djtrout

I considered BOA but passed because me and Murphy are way too close. I primarily wear Simms guide boot felt. Where felt is prohibited (e.g., MD) I have a pair of studded rubbers in an Orvis boot )mid-range, forget the model). I hate the studs. They slip and slide, even after well-breaking them in.

Guess I'm just old school (and on a tight budget therefore unwilling to take too many new adventures with expensive equipment). I trust the old lacing systems. In a year or two when more feedback comes in on the BOA, I might consider for a replacement. Who knows, the market may decide they are trash and return to something else.

Hook and eye can certainly fail as well, but after 45 years of backpacking and wading and never having a single fail, I'll stick with it.

All, my apologies for holding things up. I'm just up the road a little from Netabrookie here in VA; flies were tied up and ready to go last week but I didn't realize I needed an address, so I just got them off today (turns out I had his address from a previous swap but didn't realize it). I hope the others will respond quickly.

This was fun, thanks for hosting.

we have a craft cave in our house. Common space in basement. One sector is home office with network printer. another sector is tying area and fishing equipment (poles, tackle, kayak box). another sector is large craft and sewing table, with sewing machines. craft, tying, sewing project supplies are in plastic bins on wheels (from Target).

Tying table is 30x20 in, and very much like yours. Has 3 drawers on the right side and a top drawer. craft cutting blades and holders are in the top drawer, right drawers hold knife sharpener, head cements, vise parts, various hardware misc. I have a large plastic lure box on the table that holds hooks fur and misc for current projects.

I have one small 5 drawer bin, much like yours shown, for tying supplies; I have it crammed with pattern cutouts, foam of all description, fabric glues and paints/markers, chenilles.

I organize other materials in their own plastic boxes about 14x14x3. I like having separate boxes that I can just stack on each other, so I can re-organize when necessary. I tried integrated drawer systems and adding fixed wall shelf space and could never manage that well. My material boxes are organized as: natural fur, bucktails (they get their own box apart from natural furs because of volume), cdc/flank feathers/dry hackle, biots and quills (biots, turkey feathers, pheasant and ostrich, marabou), wet hackle - saddle hackle and capes, and synthetic fur.

I have a carousel I bought that is specifically designed to hold flashabou and crystal flash (same as yours). I like it. Thread is on a holder I bought; it has 3 rows of dowels, and I've vastly exceeded its capacity. This needs attention - I have threads stacked on each other and a bunch of loose spools on top of the bin. I have a tool caddy (another accessory I bought) and I have far exceeded its capacity.

In their own plastic lure boxes (larger than the ones holding materials I described above): hooks/weight (lead eyes, cones, beads), rubber legs/paste on eyes/dubbing, misc holder for extra crystal flash in small tubes not lending to the carousel/swiss straw/spinner bait rubber skirts that are used both for spinner bait skirts and fly rubber legs.

wheels on chair and bins.

Needs I have now: add a caddy (I will make with doweling and drill) to hold all the thread, wire, and ribbing spools; it's getting crazy. Expand the tool caddy, again homemade.

I actually have some principles I follow:

- Emphasize open/common and separate space. Using plastic boxes to throw stuff in works for me. I limit my integrated shelf units to the two I have now. Within boxes I might further separate small items in ziplock bags (ex: I have rabbit strips in a ziplock, goose and turkey biots in a ziplock, marabou in a ziplock - these ziplocks thrown into their appropriate box). The separate is in using plastic boxes. As space needs increase, I can just add a 14x14 box. Shelving/drawer units get me into trouble if my materials expand.

- have a place, though (in light of above), for everything. Limit sprawl to desktop designated for current projects. This is where I fall down; I wait until the sprawl is intolerable before I make more space.

- Use organizers that have use in the home generally, limit the amount of "fly tying specific" accessories. We use Plano lure boxes, for example, for housing sewing accessories and small home hardware items like picture hanging stuff, as well as my tying materials. Target's plastic bins and storage boxes have myriad of applications.

