hairwing

Even Fred Halford had some wet flies ! I think his go-to was an olive bead head woolly bugger wasn't it ?

Good ! :-)

Terje, You are a skilled photographer. I'd like to make a request if you would consider it. Could you do the same action photo theme with a couple of dry flies (or wet flies) ? To us fly fishers that would be cool to see ! Takk, hairwing

ON GUARD !!!!!

I bookmarked that link. Thanks fellow front range angler!

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ photo #2 K, What a strange world we don't realize we live in. Want to borrow my electron microscope to help you tie that bug?

Traver has a good sense of humor, try reading some of his tales. You may like them. He has a way to poke fun at the sport that is subtle. https://www.google.com/search?q=robert+traver+author&rlz=1C1GGIE_enUS320US325&oq=robert+traver+&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.13606j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8 That is, if you haven't read his stuff already.

Robert Traver is one of my favorite story tellers. You'll find flies and rods and references through the movie. Get you some popcorn and a few brewski's. the movie.......... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6doMwsnySX4

Here's a tip I learned moons ago from Helen Shaw's book "Fly Tying"....move your hand farther from the hook as you wrap if you want the floss to flatten and move it closer to the hook to tighten up the wraps as you rotate the floss around the shank of the hook. To prevent fraying try not to slide your finger along the floss as you wrap. Put a tip or tag (oval tinsel) at the beginning of the floss body to prevent it from slipping off the end of the hook when you fish it. Taper the floss body like a cigar ....skinny..bigger.. than skinny again. Lumps can be smoothed out by rubbing the floss with something like the barrel of your bobbin. Try to manage the bulk of the floss you are tying with. Gauge your flies from streamer bodies, which would use maybe four strands of the spool to cover a lot of area, to small wets using only a single strand. Tapering a floss body seems like a lost art. Good floss work takes practice and patience ...but is it really worth it? My guess is no... unless you are tying some midges like the Miracle Nymph. The white floss of the Miracle Nymph allows the black thread of the under body to create a halo effect. I like flies that have a halo.

I'd say !

Good topic Mike. Recently had a 40 year reunion with four of my ole fly fishing buddy's. Two of the old group of six were MIA but they were included in spirit and we had plenty of tales about them. We were all 20 year old's as a group back then. We exchanged lot's of stories and passed around pics and ole fly boxes and gave some new-age rods some lawn casting for giggles. Geez those were good days ! We showed off the new fly boxes and tackle too ! It's one part of fishing that's worth it....memories. My favorite part.

Hey...you guys sound like your gonna mount those necks in a shadow box ! The day I got mine I started yankin' nails off and paste-in' 'em to the side of a few flies. Don't let them become garage sale bargains or heirlooms at your estate sale...use 'em . If the bugs have you worried, I didn't find any problems with my neck from Estonia, get a "No Pest Strip" from Home Depot and put it in a storage box with a lid. I occasionally find carpet beetle evidence in my zip lock bags...they will eat through the plastic ! The beetles are not from Estonia either, they are home grown right here in my own back yard. Enjoy your capes...tie some flies with them before you get too old to enjoy fishing them.

Bill Logan's dad Bill Sr. wrote an outdoor column for the now defunct Rocky Mountain News in the '70's here in Denver. The focus of Bill's articles was always fly fishing and I would gobble up any information he had to offer and thoroughly enjoyed fishing with him in print. He wrote Tuesdays, Thursdays and a Sunday story and I'll tell you it was all I could do to wait for the each and every paper for the latest Colorado fishing trip news. Bill Sr. fished a lot with Dick O'Conner...my hero. Bill Sr. couldn't tie flies worth a darn and how the kid got so good is a mystery. Bill Jr. did get some of the writing skills from the ole man though. Bill Jr.moved to New Jersey as a young man and now lives only a couple of miles from my hometown. Ironic...I went west and Bill Jr. east. Here's a NY Times article written about Bill Jr....http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/25/nyregion/fishing-lures-too-good-for-fish-practicing-art-fly-tying-with-microscopic.html I'm a fan of Ted Niemeyer too. I wouldn't rate Ted's flies as Ultra Realistic but he has skills I can only dream about. I first learned of Ted in Art Flick's...Master Fly Tying Guide. I can gape at his flies for hours in amazement ! I'll have to check out Kevin McEnerney...that's a new name for me.

Nice flies.....more than pro quality.

I never could get myself to use these things......

I hope everybody understands that JC nails are for fly tyer and fly fishermans eye enjoyment alone and will not be necessary on a fly pattern to catch more fish ! I bought my cape to match historical fly pattern requirements only. Save your money unless you want to tie flies to pass on to your grandkids the original fly recipes for posterity.

Good quality Jungle Cock Feather The best quality jungle cock feathers are expensive. Used mostly with show quality flies. Jungle Cock nails with multiple splits. These low quality jungle cock nails would be used for flies meant for fishing and that will be abused. I have never seen a perfect JC skin. There are always feathers with splits. These feathers can be repaired.

Mine was $44 bucks + $5 shipping. My advice.....BUY ONE !!!

I like the Metz necks. Most all of my dry flies are tied with two opposing hackles to give them a "flared from the wing look" which is appealing to my eye. The length of some genetic hackle can reach a point where it is too long for my tying and becomes waste. Some hackle is advertised with a dense barb count....to me these hackle get too bushy looking and start looking like Dandelion seeds, so to my eye the Metz necks have a pleasing amount of barbs along it's stem and give me hackle that doesn't waste too much of it's length. All said, I can find a place for any hackle in whatever form and producer in my kit and I will find a way to manipulate it to suit my eye, from a $2 dollar India neck to a whatever expensive genetic neck that comes along. The cost of the hackle and my intended use is what will trigger me to buy these hackle not so much public opinion and marketing. I sometimes need small flies and the genetic break-through enabled me to tie hatch matching flies too #24 ...a good thing.

