Mark Knapp

If I had the expendable cash (and I don't) and had nothing else to spend it on (I do) I would bid on these. I have a small collection of vises, mostly inexpensive, vintage vises, and I can see that to a serious collector a LAW vise might be an important one to include. These look to be in mint condition and very good examples of the state of the art at the time.

I have to stress here, again, that I am not a serious collector and have a lot of other things to spend my money on, like bills and a boat. I think, as long as I have a boat, I will never be a serious vise collector.

I will not have any animosity toward (or speak poorly about) the lucky winner of this auction, more power to him.

I don't have any kids, (would have loved some) and as long as my wife was taken care of when I die, I can think of no better legacy than to donate a nice vise collection to one of the fly fishing related charities for a fund raiser to fund cancer research or take a wounded veteran fishing.

Loving the stuff this month. Norm, I'm really enjoying the commentary with your flies. Are the quotes your words or are they from the research you did about the fly?

This one for instance; "For years I’ve found these Woolly Worms (Pyrrharctia isabella) along the banks of American rivers. My fascination with caterpillars lead me to develop a high floating dry fly that closely resembles the ‘Woolly’ and that the fish just can’t refuse."

I like them very much.

$2,254.00 right now

Tidewater, somehow you mistakenly came to think that TIER is not in the US. He lives in Alaska. Perhaps you meant the continental US. Either way, it doesn't mater, he has everything available to him that we all have, US or not.

His location is not his excuse, it's his haste to do everything, all of it, right now. In order to do things well, he needs to slow down, decide what he wants to do the most and concentrate on just a few things. When he has a handle those, then he can move on to other things.

James, we can't help you if we can't see what you are doing. My suggestion to you is like everybody else's. First, learn to take a good picture. After you do that we will be able to help you do everything else.

I made a dubbing brush machine last winter. The design incorporates some features I liked on commercial machines and some of the DIY versions I saw on the internet. With regard to the original poster who wanted to make longer brushes, my machine is designed for the option. The base has a T-track and the various components of the machine attach to the base through the T-track. Thus they can be repositioned if one wants to change the length and more importantly, it is a small task to make a much longer base if one wants to make really long brushes.

 

The hook fixture on the left has a spring loaded element that will move inward as the brush shortens. There is a screw knob to adjust the tension on the spring. The rotating head at the right end is crank driven with the shaft mounted on a pair of bearings. So far I haven't felt a need to motorize the thing - the crank works fine.

 

I have found brushes that are around 12" work fine for me. I use them mainly for pike flies.

 

I wish I could find a way to make the pictures show bigger. I've tried resizing them but they still show up the same.

 

DBM-1.jpg

 

IMGP6698.JPG

Very nice machine, if I had one, I'd want it to be just like that.

I went through all of my spools of mystery floss to see if any of it was acetate and to my surprise, out of about 50 spools quite a bit of it was. Some of the spools were labeled as to what kind of floss they were but most of them were not, they were just marked "floss". Some of them were missing the labels all together.

I tested some of the spools marked "rayon", "nylon" and "silk" so that I could rule them out. None of them melted in acetone so I surmised that anything that did melt in acetone must be acetate.

Here are all the flosses that melted when I dipped them in acetone.

The interesting thing is that some of the flosses from Universal Vise did melt in acetone and some did not, and there was no indication on the cards as to weather they were acetate or not.

When I was doing the testing, I found that the acetate dried very quickly (like in seconds) and the floss was not gooey at all after the acetone dried. The acetone didn't bother me at all but I understand that fumes from solvents can effect people differently, YMMV.

I was going through boxes of stuff looking for acetate floss and I came across this spool holder that some body made. It's just some peg board with the fluted 1/4 inch dowels made for wood joinery. It's pretty simple and seems to work.

Something that Mark Knapp posted. "We don't have snakeheads."

 

Bowfin are not snakeheads. They are often confused and some people think they are the same fish. They do look similar, but they are not the same. https://www.njfishandwildlife.com/images/fishing/invasives/invasive_snakehead.gif

 

We have both in South Carolina. Sankeheads should be killed according to our DNR. They ask to make sure that you don't kill native Bowfin.

 

In Montana while night fishing I caught burbot. My fishing partner thought I was nuts until I steamed them and served them with melted butter. Burbot taste better than pike IMHO

I agree, in my Minnesota days we sometimes caught bow fin, but I never caught a snake head. If you ever had a doubt, look at the teeth. The anal fin is another great indicator. We don't have either in Alaska but we do have burbot and you are right, they are very good to eat.

 

 

Blacknosed Dace

 

Hook - Mustad #3665A, #9575 or #38941, sizes 4 through 12 (size 8 pictured)

Thread - Black

Tag - Red yarn, very short (red antron yarn pictured)

Body - Flat silver tinsel

Wing - (Lower Third) - Polar bear; (Middle Third) - Black bear; (Top Third) - Brown bucktail

Did you find the grizzly bear unsuitable for this fly? Too kinky?

