RagingBull

that is pretty cool, do you have a picture of it with the lights on? just curious how it is tied up.

Yeah you can really find some deals at the craft stores. They also generally have a good selection of boxes and containers for hooks and beads and such. Also i agree that alot of these fly shops are a bit on the high side when it comes to cost. I try to help them out when i only need an item or 2 but any big orders i make i do online.

Ha! I have over a couple of grand sunk in materials and I'm still waiting for that to happen more often than not. -- Mike lol You wernt supposed to tell him that i was trying to give the guy some hope

nice fly, will have to add a couple to my box. thanks and tight lines

Thanks for the info guys.

When i was growing up we raised chickens and turkeys and i gotta say its not that much fun. It was well before i got into fly tying but i dont think i would want to do it again. About the only bonus we got out of raising birds was they really put a hurting on the biting insects.

The main trout stream that i fish is just loaded with small crayfish. I was wondering if anyone uses a crayfish pattern for trout and has had success with it. If so does anyone have a relativly simple yet small pattern that they would be willing to share? I was thinking like a size 10 or 12 hook maybe even smaller. Like i said there are a ton of crayfish in the stream but they are smaller than i normally see. Thanks and tight lines

Looks almost too pretty to cast. lol almost. nice fly.

very simple pattern and i could just visualize the fibers dancing in the water. will have to give it a try. Thanks

very nice fly

nice lookin fly

Yeah it does add up pretty quick. But the nice thing is that that materials you buy should last some time. And down the road you will get to a point where you see a pattern you want to tie and you already have all the materials you need to tie it.

very nice

That is pretty much the exact same reason as to why i got into the fly tying world. I agree that there is something to it. Also your flies look pretty good and i hope you enjoy this new hobby as much as most of us do and welcome to the forums.

i agree that if i made a living bass fishing i would probably use the tuna pole technique along with the 40 lb line but since that is not my livelyhood (at least it doesnt pay my bills lol) i choose to go with lighter tackle to make more interesting. Also i generally use an improved cinch knot on all my flies but the most important part is wetting or lubricating the line before drawing it tight. I do have an 8wt that i bought specifically for steelhead and it works fine and is actually more suited for the task but i find that my arm is alot less fatigued at the end of the day when fishing the 5wt just because the overall weight of the outfit is lighter. You also have to keep in mind that when i make a trip to erie its at least 10-12 hours on the stream and most weeks its 2 sometimes 3 days every week from early september until the streams freeze over (normally middle of december), that adds up to more casts than i care to count so those couple of ounces more in the 8wt outfit can really take its toll.

Most of my nymphs have beads on them and i generally tie up different color and size beads on the same pattern for the different size hooks. for an example i will put a 1/8th black nickle bead on a size 14, 7/64th brass on a 16, and a 3/32nd nickle on a 18 of the same colored pattern. This way no matter what the depth or flow is i can fish any single pattern at any depth i want to. It is a little excessive but what else am i going to do until the water gets soft again besides tie flies.

Yeah the biggest thing that i have found is knot strength when it comes to steelhead. at least in the erie tribs (have never fished for them anywhere else) they get very spooked very easily so you have to use a 3-4lb tippet and if you dont have the right knot it doesnt matter what pole you have your not going to land them and will end up donating your fly more times than not.

Stockard has it. http://www.jsflyfishing.com/cgi-bin/item/S...h-Chenille.html I have never used that particular chenille but i do like the looks of it. Might have to pick up a couple colors on my next order. Also the scuds look pretty good Tight Lines

I agree with most of you that his posts on youtube are great. I have learned alot about fly tying and alot of new patterns from him and look forward for him to post more videos

nice fly

Well said kirk

welcome to the the world of fly tying. Once you get the wooly buggers to where you like i would recommend checking out youtube. There are alot of good instructional videos on there and they have a ton of different patterns to try. Not only do they have step by step of the patterns themselve but also alot of good videos on how to say whip finish, or twist dubbing, apply hackle.... the list goes on forever. anyways good luck and happy tying.

A 5wt will land a steelhead. you cant horse it as much as you could with say an 8wt but it is possible. It would be like catching a 20" bass on a 5 ft ultra light spin rod. The tip of the rod is pretty much going to be touching the butt, however maybe its just me but i prefer to fish a slightly undersized rod, makes it more interesting and you have to work to land the fish. Too many people watch these bass masters with their tuna polls and 40 lb line just yank the fish out of the weeds from 30 ft away. Im not knocking people for doing that but to me that isnt as much fun as working the fish and enjoying the fight. Since i dont eat fish and very rarely keep any of my catches the fight is the main thing i get out of fishing.

+1 that is the only way I can tie more than a couple of any pattern at a time. Break it down into easy steps, and do each one or two on all hooks you plan to use. I am not in production tying by any means and i am actually relativly new to fly tying but this doesnt make sense to me. I understand the concept of production tying and how you want to pump out flies as effeciently as possible while maintaining qualitly. Now when you tie with this step process do you tie your thread off and then back on for each fly or do you have a bobbin for each fly? It seems to me that tying off and on along with removing the hook and placing it back in the vise would be counter productive would it not? I can see how tying each step at a time could help qualitly but i just cant see it helping production. Looking at it from working in manufacturing for some time now, we have implemented "lean manufacturing" a couple years ago when the economy started going down the toilet. Basically we have re-organized every work station in the plant so that we could cut down on unneccesary movement, like in this situation keeping your scissors in your hand. Every time you have to pick up and lay down your scissors you are wasting movement, time. In this situation my plant manager would say that the customer is paying us X ammout of $ for this fly and is not going to pay us any more regardless of how many times we set our scissors down and picked them back up so why not add the least amount of movement as we can while still maintaining the quality that is required. Maybe im wrong and that is a good possibility but the only way that i could see the step process to work is if it was like car manufacturing . Like if you had a team tying the flies, with a ton of vises (on pedistals) bobbins ext.... guy one would tie on lead, pass vise to guy to who would tie on tail, pass vise to guy 3 who would apply dubbing.............. Im not trying to step on anybodys toes on this matter its just that looking at it from a production standpoint i cant see how the step process could work for one guy tying on one vise..

i always thought of it as a greenish yellow