SILKHDH

I have used it in the Arkansas at Salida Colorado & lower Rio Grand in Colorado below Rio Grand Res. during stone fly hatch with great results. Browns and rainbows. Color was to match hatch. Some insects were olive and others were orange. Depended on the elevation you were at. That's my two cents.

Well, If you go to the fly pattern database on this site and go to search, then type in "Razorback" you will get two totally different flies. Here is a picture of a fly from Orvis. You could forward this picture to him and have him confirm this is the pattern he wants. Hope this helps.

Funny. They don't come with a material holding spring. I bought the spring at a hardware store to put on mine. So did you get that vise from my basement?

LOL, just kidding. I checked, mine is still there.

Go to sagainstruments.com . They have it. Called a Saga Mariat. $6.00. I have one from years ago. I swear I got it from Cabela's for $15.00 . The pic is from SAGA sight.

_{Go watch some Nor-vise videos on you tube. I have seen a small piece of rubber tubing that is stored on the bobbin, slid off the bobbin, down the thread and on to the fly. When done spinning, you return the tubing piece back to the bobbin. And yes, your thread is always running through the tubing piece. I do a half hitch my self. It only take 2 seconds.}

go to you tube. "popper face jig" Is the one used by Kirt Dietrich. This guy knows what he is doing. Also I typed in "popper cutting jig" in google and got many hits.

Must have been a new guy running the laminating machine that day. LOL. He squirted WD-40 on a sqeaky roller that day. Hey if they went out of the way to replace the bad product, then hats off to the manufacturer.

S.T.P. foam frog has caught me my biggest bass. Any stupid chunk of foam with some stuff hanging off it will work. LOL.. I have had good days with worm flies too. Simple to tie too. Dahlberg diving minnow is my favorite close to cat tails. I think gurglers are a easy tie but haven't fished mine yet. I keep tying on the old relyables. I have thousands of flies and only use the same three over and over. LOL.. I really think the body of water will help decide the fly. If it has lots of shoreline cover, I like top water in low light. Use a good weedless sinking pattern in bright light conditions. Do you see frogs on the bank? Well, maybe a frog is a good idea. Is there a population of shad in the lake? If so, I recommend a shad type fly. No shad but lots of rocks, use a crawfish or minnow pattern in the rocks. Do you see bass rising on bait fish? A shallow running baitfish is the ticket. Just being observant can tell you the right lure a lot of time. "Also asking the old timers sitting on the docks can help too" LOL. Now that I think about it, hell I'm an old timer.

utyer,

I like the bend backs. I have been wanting to do them for a while now. I think it would be very effective "as weedless goes". I guess one would have to experiment with the amount of bucktail for the weed guard to get the effect one would want. I figured I would put a lot of bucktail on the first flies I tied. I figure I can always trim some off at the lake if I was missing strikes. I really like the bend back design. I'm printing the pics you posted for future reference.

Hello fellow Kansan! I live in Mcpherson. I use a little fly tied to look like a tube jig all the time. Nothing more than a bead head, black chenille body, and chartreuse marabou tail. I catch a lot on it. Also S.T.P. frog and Daulberg diving minnow, are favorites for bass in the evening. The first pic. shows the jigs in the upper right. Also in the bottom right there are some baitfish made of craft fur. They have a small glass rattle in them. I have killed the largemouth with this. The rattle helps in stained water. We got a lot of that here. A small foam beetle as an indicator with a size 12 or 14 glass bead caddis pupa in red or green beads as a dropper has been killer for bluegill. Another fun trick is to fish around feeders with wooly buggers and flies tied to look like the fish food for channel cats. But be ready, they will take you for a ride. Farlington lake is by you. I have had a blast in a float tube casting black and olive wooly buggers and flies made to look like pellets to the feeders for cats. Took longer to reel in the fish than to hook up. Fun fight too. Its the first cove across the damn, coming in from the north west . Will be on the right side of the damn road. Long skinny cove with camp sites on both sides on the cove. Funny thing, I had people lining both sides of the cove watching me pound the cats on a fly rod. They could hear my reel clicker screaming constantly. LOL. They never saw that before. And I mean POUNDING THEM!!! Cast out, just let it sink, watch your line, and BOOM!!! the line goes straight, and FISH ON!! One after another, after another, after another, ect.....I would enjoy fishing the gar run at Fall River some day. Need a good partner that knows when they are going. If you never did gar on fly rod, your missing out.