- Don't over organize. Space needs will change in unexpected ways over the years, and mostly for greater space. If I know where something is and can retrieve it quickly, I'm good. Ex: I have hooks on one plano box divided by application (streamer hooks in one place, dries in another, hopper hooks in another, stingers in another, and so on as makes sense to me; Plano's handy dividers make this possible). I don't mind sorting through my wet hackle 14x14 box for a minute to find a good saddle hackle, or the natural fur box to locate my fox squirrel pelt. On the other hand, I like my tools and threads to be visible and neatly organized. Thread is organized roughly by color; but I need to do something about all the spools I have laying around (I like your setup; looks like we all have a common disease - thread spread). When I first started tying, I bought all these tying accessories and far underestimated my space needs. I found ways to organize space so that it expands easily when I need to by not organizing to the exact dimensions of particular items. If I design or build space to accommodate a specific size, like dubbing packets you mentioned, in the long run that usually doesn't serve me well - I quickly run out of space. Open space and categorizing contents in a broader sense works for me.

- Organize space vertically when possible. Ex: thread caddy that I will build shortly will be a wooden tower with maybe 4 or 5 vertical rows and 30-40 horizontal rows, therefore maybe 8-10 in wide but tall. I am thinking also of using a 4x4 post and putting two vertical rows on each side, putting it all on a swiveling plate. My new tool caddy will do the same, a foot or more high and only 6-8 in wide with holes and pockets for all my implements. In a sense I've done this with the material boxes as well in that I can stack them on each other to create one single tower that only takes 14x14 in of floor space.

- Stay mobile and modular. Our basement flooded in Oct. We had to rip up the carpet and a lot of drywall and paneling. The fact that all our sewing/office/tying/craft stuff uses small and light tables, chairs on wheels, only three small multi-drawer plastic bins on wheels, and a number of separate plastic boxes ensured that none of these supplies was damaged, and they were easy to move to allow clean up and recovery, and easy to re-establish once things were dried out.

- Have a picture. Always have an outdoor picture I like over my tying table.

All this because we have a shared craft/tying/utility space in our household, and because there may be one or two moves yet in our future. I need to not design static space, the modularity of what we have now will work wherever we go.

It will never stop. it will grow. it does spawn at night. there is no cure, but it can be managed. Fly tying strikes me as being very similar to diabetes in that regard ...

I have the Rite mag and standard. Love them both. You will be happy with the half hitch.

all my bobbins from cheap and first love 20 years ago to my now favored Rite bobbins work fine. What I do love about my Rites is the adjustable thread tension. I really do use it. Although the cheapos do fine bending the arms to adjust tension, the adjustment on the Rite is more precise and holds consistently.

This is an issue for me, not having the bobbin slip down when I'm not holding it, assisting in maintaining good and consistent thread pressure when I wrap, and not breaking 8/0 thread. If I'm tying an eclectic collection of flies, which I sometimes do for swaps on this forum, and using a variety of colors and weights in thread, I'll load up my Rites and all my cheapos with different thread, and they all do fine.

I do enjoy tying more with the Rites.

Mine are in the mail. These are the oddest I've ever tied.

My flies will be in the mail by end of week. These may be a little weird ... I'm copying a fly I ran across from UK; apparently an old timer, called "fur fly" - appropriate for this month I guess. It is utter simplicity and I can see a fish going for it.

I use the Pro-Lite FTL100. It's indispensable to me. I found that 2x magnification is perfect for seeing well, but also allows an OK depth of focus. I tried a craft lamp that was 4x figuring more was better, but if I moved a micro bit the fly would go out of focus. I also need the added light. Past 60 years, my eyes are ok but I'm more sensitive and not very functional in low light.

I had to get used to using magnification; it seemed very unnatural at first - now it's supernatural.

agree with tidewaterfly. I stick with fly shop hooks, but that's convenience (and I pay more sometimes just because I'm not thinking, I get tired thinking ...). Mustad makes some good hooks in small bulk packages of 50 or 100; I use those in sizes 10 and 12 for wets and nymphs.

I like the Gamakatsu hooks. I use them for tying as well as baitcasting worms and creature baits for bass. I tie a lot of panfish and bass flies using the stinger (bass bug) style hook because I like the space it gives for putting on a popper head or very full dressings while leaving a good gap for hookup. For me it's more about accommodating my pattern than it is about the fish.

