jcozzz

Think it's gonna look like the AK Best vise pictured.I know the originals with the tools and accessories are hard to come by.Good discussion about tying in hand on another board.We don't need no stinking vises.Like my old man used to say anybody can do it with tools

Cool stuff N.Basically these are archeological as many generations have lived in that area.Some of my buddies went on an epic pheasant hunt to Kansas a few years ago.Not days but weeks.One last hunt for wild pheasants.They could not get over the small ghost towns and abandoned farm houses still full of furniture and yards full of old equipment.!00s of square miles with hardly an occupied house.They had contacts out there who had lots of places to hunt.They said corp farms now farm 100s of thousands of acres.All the small farms were long gone.IL is mostly farms .Most of the state is corn or beans for 100s of miles but there are still a lot of people in rural areas.

Necessity is the mother of invention.Nice fix!

They sure do come and go.The one i still attend is local but really took off.It used to be at the high school in 2 gyms.After a couple years all the hallways were filled.Kayaks to try in the pools.Seminars in the theatre.Covid killed it but it is coming back to a local convention center.Will check it out ,bring the grandsons.

We really don't have FFS here but we do have fishing/outdoor shows.They are cheezy,filled with the latest and greatest gear .Spinning casting ice fishing great lakes archery etc.Some wild animal displays with snakes turtles gators.Some rescued raptors .Resorts and destinations are well represented.Great way to spend a winter day and there are some fly tying items here and there as well as a tying club or 2.I have picked up a few vintage fly rods and reels over the years.I fish glass 90% of the time and the new stuff around here is all graphite.I have at lest 40 flyrods and don't need another until i see that Phillipson or Heddon on the used rack.I love the shows,have since i was a kid.

Great ties all around.Might start posting a few myself in the coming weeks.I just don't take many pics of flies fish etc these days.Happy New Year to all.Stating a new phase in life in this coming year.Can finally retire,actually have to at least from my lifetime occupation.After a stroke i can no longer do manual labor 8hrs a day.Had hoped to make it a couple years more ,having to take SS early as well as my modest pension a little early. my income will not be what i expected but i will be fine.Feeling good and permanent damage is not that bad.Feel blessed and plan on enjoying the rest of this ride.

WOW

Nice stuff DD.

22 hours ago, mvendon said:

Here's my attempt at a Muddler Minnow. I tried to make it as close to the original as possible. There's quite a few sparsely dressed original pics on the net here and there. I ended up going with the one that's in Bates Streamer Tying and Fishing book, since it was tied by Gapen and was more than likely tied for presentation.

Hook:  Mustad 38941 size 4

Tail: A pair of mottled turkey wing slips

Body: Weighted with 0.010 lead wire and old gold metal tinsel over that

Wing: Grey squirrel tail just beyond the fly's tail in length, with two mottled turkey slips tied in above that.

Shoulders: Fine deer hair tied in on either side of the wing so it reaches all the way back to the bend of the hook

Head: A couple of clumps of deer hair spun and packed loose, clipped tapering back above and below the hook shank

Thread: Red for weighted

For the next one, how about a Professor wet fly. It's almost a hundred years older than this one, and most folks should have just about all the materials for it.

Regards,

                        Mark

 

 

Very nice,i have several Gapen tied muddlers.And a bunch of other Gapen flies on display boards.The original Muddlers had a scraggily head like yours.Modern ones have a more tightly packed and trimmed head.I like the originals,they have been around a long time also.

I used to work with tile setters from Germany building Aldi store for a few months a year.They really did not fish much at home because of all the hoops.They did fish some when working here.Good guys, 2 had already purchased property in FL to retire.They were allowed to work here 3 months out of the year and just loved it here.

When i used to sell a few rods and other stuff online this craziness happened more often than it should.Sending something from my midwest state to one next door would go to the west coast east coast Florida once and on and on.Mostly USPS ,rods  sent via UPS often got beat up even in heavy tubes.I try to sell locally these days,less money but less stress .Paying extra for premium shipping never mattered.All things arrived eventually and 99.9 intact.

I still can't go back one page on this site.So i can't even see anything except pages 1-4 or the current one for any post .The flies are the reason i come here.

I have seen some big ones in public water and the fact  there are some big pike in them is even more baffling.I see koi in a prak pond i take the grand sons fishing.Some have to be over 10 lbs but they don.t eat flies or the bait the kids toss to them.When i was a kid growing up in Chicago we would take the bus to a golf course in a nearby suburb.There was a pond full of big fancy goldfish.We would sneak in and catch them on bread.We would keep most.Haul them back to the bus in buckets and sell them to a local petshop.They all surprisingly made the trip without dying.

Thanks SC.I see commercially tied flies that barely resemble the originals but are still calling by the original name.I realize that many flies come from overseas and are nicely tied but not quite right from what i see in the old books or older videos.Our caddis flies are black and so are our stone flies so black flies outfish others.Black foam spiders and black foam chubby ant type flies catch a lot species especially in creeks.AGs Hippy Stomper has been a good bass fly for me at times.I got a 5lb plus laregemouth on a 3wt rod chasing bluegills a couple years ago on sz 12 HS .I have now tied them up to sz 6 for pond large mouths and creek small mouths usually in all black except for the wing..Had a few gar attack them too.I think the bass will still eat the same type of stuff they did as juveniles.The walleye bite will stop up north when the mayflies hatch as the walleyes and most other fish gorge themselves on the nymphs in the shallows.Frustrating serious walleye anglers as the fish can be too shallow for their boats and what to use for bait at this time.Have had some great days catching crappies on almost any brown nymph in the spring when they are shallow.No trout streams here but am sure the same bug species exist in the surrounding states that do.