P.S. : 99.99 percent of the flies you see I tied. I also just got a bass boat with a 225 outboard. Maybe we could team up some day.

I live in Kansas and have fished for gar many times. Crazy because every gar I have ever caught has been on a modified rope fly.

The only thing I do is add a little flash to the rope. Blue and pearl flash to be exact. Some times you have to tease them like a cat with a string when they follow. If they do follow, strip faster. Make them chase it. Make them think it is fleeing, or they will refuse it. This may not always work, but it does work.

Also, the gar that are moving around don't seem to be as aggressive as the ones that are sitting still. Waiting to ambush prey.

Here are some I found on internet. Maybe one of these will work for you.

I saw this and I know the truth. I have E-mailed Lawrence himself. This all came about when I contacted him to ask if I could start making LAW style vises to sell. He wrote this in his letter to me. He would not appreciate me making his LAW style vises to sell. Which was fine by me, that's why I asked him first. He also said, and I quote "He has never said he was not ever going to make the vises again . He is taking a break from it " He did not say how long of a break. I brought up the copy vise to him made by CAE engineering. His reply was that he wasn't happy about it but he was not going to take any legal actions. Life is too short. He also told me the person was thrown out of a fly tying show in England for showing this copy vise. This is from Lawrence himself. So take it to the bank or write him yourself like I did.

SILKHDH

The picture of the "Live capture trap" reminded me of when my father got tired of the squirrels digging up his garden. So he got a trap like shown in the post above. He would catch the squirrels and take them to the edge of town and release them. He kept on having squirrel problems. So he started to mark the squirrels with white spray paint to see if the ones he was catching and releasing where returning to his garden. Later that year there was a article in the paper about rare squirrels with white markings on them see around town. Boy did the family have a big laugh over that. We never told anyone. This was many years ago and my father has since then has passed away. So I think its Ok to let the secret out. True story! LOL

I'm the guy who made his own LAW vises and I only did it as a challange to see if I could.

I'll just say this, I can tie any fly there is including a full dress atlantic salmon fly using a pair of vise grips. There are those that do it using no vise. In there fingers. Lord only knows how. I won't even attempt it. I have met alot of fly fishermen who where more than happy to show off there expensive gear to me. I only laugh at them and reply "I love guys like you" , they ask why, I reply "because I love out fishing people like you on my little cheap fly outfits". The moral is "better to out perform than to show off" or "I'de rather kick ass on a crappy vise than suck on a expensive one"!! P.s. That vise is beautiful. No dought about it. It really is a work of art. It will make someone very proud. It just won't be me. LOL

Thanks for the free add for the base Paul. I was going to post a picture of your vise when I saw this forum. Then when I panned down, there it was...LOL

Doug Stout

I use both. Clamp with an extension on my main vise thats at my bench. I have several on pedistals. They are granite. I make them.

They have a type of rubber on the base that will not slip unless you tie with a wench for a bobbin. I can guarantee the Nor-Vise "I made" won't move..lol..Plus if glue or cement gets on it, you just scrape it off with a straight edge razor and it is clean as new. No the razor does not scratch the granite. I have many types and colors of granite. The one picture is of the light colored ones I have. What do you think?

