested. I try to do this all the time for my customers. A good place should also not be afraid to say I have the item but it's not what you are looking for or the texture is wrong or it's a crappy batch, so I will ask that you let me order some more in for you. I look at dealing with an online retailer like finding a good butcher, not just settling what is prepackaged in plastic wrap and has the $2 off manager special...

if you bring natural materials check to make sure you can bring it in and out of the countries you are flying to, even the ones you are only landing in. Currently peacock here is a big problem as long as deer hair and hair on a hide or tail. Feathers can be a problem because of the bird flue. I ship materials internationally and I need a permit and have to make sure what is allowed in that country. They are starting to crack down on it. Synthetics you can't go wrong with. I would not bother brining head cement or any liquids unless they are absolutely necessay for what you plan to tie. You can alway buy a bottle of nail polish and toss it our before you come home. Plan out the patterns you are tying and only bring that.

This is always the chicken or the egg debate. I always suggest that you ask a friend if they have an old vise you can use and some tools to get started. Vice, scissor and bodbin is all you need to start. Then ask your buddy I want to fish at XYZ during the summer/winter/fall/spring what are the three simplest flies I could used for that area that will work. Stress SIMPLE and hopefully larger flies. Develop a simple materials list and try to only get two or three types/sizes of hooks and you are good to go. For the salt, the first flies I teach are the Clouser, Deceiver and Banger. These three flies will teach you most of the techniques you will meed to tie hundreds of patterns and catch fish. Just remember to limit yourself to a few patterns and only take on a new pattern once you get good at making the fist one. It will take you about a dozen or more flies to get good a one pattern. Materials are cheep for the most part and don't be afraid to cut all the materials off a fly and reuse the hook. It far better to start with a cheep vise like a Thompson "A" that will cost you between $20-$40. It only has to hold a hook. Once you get into it and have tried other vises and tied a few 100 flies, will you start to understand what vise will work for you and the features that you "need". Brad

Great scientific info above. How old is the line, was it new when you purchased it, what brand is it, was it baked in your car for the summer? I would clean it using a bucket of water and just detergent as shown on a few youtube videos. Then loosely coil (10" or 12" coils) it up and let it dry. Before you treat it make a 40'-50' cast and let it sit on top of the water with no leader or fly on the line. You should have the compete head and some of the level line out on the water. Don't just throw a pile of line on the water. See what happens. It should float even without any treatment. If is sinks like a rock, go back to who you purchased it from or call the people that made it and ask them for some help and a replacement. Any good line company would like to hear from you and help you get the line you need. If it floats, you had a dirty line and it needed to be cleaned. After the test cast, clean it with a towel an then then treat it with a line dressing and let it dry loosely coiled up overnight and then put it back on your spool. Brad PS - I don't think water migration in the end of a line is a problem. Also, most modern fly lines for reputable companies work very well out of the box. The cheep $15/$20 unboxed imported lines are exactly what you pay for. Some will work flawlessly for years and other will be crap wright out of the plastic bag.

Over the last few years I have started to switch all my rods over to TFO rods. I have them from a 5wt though 10wt. I have found the BVK, Axiom and Mangrove to be great rods and they do what I want them to do. I might be a good idea to also look at the TFO site and look at the chart that shows the performance cures that relates to Casting, Lifting and Presentation. It was a big help for me picking the rods for the situations I like to fish from casting under mangroves/docks and having to power to pull the fish clear of the structure, to casting for large Jacks and having enough lifting power to get them to the boat. The only rod that I am keeping is an old Sage RP 4p pics 8 wt. Brad PS - All rods break if you use them enough or are attached by the vicious Flying Fan Fish or the Snapping Door Turtle.

Its that time once more........

MikeV - You can always call the online retailer and explain what you are looking for and most of them will do the best they can to get it for you. I know Greg at Whitewater Flies does this all the time with he feathers he sells. I do this also when I sell my Bucktails and other materials through my site. Most online retailers will answer the phone or a well placed email. Not being able to hold something in your hands and see and feel it is the downside to online sales. The upside is that most online retailers have access to almost anything you will ever need, but it might take some time. Brad

looks good. never can have to much light. as others said, solid background is better. also see if you can shoot it from in front of the vise or from over the shoulder. best of luck.

A variation of Steve Farrar's Flounder Fly.....

If you do get epoxy in the duel plunger tubs you can make one quick fix to make your life a lot simpler and get better results. Take a utility knife and cut the typically oval black piece of plastic in half. This is the piece on the very top of the plunders. Now each side will move independently. Took me years to figure that one out. I still get my deacon in the large squeeze bottles because I use so much of it. If I was only going to use it once in a wile, I would get the plungers and separate the top. Best of luck... Brad

Jason ask if I would do these for the swap and I agreed. It could be construed as a very very loose interpretation of a Clouser. Show us what you got and pimp out your Clousers. We all can attach an eye, some flash and a two clumps of bucktail or other material to a hook. Time to step it up a few notches. Brad

Jason count me in. Thanks for the PM reply. I will do the Ultra Shrimp Jig Hook Fly as you requested. Brad