If pressed, I'd say my range of hooks goes:

smallmouth - 1/0 to 6; 1/0 and 2 being most common. I have a number of kreelex's and crawfish in size 6.

largemouth - 3/0 to 1/0 but no reason other than personal preference. In articulated flies I sometimes use a size 2 trailer hook to a 1/0 or larger main hook.

panfish - 8 to 12

all that hooey said, I catch some great gills when throwing my favorite top water bug (cicada) on a 1/0, and smallmouths will smack my size 8 and 10 streamers without thinking twice.

If your line will get wet in salt water, I'd buy some salt water hooks. They have added protection - standard hooks will rust in a quick heartbeat if exposed to salt and not cleaned very well. I ruined two entire flyboxes worth of flies a few years ago fishing in brackish water over a weekend and (stupid me) did not clean my equipment well after I got home.

Just felt like posting tonight. I really have nothing to add to Tidewaterfly's great post .... :-)

dunno 'bout waiting till Christmas. Jury's out on that one...

Received my set today, awesome array!

vicrider, thanks again for your leadership and conscientiousness on these swaps; they are wonderful!

Someone should send Vic a flybox full of coal ...

My flies are in the mail. Might have missed today's pickup, worst case they'll be en route Monday.

Thanks to the author for the guidelines on how to fix my culture and industry and issuing a call to reformation. Seems to me that in his manifesto he committed about every sin he indicted.

I guess I didn't realize I was culturally defined because I fly fish. I can see it as a community I suppose, I don't know. No matter. I've been fly fishing and tying (with a hiatus in the middle for about 20 years on tying) for 52 years and don't know who April Vokey is and I guess it doesn't much matter because I feel no void in my soul for it. As far as "experts" goes, well, an expert is someone who helps me learn or do that which I do not yet know or cannot perform well. Lots of folks fit that bill for me. I get lots of good stuff off this forum. If my mentor is 20 or 80 I really don't care if they meet my need for skill and knowledge improvement. I don't get into hero worship, and I don't go all groupie on our sport's legendary icons.

I fly fish and tie because it's what I do. I do it the way I choose to. I get the results I'm looking for. I'm into it because as a child my dad and I had our best quality time together on trout streams it was neat to rig up our fly rods together and hit the stream. Whether he caught fish purely on fly, or put a bit of worm on his nymph to enhance the bite (he called his fly a little black fly, I'm not sure he knew about nymphs, dries, streamers - he never once used any of those terms in my presence), the "purity" of the sport was immaterial to him. It was fishing. He never shared with me where his passion for fly fishing came from. I have inherited and developed my passion for fly fishing, but also my father's independent spirit - no desire to seek elite membership in any "culture" nor do I feel any press to achieve expert status according to any esoteric set of standards. Fly fishing is a zen thing for me.

Agree with Tidewater above ... the author doesn't seem to be having fun. Needs to find something else to do perhaps, unless he's running for king of the fly fishing community, in which case he seems to have outlined a nice platform for reform. Go for it. I do love this forum.

just a little update, mine will be in the mail in 2-3 days. Should be to host by Nov 16 latest.

flies in the mail.

My flies will be in the mail tomorrow. Sorry for lateness; basement flooded last week of sep, my office, fly tying corner, our main bedroom ... but anyway I have essential functions reestablished. ironic, streams all at low water and i'm bailing out my house.

Thanks for the pics, and your service. It's a nice program.

Got mine in mail yesterday; super batch - thanks all!

Received my streamers in mail yesterday. Great bunch; keeps getting better.

whew. i do love this swap!

in, this sounds like fun, whimsical too - going into winter holiday season.

In

Muddlers in the mail.

Crikey, how would I know if I'm missing a size 32 fly?!!!!

I have threading wire that will load up to 8x tippet, I've gone to 24 with it, don't know how far I can press it.

One of my great joyful discoveries was landing a 17 in rainbow on 7x. I'm known for a heavy hand with fish, that was a real achievement for me and opened up a whole new world (I used to blame my troubles on a fast rod ... like everything I needed to learn/refine technique, that ole skill thing ...).

I'm doing a muddler for this month, I wonder if I could tie a 22 muddler ... hmmm (and that would be useful ... how?). OK, no, standard sizing this time.

Got my little guys today. These are a perfect addition to my repertoire. I focused this year on fishing the small flies, but I don't produce many myself. Thanks all!