Manning and Co. mopped up the Ravens last night. Made me feel good. Must be a human condition kind of thing...rooting for the home team. The Travathan "hubris fumble" was a negative. Not cool as far as I'm concerned. When will they learn? Song sung since I was a six year old: Take me out to the ball game, Take me out with the crowd; Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don't care if I never get back. Let me root, root, root for the home team, If they don't win, it's a shame. For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out, At the old ball game. Love the spirit of the games but forgive me if I don't tie a fly in their honor. I'd rather eat some peanuts and Cracker Jack, have a beer, and watch the game while I tie up a Royal Coachman.

Polypropylene was introduced as a fly tying material back in the seventies for spinner wings and no'hackle dubbed bodies because it has a Specific Gravity less than water. Fly-Rite was the major supplier. Treated with a paste float-ant the no-hackles tied with pp would catch fish after fish even when they were covered with fish slime as opposed to flies tied with natural furs which quickly became sodden and had to be hung out to dry. Swisher and Richards had a lot to do with making PP a great fly tying material. Nylon became popular when Gary LaFontaine introduced the Emergent Sparkle Pupa. The quality most desired from the tri-lobal nylon was the sparkle it lent to the body which in the minds of anglers imitated the trapped gas of the emergent pupa as it rose to hatch. The nylon was heavier than water and made it the right stuff for nymph and wet fly applications. All of these synthetic materials will "crossover" and can be used for all different categories of flies but I like to use the properties to full advantage and tie my dry flies with PP and wets, nymphs and streamers with nylon. When I hit the craft stores I don't consider any of the sales help to know about fly tying, so I read labels. The label will tell you what it is that you have and it's up to you to judge what usefulness the material has for your fly tying. Unknown synthetics I test in a bowl of water and look for the qualities I want in a fly material....simple as that for me. Parachutes (as in WWII jumping out of an aircraft not the fly pattern) and nylon go together. Snip some and toss in a bowl of water and the stuff will show it's sinking properties. My advise to you is that if you find a synthetic material that works wonders for you get a life time supply and then some. The fabric, yarn, fiber industry is fickle and constantly is changing. Natural furs and feathers regenerate like rabbit is rabbit and will still be rabbit when you and I are gone, stuff like z-lon and Sawyers 477 are of passed legend and way overpriced on the rare fly tying commodities market because they are no longer being made. Here's a rope I pulled apart I got from Harbor Freight....lots goin' on with this material. The golden glow next to the brilliant blue stuff is a scary imo of golden pheasant crest.

I'm a pre-genetic tyer and I always find myself digging through the bargain bin necks when I find one ...there are some treasures can be in there. Lot's of browns, gingers, and badgers, and a few variegated colors. You won't find the grizzlies and dun colors but you could go the dyeing option for some dun. I wish I could have found these bargains back in the day. Good India necks were running about $4-$8 bucks a pop in those days and those prices were top dollar (read expensive for the times). When I see them today for $3-4 I am compelled to buy! You'll need to tune up your hackle pliers skills with these necks. #14 might only be 1 1/4 " long as compared to a genetic hackle which can be almost a foot long. A #20 could be 1/2 " long. Multiple hackle are required for most ties. Old habits don't die...even with the modern length of the genetic hackle I find myself cutting the genetic hackle and making the two hackle tie collars. Too my eye anyway, the India necks just dress a nicer looking hackle collar than the modern saddle feather. Tying India hackles back to back gives a flare from the base of the wing you just can't get with the genetic saddle; and whether this has anything to do with catching more fish is certainly debatable. Used to be able to tell a India neck from a Chinese neck by the way they were skinned out around the head. I wouldn't swear too that observation today. Chinese necks were generally bigger and had larger hackle sizes than the India capes. I am currently in love with a $3 silver badger neck I rescued from the bargain bin and use it for tying the base collar on Gordon's fly the "Bumblepuppy". Those tiny brown neck hackles from the tip of the cape I use for stonefly tails. All my wet coachman's are collared with India rooster coachman brown hackles. Before I go the microfibbet route I search necks for tailing material when tying some of the vintage dries, if you find some good spade hackle your in the money.

If you'd like to do a little browsing I'm sure you'll find a title or two here......... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_fly_fishing_(species_related)...or here...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_fly_fishing_(fly_tying,_stories,_fiction) or here....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_fly_fishing You can actually read some of them that have the adobe reader icon. Happy hunting!

Another POV.... Some of the flies in your box have wire ribs, some don't, does it matter? No it's your box! Let's say you are a pro tyer and make an agreement to tie 100 dozen "whatever flies" with a fly shop. The fly shop gives you a pattern for the "whatever fly" and you prepare yourself at the bench for the grueling task ahead of you and decide to value engineer the pattern and eliminate the wings because you feel they aren't necessary. A month of tying and you let a sigh of relief and your done. Presenting your flies to the shop owner he looks and immediately asks, "Were's the wings"? Ought o, guess what? He ain't a gonna buy 'em! Your bad man. That's why you put wire rib on some EHC and some you don't. Make any sense?

Yeah...I know patents on flies are kinda snooty and against "the code" but fear not as long as you don't have 2 million packaged in China for your profit, I don't think JT will be after you.....I hope not anyway.