SilverCreek

Like learning to fly cast, tying flies is a lot easier to learn if you have a mentor that can teach you. I hope you can find someone to help you.

Fishing was an Olympic sport in 1900. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angling_at_the_1900_Summer_Olympics https://www.sportsdestinations.com/sports/water-sports/fishing-angling-spot-olympics-11989#:

Do you know about Permethrin spray for clothing? It will kill ticks. They just fall off when they start crawling up your pants. I spray it on my waders and fly fishing vest. I've seen tick crawling up my waders and then they get paralyzed and fall off. https://www.consumerreports.org/health/insect-repellent/how-to-use-permethrin-on-clothing-safely-a4370607226/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/sawyer-permethrin-premium-insect-repellent-review/ https://www.amazon.com/Sawyer-Products-SP657-Permethrin-Repellent/dp/B001ANQVYU Permethrin spray bonds to fabric fibers for up to 6 weeks or through 6 washings (whichever comes first) and won't stain or damage clothing, fabrics, plastics, finished surfaces, or outdoor gear; odorless after drying Reduce likelihood of a tick bite by 73.6 times by treating shoes and socks with Permethrin (University of Rhode Island study - 2017)

I think there are flies that split the difference between imitative and attractors. For example, is the muddler minnow an attractor or an imitation of a minnow? Is it a dry fly or a streamer? I believe is that the muddler minnow is 3 kinds of flies. It can be fished as a dry fly attractor (when there is no hopper hatch), or as a grasshopper imitation, or as a streamer imitating a sculpin.

No to your first question "Is an attractor primarily used as the first fly when having a trailing fly attached to it." An attractor can be used as the first fly BUT that is NOT its primary use or purpose. Using "flashy" materials like tinsel is present in some attractor flies but adding flash to a fly does not necessarily make the fly an attractor. For example, midge pupa imitations sometimes have some flash to imitate an air bubble that causes them to rise. http://www.mtfa-springfield.org/resources/fly-tying-recipes-patterns/green-gilled-tubing-midge-air-bubble/ https://www.umpqua.com/chironofla-midge/

An attractor pattern is a fly that looks nothing a real food item. Therefore it is not "imitative." In my opinion there are two types of attractor patterns. The first example is a Royal Wulff Dry Fly. It is a bushy fly with a gaudy red floss in the middle that grabs your attention. It is one of the most popular dry fly attractor patterns. The second kind of attactor is something that looks or acts like it could be alive. A wooly bugger is that kind of attractor. The marabou tail moves and pulses like a living thing when the fly is stripped through the water. The hackle at the front pushes water and creates vibrations in the water that a predator fish can feel. Predator fish can locate prey by sensing the vibrations in the water column. The wooly bugger imitates nothing in particular but can be taken for many living things like a leech, a bait fish, and even a worm. A Prince Nymph is an attractor pattern. It does not imitate a particular nymph.

While I was an undergrad at Stanford in the early to mid 1960's, I had a summer job at Hughes Aircraft timeshare programming a GE Mainframe Computer in Fortran 4 and Basic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE-600_series And in the 1980's I bought my first PC from Leading Edge and programmed it using the Basic programming language to automate some functions like printing and saving files to specific locations. So I have some knowledge about computers. I would go to Best Buy, Walmart, Sam's Club, etc and look at what they have in your price range. Then I would go to Dell and see what I could buying directly from Dell. https://www.bestproductsreviews.com/dell-laptop-computers? https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/scc/sc/laptops? If you can afford it, I recommend a SSD (Solid State Drive). There is no delay in reading files as there is from a hard drive and unlike a hard drive, an SSD does not have to be defragmented to maintain its performance over time. With a regular hard drive, the data files get spilt up and stored all over the HD and so there is a delay in the response time as the drive heads have to move all over the HD to read the data. With a SSD, the all the data on the drive is immediately available all the time. https://www.kingston.com/en/blog/pc-performance/benefits-of-ssd# https://www.ibm.com/cloud/blog/hard-disk-drive-vs-solid-state-drive Performance The speed at which an SSD accesses data is much higher than an HDD speed. While an HDD can process 500 MB/s, most SSDs can process at 7000 MB/s. These faster speeds allow for instantaneous startup and less latency when logging in to a device or load times on apps. Additionally, file transferring and copying are significantly faster on an SSD. Because of their battery life, power consumption is around a fourth to a third less than an HDD.

It depends on whether the fun in the "hunting" or the "catching." However, it does feel a little bit like "cheating" to me.

Here is the link to Livescope. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/591379

This won't work IF the bugs have already laid eggs. The freezer will kill the live bugs but the eggs will survive freezing. Then the eggs will hatch some time after you take the materials out of the freezer.

I buy Saber hooks which is the "house brand" at The Fly Shack. they are about $7 for a box of 100 hooks, Try a box and I think you will be satisfied. https://www.flyshack.com/DisplayCategory.aspx?CatID=640&src=gaw&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6cKiBhD5ARIsAKXUdyb2SC5JYG35ksla89AEQFKP2Bl6vMs54Ou6Qw-LMVjYOS_wEWHqobYaAiNkEALw_wcB

I agree with flytire. They look like body feathers from a ringneck pheasant.

Like Chugbug wrote, buy a bottle of clear nail polish at the dollar store.

