poksal

I'm thinking your culls with too much taper or out of your size range for hackles will make really nice earings. Why let them go to waste when they can buy you a boat so you can fish more "better".. Yes you are a lousy scum....So sit down and chat with all of us other scums.... shhhhhh....we all have our things we do we don't want everyone to know about.

Picking up my Field & Stream Eagle Talcon angler tomorrow. I used to white water kayak when I was younger and more fit. Really looking forward to having it to fish from.

One place to get a rotor motor is to go to your local Salvation Army or similar salvage store and have a look what they have on the shelves to get a bargin.

To make your own slits screw a safety razor blade (or a box cutter blade) to a wood block with the blade only sticking down the amount you want deep. The blade has exactly the right kind of slots and use a washer. Then use a straight edge as normal at the other side of the wood block away from the blade to guide the slots. That way you can see where they are being cut and all slots are exactly where and how deep you want them. BE CAREFUL!

If you are going to use a scent why not just tie on a hunk of sponge to hold it. That way you don't have to go to all the trouble of tying flys and pruchasing all those feathers, and such. If you do use a bait smell that is fine and I don't think any less of you ... but that is not what I'm into. Catching a fish is the completion of the loop, it is seeing your multi-skill, multi-talent, and multi-hobby, creative hobby come full circle. If I put a bait smell or flavor on my fly I will never know it I fished it right and tied it right to catch a fish or if the fish went for the taste and smell.. that is a dead end for me... and it signals that tying and fly fishing would be a short run hobby due to the creative loop never being satisfied. Anyone can tie a tribble hook to a line and sinker with stink bait. You just toss it out there in the water and wait for a cat fish to find it by smell.... not for me... big deal!? If you add a flavor/scent that is what you have reduced your fly to. .. just a hook with some stuff to hold the juice.

Expanding on already mentioned of late. 3M Super 77 is good but it is difficult to spray small areas and is not cheap. Counter top cement comes in a latex version that is safe to breath around and handle. You can wash up with water as long as it does not dry. You can apply it with acid brushes which you buy for around $10 a hundred from several online trade tools supply houses. It "holds til hell freezes over". You apply it to both objects, wait for it to dry to a shine and put them together for keeps. A quart can will last you until you can't tie flys any more. If you look you may can still find it in the old "rubber cement" version, but most stores are removing that because of it's fumes being unhealthy and flamable. GET THE LAYTEX VERSION... it works great. Your two parts DO NEED TO BE SQUEEKY CLEAN to use the latex version.

OOPS.. this needs to be deleted.

Dangerous, Here is a spider I tie. I keep several of these in one of my fly boxes in several colors. It flat gets the Large Mouth Bass. It is simply a 3/8" X 1" piece of foam with the rear corners clipped, tied with white thread, various colors of legs, and always with squirrel tail fibers on top and on bottom clipped close at the front and rear bottom, I use a black sharpie for eyes. A quick and productive bass fly. I tie them in several of the larer sizes. Each of us is different, I tie and keep these because they work.

Yesterday I was a customer's home and they had chickens. I still haven't been able to get my hands on good grizzly. Well, as fate would have it he said he was thinking to put one bothersome rooster in the cooking pot. He pointed him out and he was a grizzly with nice hackle hanging around his neck and back cape. I told him if he was really going to cook that rooster I wanted the feathers and not to destroy the long thin feathers. I'm still waiting.... shrugg.... Do you think maybe my mistake was in telling him a salon would pay him for the feathers.... ???

I'm retired, mostly... I can tie and fish when ever I want to, mostly.. ... that's a problem, mostly. Many things don't get done... I've never been happier... and I've never made less money. Now I finally understand, money doesn't compute into happiness. Tying flys and fly fishing puts things into perspective like nothing else I have ever done. My sense of values is squared up. My attitude is squared up. Many things I used to worry about,... just were not as important as I thought they were... .... I think it is the freedom from all those other things that is so addicting.. 'else - how could you expain taking so much effort to tie the right fly just right to catch a fish and then put it back in the water providing such a joy???

I'm putting a special good luck charm in the mail for you to keep in your pocket. It will help you find bigger fish there. You will need to send it back to me in 4 weeks to share with another lucky fly fisherman. Don't worry it isn't a GPS recorder.

I use Super Glue Control Gel (gray blue and red bottle) It is fast (but not too fast) and does the job.

Get a vise that rotates!!!!!!!!!!! Hands down... no question! It makes wrapping chinelle, hackle, wire, body skins, peacock, and many other things MUCH easier.

I don't want to call myself anything that might make me feel special, because the moment I do my fly will latch onto a tree limb and make a fool out of me... when the most people who know me are watching me and a nice fish feeding a few feet away swim for cover. That will be followed by the line getting wrapped around the rod tip twelve times and the fly hook snagging my ear. Then when I try to undo the mess as graceful as possible you can bet I will fall on my aXX in the river and drift down about 50 yards where it is really tough to get out. No, just point at me, don't call me anything special, 'cause I'm just ah-fishing.

It may take as long as a year to raise fly tie feathers on chickens, but they will have chickens in various stages of growth at the same time. A batch of adults matures several times a year. At least that is how chicken farmers I have been aquainted with all did it. Well, I purchased a 100 pack of #10 Grizzleys, so we will see what happens. I got a confirm message and did not get a back order or out of stock notice. Give it a week and let's see.

