buggybob

Rockworms got the right approach. I also wash the skins after they have dried, yeah it means you have to dry them all over again but you never know where the birds have been and it cleans out a lot of dirt and the vermin you have killed by freezing.

Are you fishing this on a floating line or a sink tip ? With the foam back it would have great action floating back up on a sink tip.

The synthetics are great for both long and short patterns, really good for the big baitfish patterns. That said, if they have the same motion in the water as the natural materials go for it. In the case of the coho candy, it would be difficult to find a synthetic hair with as much motion as the artic fox called for. Marabou would work if you don't want to use hair.

Neer hair is fairly stiff kind of like polar bear, works well for several patterns mostly streamers, Flash N Slinky is softer, it would stay stiffer in current than the artic fox but still may have some limitations.

So my best advice is to think about what you want the wing to do in the water, stay realtively steady (stiff) or move when in the current or under retrieval conditions. To do that you may need to handle the material to see how it feels.

Just take the thread spool out and pull the legs slightly together. Try that and if it needs more tension repeat until you feel it is right. Sometimes if I feel lazy I will just run the thread around one leg from the spool to the bobbin. That will increase the tension enough to not allow free spooling.

Even a Temmincks/Satyr cross could be an interesting feather not found often.

Your chances of buing a silver pheasant skin are very low unless it has been around for a while or the bird was grown in the US. Bird flu has kept those hides out of the country. You can buy strung feathers, check with your local fly shop.

I'm with Mike Boyer, any moulted feathers from the Western tragopan I would be interested in.

Are you sure they are Western tragopan and not Satyr ? The Westerns are extremely rare even in the wild and everything I've read about them is they are very difficult to rear in captivity.

I'm with Kirk D. I used to subscribe to them all but when I saw the same exact fly described in an article twice in less than two years and claimed by different individuals I started to really pay attention to how much ended up being the same drivel. Unfortunately if I even look at most of them at the newstand, I can see everything I want in about two minutes.

I have started to get Fly Tyer lately, it helps when the wife bought me the subscription. I think they have started paying attention to detail again and are coming out with some good issues. The rest of them just seem to be in it for the advertising revenue.

Great answers for a trip to the Rockies. If you don't want the prairie then the Big Horn is not your choice, it's smack dab in the middle of it.

Sorry, just your basic west slope cutthroats. Greenback cutthroats are in Colorado.

Good looking flies. Try using a smaller diameter thread. The heads I can see look like it's a 210 dernier (3/0 +). Using 6/0 or even 8/0 will give you the smaller heads. If you know you still have a hackle and wing to apply at that point adjust the end of the body appropriately. Plan the finish of the fly based on where your body ends. A little practice with that point will have those flies right up there.

And the worst news is that they suspect someone had bait out for the bears somewhere near the campground ! Not known is for what purpose. They are investigating the baiting claim now.

Sparkle organza, otherwise known as bridal veil material. Tease the fibers out of the weave and strap it on. Available at a fabric store near you, and pretty darned cheap really.

Great looking fly. Those will work for a lot of warmwater species too.

Now I got to get busy.

Depends on how you want your bugger to look. That's the beauty of tying your own. You don't have to make them look like everybody elses.

Most commercial ones are tied with saddle hackle, neck hackle if sparse is the look you are after, or schlappen for the long and dense fibered look.

Big bunny leeches in single or two tone colors, and Dahlberg divers are the only other thing I would think about. Otherwise I think you've got it covered.

Welcome to the club ! Wait until its not just your head that hurts when you wake up in the morning.

Haven't used gills on my chironomids for over 20 years. Fishing next to anglers that had gills on theirs, I was able to catch as many or more as they did.

Bottom line, if you like them and you feel more confident with gills on go for it.

Chironomid pupae bodies, chironomid dries, etc.

Just another voice from one of the long time commercial tying guys.

It sounds like you don't have a fly shop nearby. How do you get your materials now ? Mail order ? If you have trouble coming up with materials now because of low funds or no fly shop close by, you will have a much harder time when you have an order even if it is from friends.

Try tying a dozen of one of your favorite flys in a single size, in a single color, in a single session. Lay them down in order from #1 to #12 and decide how many of them are saleable, not just useable, saleable. In other words do they all look alike ?, do they look like something you would buy ? Did you enjoy tying them all in one sitting ?

I'm not trying to dissuade you from embarking on this venture, but if materials are difficult to get or you can't find or afford the hooks, or didn't like tying that many flies in a single session it's going to be tough.

As others have said, you won't make enough money to live on unless you can tie 2,000 to 3,000 dozen a year, and even making enough for more materials and a fishing trip or two seems to dissapear "somewhere".

As Day5 said, family, friends and social life take a back seat. That's a cost you can't price.

You might want to check and see if that pesky woodpecker is on the endagered species list. If it is you could have some "time" on your hands.

Shewey's fly was originally known as the Spawning Purple Spey. Others have shortened it so that the confusion exists.

Paul, John Shewey also has a relatively new book out on steelhead flies as well as the spey book.

Glass beads on mono with an epoxy coating. Lots of color possibilities from a bead store.

Have you looked in Art Lingrens books on flies of BC ? He's got a couple books, one on the old patterns and one on the contemporary patterns. Unless they are real regional, lodge or lake specific patterns they might be in there. I've never heard of them before and I'm not home to check the books.

There are a lot of different acid dyes out there. Rit works if you use the liquid form otherwise you can get really variable results because of the dye mixtures in the powdered form. Fly Dyes and Jacquard Dyes are also good, have a variety of colors for fly tyers and are fairly readily available. Art supply stores usually carry the Jacquard dyes and you can google Fly Dyes and order direct from the manufacturer if you want.

It's pretty easy no mattter what you use for a dye.