As I posted before, head cement is clear nail polish and head cement thinner is nail polish thinner. Buy Sally Hansen clear nail polish and Beauty Secrets Nail Polish Thinner. http://www.flytyingforum.com/index.php?/topic/93330-what-type-of-head-cement/

If you mean the Arizona Forum, I am the same.

Thank you. That's a lot of Renzetti Masters sold. My vice is #376 and Gary Borger's is #007 which seems appropriate.

Welcome. With your experience, I'm sure you will be an asset.

Renzetti is working a Game Changer Jaw for the Master. They already have one for the Traveller and Presentation, https://www.renzetti.com/game-changer-jaw/

What's the serial number on your Master. I'm curious about how many they have sold.

I used to use Tiemco and Daiichi hooks for two reasons. The first is that they had the correct shape for the flies I tie. The second reason is that they are "chemically sharpened" acid etched to sharpen the point. Now I use Saber hooks which are the shop hooks from The Fly Shop. They are good and inexpensive (about $7/100 hooks). https://www.flyshack.com/DisplayCategory.aspx?CatID=640&src=gaw&gclid=CjwKCAjw9J2iBhBPEiwAErwpeXA5PdGhagt-DCCEGPnPHr2VPRX3VLB38LY17L4wV2jnmGKRYzjnuhoCbOYQAvD_BwE

Here's portable "quick and dirty" photography method I learned from Bruce Norikane. Cut a hole in the side of a styrofoam cup for an electrical clip or a clip hackle plier as a fly holder. Cut a hole in the base of the cup to fit around the lens (cup on the left) or just cut out the enter base of the cup (cup on the left). Put the cup and camera on a table and shine a frosted fluorescent light on the cup. The styrofoam cup acts as a light tent to diffuse the light for even illumination. I cut a few more holes to let in more light which bounces off of the curved opposite inside surface for more illumination. The photo below is taken using the macro zoom mode of my Panasonic Lumix waterproof camera. It has a Leica lens and can take amazing photos for a pocket camera. If your camera has macro zoom ability, I suggest using it to frame the fly to your liking. I use a back or white craft foam for a background depending on the fly I am shooting. I can take or even make a cup quickly to take photos of flies at fly tying events. I use the tiers own lamp and they are generally amazed at the photo quality. It is a wonderful way to capture a fly you want to tie later.

You are very welcome Tobi. The sport needs more fly tiers. Glad we could help.

Here area directions to make your own. https://globalflyfisher.com/tie-better/make-your-own-dubbing-wax Some tiers use the wax from a toilet ring. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-Standard-Toilet-Wax-Ring-007004/100211506? Overton's Wonder Wax is better in my opinion and so there is no reason to make your own or use a toilet ring.

Invariably, a major problem a beginner fly tier has is fly proportion. Fly proportion = the amount of and length of materials and where they are placed on hook to form a fly where the individual parts have the correct relationship to each other. Here is a must read article by Charlie Craven on dry fly and nymph proportions. Charlie is one of the premier fly tiers in the USA and owns a fly shop near Denver. http://www.flyfisherman.com/2013/12/13/tying-flies-beautiful-flies/ Here's a related article on tying hair wings. https://www.flyfisherman.com/editorial/mounting-hair-wings/151671 I suggest saving these articles as PDFs that you can refer to as needed. FF often takes down the articles after they have been up for a while. The above URLS may not work in a few months. Charlie's proportions for nymphs is below: When tying, to get the correct proportions; measure the length of the material against the hook and then tie the proper length of material at the proper location on the hook. For example, the image below is how you would measure the proper length of tailing material against the hook you are tying on.

I tie up Flex Hex flies designed by Wisconsin guide John Nebel to match the largest mayfly in the USA, the Hexagenia Limbata. We have huge Hex hatches on a local stream and the Tomorrow River referred to in the article is in the next county. The Hex hatch occurs about the first week of June in my local stream. The Flex Hex is the best pattern for this hatch that I have been able to find and I've tried a number of them from traditional patterns tied on straight hooks to extended body patterns tied on shorter hooks. Both have problems hooking up on all takes. The problem is that the naturals are so huge that "stiff" patterns are often pushed out of the way on strike. Unlike the natural which folds up, the stiff tail and body of traditional patterns do not and the fly just gets pushed out of the way unless it is a perfect take. The Flex Hex solves this problem by putting a mono to mono loop hinge in the middle of the pattern and even smaller fish can take in this pattern. It actually fold ups and offers less resistance than the natural. I've modified this pattern to a parachute which produces a more realistic impression on the water and which can easily be changed into a spinner by cutting off the post. The naturals have a mottled brown body with a yellow abdomen and the cross hatched brown thread on yellow mimics this. Parachutes are best tied with one size longer hackle than the traditional hackled flies and getting hackle that is long enough for a flex hex is difficult. Modern genetic capes have longer feathers with denser hackle but the hackle length is shorter. I use my old Metz necks from the 1980s for the size 2 hackle that I use for this pattern. So don't throw your old necks away. Modern necks are better for almost all patterns but some large flies like Flex Hexs and the Borger Blue Damsel can be tied with the longer less dense fibers of older necks. Here is a Hexagenia Limbata from Trout Nut.