Oh... I wondered about that. I'm not on their waiting list. That is interesting because (oh that was a different site) where they showed some out of stock and others not. Dune was in stock and grizzly was not.

The Hook & Hackle Company says they have 100 packs of grizzly #12 for $18.95. I've never used them, are they a decent supplier? Should I order a pack from them?

Amateruforever, If you have a tendency to over tighten you are correct. Do not get a DanVise.. It over tightens enough by it self, and you MUST conside that. But, they provide a DVD that explains that.... although mine will not play on my computer for some reason. Others, Dan Vise has one other minor problem. The nut that holds the bracket and vise to the main body needs to be a square nut. On mine this was shipped with a hex nut. It can spin in the capture slot. This is instantly fixed by simply purchasing (or digging in your junk drawer for) a proper metric square nut. Note: take your screw with you to the hardware store. ...Or... as I did, use a "warm" solder iorn to reshape the capture pocket and put super glue around the nut hex. Mine works perfectly.. and I LOVE it. I agree I would not recommend a DanVise for large salt water hooks. I tie from 6 down and it holds solid.

What is the name of that material and what kind of stuff is it

Interesting blog. Be sure to stick around and interact with other members. 'else it looks like you are just plugging your blog.

Don't be so fast about the DanVise.. The bad reports are mostly by people that tighten them too tight. I LOVE mine.... and the price kicks butt. It takes very LITTLE cam pressure to hold the hooks. For a beginner it provides you with the features you need without investing more money until prove you really want to stick with it. But, I'm sticking with my DanVise.

Consider this: You may be doing this backwards, we have all been there. FIRST find out what flys work for those fish in your location, THEN go buy the materials. 'Else you end up with a bunch of crap like the rest of us that doesn't get used. Buy or dig around for the stuff you actually need. There is something about what fish see that we don't as humans seem to be able to relate to. For example the Adams for fresh water fish. It seems to do well in several situations and fish like it although we think it does not mimic the hatch or insect in that area or time. So, as you start tying don't forget to learn to tie some of the tested and tried salt water flys that have a record of working even though it does not make common sense to us. I'd pick some of those that you like and look up the patterns or step-by-steps and start from there. Then you can get more creative using the information your brain processes from the results. You will be suprised what you can find around the house for free. IE: the tape off an old audio cassette tape is a great natural shell wrap. I use a fair amount of yarn on various woolies and it comes in lots of colors on the cheap. My wife has tons of that stuff. I watch for feathers that have a shape, fiber, or textrue I like and dye some. Your craft store is a valuable asset. Roam the isles like a hawk and grab, for example grab that package of several colors of craft wire. Each craft wire spool only has 3 yards of wire... that goes farther than you may think. You can always buy a larger roll of the color you end up using the most of later. Be sure to scan the isles around the thread and yarn, you will see treasures there and want to know where to get them later. Check out the bead isle, and the bead storage boxes there. Most of us go to wallyworld and buy our favorite colors of nail polish for flys. Clear is a must have. You get the drift. I watch for "fresh" road kill and clip the tail off certain animals that I like to use the fibers of on flys, raccoon is a favorite of mine. I carry a large zip-loc inside a zip-loc for this reason, and in those a pair of pruning shears. I double bag the tail when I get it. When home I wash it as a unit then remove enough hairs for a reasonable stock and discard the rest. It is not about being cheap, I can afford to buy the tools & supplies I want to, but it is much more fun to scrounge up things for near free. This method allows for more of the powerful human need, to be creative, to be fulfilled which then improves attitude and mental & phyical health.... This stuff extends the hobby to a much broader range and gives me additional satisfaction, almost a life style. ............. And yes, You bet, I purchase items from fly shops, too. For me there are three disiplines or hobbies all rolled into one involved: 1) Finding, acquiring, & managing materials, 2) fly tying, and 3) fly fishing. After all, the main goal is to have fun.

Dye them.... to a color, shade, or pattern you use.

Go to a local fly shop, you may have to ask around to find the right one, and ask them what flys are working best. Mill around the shop, buy those flys as tied by a local fly tier. Then go to a different fly shop & follow the same routine... etc, etc.... till you run out of fly shops.. see what the common flys are and which shops seem to be shooting straight. Leave the lable or toe tag on those flys and don't fish them.. they are examples to help you find them in the book. Be aware that they may be slight variations of traditional flys in the book so the colors and materials may vary but the basic fly should be faithful. Then get yourself a copy of "The ORVIS Fly-Tying Guide" -Tom Rosenbauer- (at Barns and Noble for $29.95). You will very likely find those flys in the book with the list of materials. You may even find the step-by-steps. One of my first steps would be to go look at the book.. I think a light bulb will come on. It has for many...and you will buy the book! -poksal-

I can't even tie a fly that small (32), but when I get down to size 20 and down I don't try to hold them with my fingers to get them in the vise. I use a small pair of hemostats. I like to hang my hooks by size and shape on a foam weather strip stuck to the front edge of the shelf above my vise. I hang them there right out of the package in batches using the hemostats. Then it is reasonable with old well worked fingers to get a hook with the hemos and place it in my vise. BTW.. I now am using a DanVise and loving it. so... where do you get hooks smaller than 20? I'd like to try... and see. I can see what pulls you that direction. It is the "can I do it".