Jokey

Jerk! Just about wrecked my keyboard with a mouthful of sweet tea! J

I dont suppose you have a SBS or a vid for that scud do you? Fantastic looking fly. J

Hackle might be those EP Tarantula Hairy Legs. J

IMO kits are what you buy when you want to try out tying for the first time and not sure that its something you will stick with. If you know for sure that you will be tying for a long time then buy the vise, tools and handful of best materials separately. Get a kit if you don't know if you are going to like tying enough to be in for the long haul. That way you have only laid out $50 rather than 2-3 times that. J

Safe to say that the better quality light is going to create a better cure? I wondered if that was the case when I had a Loon light at my disposal for a while and it worked amazing for curing the Clear Finish. Later I bought some Solar Rez and one of their lights. It didn't do quite as good a job on the Loon and a passable job on the Solar rez itself. The SR light was one of those multi-bulb type jobs while the Loon light was a single, seemingly much more intense bulb. Looking forward to the post Cheech. J

Excellent plan Cheech. I thoroughly enjoyed the Hackle Shoot Out and send folks to that link on a regular basis. Looking forward to it. J

Damn....beat me to it! J

No worries. Only seems like the right thing to do if I am waving the banner to be honest about it. J

I can tell you without a doubt that this is not the case. Superfly buys raw materials from all over the world and then dyes and packages their materials in house at their shop in Edmonton, Alberta. While many places like Superfly, Wapsi and Hareline buy raw materials from some of the same suppliers (not in all cases but in some) each company tends to do something different with it at the next step. Hundreds of pounds of raw natural materials such as feather and fur go through the dye room at Superfly each week as well as hundreds of yards of synthetics. What Superfly does best is ensure that our the dye lots match from material to material. Your chartreuse rabbit strips will be the same color as your chartreuse saddle hackle and your chartreuse crystal chenille. Superfly is distributed via Rumpf in the US. As far as material quality goes I don't think you are going to be disappointed. As a Superfly employee I get dozens of emails a week from consumers that are very happy with our stuff. I very rarely get any complaints. ( 2 this year so far ) My $0.02 are somewhat biased (seeing as Superfly signs my checks!) but they are my honest opinion. I wouldn't feel comfortable selling something I didn't believe in. Cheers J

Hey Silver I hear you about shops posting bad checks....I always thought that was a poor move. I wouldn't condone that either. If FE wanted to talk about a bad example of someone abusing his good will I just think it should have been done without real information about someone. Is the person he named in his example the subject of this whole topic? If not then why does he get dragged into the whole mess? In my opinion posting someone's personal info, matter what they may have done, is a no no. And for a business owner it's a dangerous thing to be perceived as someone not careful with info. Like I said in the first post I haven't had any dealings with FE and after reading this whole thread I still really didn't an opinion either way about his business or any issues associated with it. But I will say that I was pretty surprised to see him post info like that. That is the kind of thing that can sway people away from using a business. In fact at this point I would be more concerned that kind of carelessness than any customer service issue mentioned here. And I agree with you when you said "why is it OK for a customer to "out" a business. I think that should be the last, absolutely last, resort if you have a consumer complaint. There are many other ways to get things done before you take it to the net. Cheers J

David Other than your website I am not familiar with your business and have not bought anything from you. I have no problems with you defending your business reputation at all either. What I would have a problem with if I was a customer of yours is you posting the example of Robert MacLeod along with his email address on a public forum as well as telling people to be "careful with this guy" and mentioning his "dishonesty". That is some seriously poor business practice. Why would I think my information would be confidential if I were to buy your products? Bad form sir IMO. Cheers J

Great looking flies. How durable is the extended dubbing body? J

I think I am going to have a sign made of this and hang it above my bench. J

The comment about professionals made me think of a story... I was doing some tying at our booth at the Western Canadian Fly Fishing expo a couple years ago and was working my way through some pattern or another. Noticed someone was standing in front of my bench watching me so I stopped and looked up to find Gary Borger watching me. I was suddenly incredibly conscious of my wraps that I just stopped. Drop the bobbin and started chatting. No way was I going to wrap backwards with him standing there. We chatted for a little while and then off he went. My partner started to laugh as he was out of earshot because he knew darn well the reason I stopped. Glad to hear that I am not the only one! J

The hook is on my right and I wrap towards. Always seems to work well for me. Not Aussie......Canadian....so strange enough! Cheers J

Not so far! J

No...never had anything like this happen. I usually tie with parallel bonded thread and have never noticed an issue. Flytire....I know what you are saying. This was mostly a way of introducing myself to the board in a fun way. Figured I would stop lurking and get in the game. Cheers guys J

.....I tie backwards. Yep.....I wrap thread toward myself when I am tying. I taught myself how to tie when I was 11 and the cheap instruction book I was using had hand drawn illustrations that didn't help much and for some reason I started off wrapping towards myself and have continued on ever since. It's a running joke between my fly tying buddies and a couple of co-workers (I work for a fly tying manufacturer in Canada). I have seen a few folks over the years who tie the "wrong way" like myself but not too many. I have trained myself to tie the conventional way but unless I consciously start off tying that way I automatically revert back to the way I have been doing it for 27 years. One advantage I have found to tying this way is that I find I great visibility is seeing the slight spin some materials get when you tie them in. By wrapping towards myself I always see if I have anchored something not quite to center. Is there anyone here who ties that way? I'd like to think that I am not alone. Cheers! J

First method. I tie a ton of balanced flies for my stillwater fishing. Mostly leeches but also damsels, dragons and baitfish. I tend to create the pin extension on hooks a doz or two at a time so that I have them handy. Best to use a tungsten bead to achieve the balance but you can also use a regular bead and then a silver lined red or orange glass bead behind a reg brass bead. The two beads will balance as well as a single tungsten and give you a little bit of flash. Cheers J

Those are great photos. It almost looks to me as if some of those chironomids have a two tone look to them. The back half of the body seems either darker or lighter than the front. Maybe it is just a trick of the light in photos though. J

I use my squirrel skins for both zonker strips and dubbing. I "micro" zonker them and use a lot of them for tail on my buggers and leeches. I dyed them in olive, black, claret, brown and purple. I find a squirrel zonker tail holds up better than a marabou one. You can tie in just a short piece and the hair still extends back to the length you want. The short piece of hide keeps the tail from fouling around the hook bend which I dislike about marabou ones. Nice part about doing my own zonkering is all the dubbing it creates too. Cheers J

Hi All....hope this is OK to post here Youth Tiers Needed to Compete at the 2013 International Fly Tying Symposium! Are you a tier under the age of 16? Do you know a young tier that would love to have their work displayed in front of some of the top tiers in the world and have a chance to compete for some great prizes? The organizers of the 2013 International Fly Tying Symposium (Nov 23-24, Somerset, NJ) are looking for more youth tiers to compete in the Youth Division, sponsored by Superfly International Inc. The deadline for submissions has been extended to Nov 15th. See the 2013 Symposium Press Release: http://www.internationalflytyingsymposium.com/Superflycompetition.html Follow the link to rules and application: http://www.internationalflytyingsymposium.com/Super%20Fly%20Competition%20Rules%20and%20Entry%20Form.pdf Good Luck to all who enter!