The black one has the rotary tension knob moved from the rear(see the silver one) to in front of the rotary handle.(see the black one). I own the slver one. If you rotate back and forth alot looking at a fly, it will slowly unscrew the silver tension knob. They added the little black screw on top of the silver one to help this. My silver one doesn't have this. I think the black one is better in that way. They both have a delron bearing housing. My older one has an aluminum bearing housing with o'rings for bearings. I will say that in contacting Griffin on my problems I have with the vise, they have offered to replace my vise with a newer one. I haven't done it yet but that just shows there GREAT customer servise.

All in all I like my vise. Great hook holding jaws.

Endemic, WOW! I too fish for cats with flies. But never got a flathead before. Mainly channel cats. They pull like cazy. But that flathead is a fun , fun , fun, sounding fight. I have access to hybrid bluegills that are a foot long. Small compaired to that , but fun.

I got to say that gar fishing is pretty cool. You get to site fish. See the fish, throw at it, watch it chase the fly, grab the fly, shake its head, and boom , the fight is on. I love it. Exciting as it gets.

I use these.. I made them all myself. As you can see. I like rotary.

I use "True Rotary" and yes there is a differance. True Rotary has jaws that are some way adjustable so the hook shank is allways in-line with the axis of the vise. When you rotate the hook , the shank stays in one place. Doesn't go up and down. Just like lathe. Is great for wrapping chenille, and wire. For example, you can make a Wooly Bugger way faster on a rotary.

I'll challenge anybody to that race. A Nor-Vise is a rotary on steiroids. Really in its own category of rotary. If you want to see the speed of a rotary vise, then go to you tube and watch Norm Norland tie on a Nor-Vise.

SUPER FAST!!!!

Mikechell,

You crazy!!! You allways make me laugh. That was a good one. I have a couple of those creatures running around. But when I tackled one and snipped off some hair, I got 5 to 10 years. Like you said,, it grows back. I didn't see the problem.

P.s. I have never gone to jail. This is only a joke..

Hey people, there are some really cool pictures on here. This was a neat post. I enjoted it.

I watched Larry Dahlberg catch the biggest pike he ever caught on a (I believe it was white) Dahlberg Mega Diver while watching The In Fisherman TV show. Then it clamped down on his hand when he was opening up its mouth to show you how far the pike had swallowed it..LOL..They showed again in slow motion..LOL.. He said a bad word. Deer hair and pike? I cant believe they last long though. Rainy's tsunami is a good one. But rabbit tail is heavy. It soaks up water.

Tie a tsunami only sub. the rabbit zonker tail with Icelandic sheep or synthetic. It won't soak up as much water. Fewer false casts to wring it out. Tie any thing with a Foam head, synthetic tail, epoxy or resin on the foam, will catch the pike and will be durable, plus won't soak up water. The fly that KHoss posted is perfect. Looks like a good castable fly.

When you go big, don't forget about castability. (IS THAT A REAL WORD.. CASTABILITY???) Light, aero-dynamic, and materials that don't soak up water. If it drops like a rock ten feet away from you, what good is it. I've seen many GREAT looking flies that weren't worth a *#$*#@ on the end of a fly rod.

I'll tell you this. I asked John McLain of feathersmc.com the same question. Now this guy has Indian crow, Blue Chatterrer, Quetzal, Bustard, all the super expensive stuff. He told me to store in plastic containers with a 1" section of a No-Pest-Strip. Rip open the No-Pest-Strip, take out the yellow strip, cut into pieces, and throw a piece in your container. If he depends on it to protect his expensive feathers, thats good enough for me.

I've had one for around 8 years. I think the hook holding power is great. The only problem I have had was the material spring kept flying off. Finally on time it flew off and I couldn't find it. Called Griffin, and they sent me a new one, no questions asked. I have the silver version and If you rotate the vise alot, the adjustment knob will slowly unscrew itself. I told them about this and I believe they fixed the problem with another screw on the rotation handle collar. They even asked me if I wanted a newer bearing housing assembly. NO CHARGE. There customer servise is really good. That will keep me around every time. All in all, I like mine, lifetime warranty, enough said.