Very nice ties and glad you are able to make a few bucks tying.Have had that happen with all different brands of CV glue my self.I don't understand how the factory sealed bottles go bad but they do.If it has shelf life it should say so IMO.

There are excellent flies posted nearly daily.

Excellent.Nobody in my family or circle of friends fly fishes .I made a few years ago but i was the only one impressed with them.

Very sad,he took the time to talk to me at a show in Chicago in the mid 90s when i was just starting to tie,Bought one of his books he signed.The show was a dud .He tied a fly and gave it to my young daughter.Just got an email from his website and was looking at his wonderful art work that i wish i could afford.He really inspired me as a warm water fly fisher and tyer.Kind of crazy that the flyfishing community basically ignores 95% of anglers who do not flyfish for trout.I Know Mr Whitlock fished everywhere for everything but he was a warmwater guy at heart.God Bless Mr Whitlock

Not getting the not looking at ties that are on barbed hooks.Just tie it it on a barbless hook maybe?I do not fish for trout except spring and fall stocked trout in still water.I use barbless on fish that tend to swallow the fly.I am under no regulations to do so.I do it for the fish so they can be easily and quickly released.I do hook myself now and then but not near as much as trying to unhook a large fish from a crankbait .I really don't see any issue with what a person uses to fish with as long as it is legal where they are.I fished in Canada years ago,caught literally 100s of fish.When we came home the border guards searched the truck our belongings etc.We kept 0 fish and they did not believe us.

18 hours ago, Sandan said:

Thank you. Crushing the barb is the first thing I do when I get my hooks out to tie.

Most of my bluegill bugs are tied on light wire barbless.The eyes are too a little to small but the ease to remove even a swallowed fly is so worth the  it and i have found a place to buy them in bulk so not nearly as expensive as buying repackaged from the middleman .I do not mask barbs on certain flies for certain fish as i lose to many and  a pliers easily removes the hooks.

My first assignment in metal shop was to make a hammer head using files,the old guy who taught us was like a wise grandfather..Patient strict and really wanted us to be prepared.You only filed in one direction obviously and the stroke had to be perfect.I still have that little hammer somewhere,It looks perfect to me .I got a C on it.I would have no problem making a special tool by hand if i could not find an existing tool to repurpose.I am a tinkerer by nature and i tie very few flies that are not of my own design.Of course all my bugs are made using techniques and styles i did not invent.That would be true for 99.9% of all flies and tyers.I am surprised how many modern flies have are not new at all,just materials that were not around when some one came up with them.And when i do find a pattern i like and use i tie it as close to the originators as possible.If i give such a fly to someone i always give them the name of the fly and the person who came up with it.Since flies and their recipes are pretty much freely shared there is a lot of plagiarism on the commercial side of this sport/hobby.The lure companies are always suing each other over infringements.Road Runner jigs is a case study in this and is quite interesting.

I really enjoy stuff like this.Folks in previous eras had a much better understanding of the written word and drawings.We all,even those of us who are older and learned to tie,fix our cars etc with books and manuals.Now if i get stuck on something,a fly pattern brake job home repair i can just google it and watch a detailed video or several sometimes.I think taking a file and cutting those shaped grooves in a cheap pair of pliers would be doable.There are members here,you know who you are,that have advanced metal working skills.Pretty obvious that fly tyers have always taken some  complicated processes to fool a fish.

having lived in several beat up old hoses with drafty windows and radiant heat i just go old school and keep a pot simmering.I usually ad some cinnamon as i like the smell.The old windows swell and get some ice around the edges sealing them tight.It gets so much more comfortable in the house and radiant heat no hot air blowing around.My new house has great new windows and great furnace/ac system.First hous i ever lived in with central air.I still will get a pot of water simmering when it gets super cold.

Acetate floss?The type you soak with acetone and it becomes plastic like?Still have some i used years ago to make ants and some other crude bugs.The fumes alone made these unpleasant to to tie.

22 hours ago, robow7 said:

There used to be some great Fly Fishing shows in the Chicago land area, but that was many many years ago.  They kept raising the booth price to the vendors, the local union restrictions were overblown, and the hotel rates went astronomical, hence many of the vendors couldn't sell enough product to break even.  It was wonderful when all the major vendors showed up because you could actually put your hands on that new rod, reel, or fly tying vise (how I came to buy my Regal vise 25 years ago)  .  Also it was so nice to actually meet those fellows who gave seminars, whom you had read their published books and articles for so very long, ahhh the good old days, ha.

You are right,when i was kip we would go to the International Amphitheatre for the sportsman show.Hunting fishing lumberjack competitions a wrestling bear ,casting contests and more i can't remember.Thet had a fly fishing show at Navy Pier in the mid 90s after the rebuild which i worked on.It was dud for the exhibitors but was a life changer for me.I had never really flyfished and was starting to tie.It was slow to say the least.I brought my young daughter,she is now 34,We had great time as it was my first time back to the pier since ir reopened.I was fascinated and decided to REALLY learn to fly fish and tie.I met Dave Whitlock,bought a book from him .He tied a fly for my daughter Really spent some time with us.I was good angler prior having fished since a young kid and fished from N Ontario to key west.The fly fishing bug took and here i am still in the thick of it and learn something new every time i fish or tie a new pattern.

    We had a great little show near me at a the local high school that ended with covid.Small vendors shined and local guides and shops could afford spots.They are moving it to a convention center and am sure it will price out the little guys.The shows always were an event  and helped in the late winter to get ready for spring.A walk thru the big box store just doesn't do it.