 

Norm, The Black Nosed Dace came in the mail today. Very nice, thank you very much. I won't be able to fish it till may but when I do I will post pictures of what I catch with it. Thanks again.

Most catfish and other bottom dwellers, become more and more predatory as they get bigger.

There just isn't enough edible detritus to keep 'em fed.

I bet you are right.

Thanks for the info Norm, I never saw the recipe anywhere it's just something I heard. I suppose the hollow deer hair on top helps hold the fly up-right while it "swims" too. Nice looking flies. Looks good wet too.

I tied a bunch up with different materials for comparison and plan to try them out in the spring. No casting for me for a while, the waters getting hard up here.

I don't think we have ciscos. Mark is the one to talk to If you want to know that kind of stuff.

Again, interesting. What is the forage base? Those monster fish don't grow to those sizes you have without something to eat. I know in rivers one of the primary foods for 'bows and dolly vardens is all those drifting salmon eggs during the runs. What about lakes? Ciscoes? Whitefish? Herring? Smelt? Must be some fast breeding minnow base for the pike and lake trout.

The forage (bait fish) in many of our big lakes is ciscos, in fact if you don't fish with a cisco looking lures or flies, you don't catch fish.

However, in my experience, pike will eat and strike at anything.

Burbot on the other hand, not so much. I understand that burbot eat a lot of young lamprey eels that spend their first years in fresh water so I intend to use a black eel imitation fly in my attempts to catch them.

I once caught a 38 inch burbot while ice fishing that had 5 twelve inch pike in it's stomach all lined up like sardines. So burbot must be quite predatory as well as being scavengers.

Good advise Mike. You ROCK.

Interesting video. This technique looks like it would fit in well with many of the flies you like to tie, Norm.

I just took a quick look at all my floss. I got it all from buying out estates and things like that so, as you might expect it's a hodge podge of a bunch of different things. There's silk, rayon, nylon, and some acetate. Unfortunately, the labels have come off of many of my spools and some of them did not say what kind of floss they are. It just says "floss"

I suppose I would need to dip the ends of each spool into acetone to see if any of the mystery flosses are acetate.

In all my other dealings with acetone it evaporates very quickly and I suspect it will be no different with the acetate floss. I think it will be dry almost immediately. I'll give it a try tonight and let you all know what happens.

i didnt use the grizzly/brown bear you sent me but i did use polar bear

 

the wing is as follows

 

polar bear under black bear under brown bucktail

 

from the internet

 

Flick’s original recipe called for a very short scarlet red tag (tag is the old term used for tail). He also specified that the white hair of the wing should be polar bear hair. As this is thankfully now illegal to buy and sell in many countries around the world, a substitute must be used. White bucktail is a perfectly acceptable substitute. Flick liked using bear products. He specified that you should use black bear hair for the middle section of the wing. Squirrel tail or died kid goat hair works just as well. The upper wing should be made of the dark bucktail hair.

Interesting. I always thought the original was tied with the three colors of bear.

 

Blacknosed Dace

 

Hook - Mustad #3665A, #9575 or #38941, sizes 4 through 12 (size 8 pictured)

Thread - Black

Tag - Red yarn, very short (red antron yarn pictured)

Body - Flat silver tinsel

Wing - (Lower Third) - Polar bear; (Middle Third) - Black bear; (Top Third) - Brown bucktail

Did you find the grizzly bear unsuitable for this fly? Too kinky?

I use acetone almost every day. That might explain some things.

There is no walleye, catfish, bass, panfish, or golden trout. No brook, brown, or tiger trout.

We have some stocked brook trout, no natural ones though. One large mouth bass was caught in a lake near Anchorage. Fish and Game was having a fit because someone "stocked" it there illegally.

I think I have some but I'm really not sure if I've used it. When a recipe calls for floss of a particular color I grab what i have of that color. Do you like the acetate floss? The colors look pretty nice.

Okay Mark, I understand Burbot and Pike in same water but there is no relationship between snakeheads and Bowfin or freshwater dogfish (there is a dogfish shark). We caught northern PIke and Burbot in the same waters but mainly we caught Burbot (lawyers) mainly fishing cold, deep water lakes for Lake Trout and in Lake Superior. There is a HUGE Eelpout (burbot) Festival on Leech Lake in Walker MN that brings in thousands of anglers...but let's face it...mainly for the partying. I have caught burbot as shallow as 30' in winter through the ice but don't know if they ever go shallow like that after ice out. If they do I'd think meaty streamer flies might bring them in.

 

I don't know where you guys live Mark but I'm definitely surprised you don't have walleye. Almost all northern waters that support a northern pike population also support walleye in MN and Canada.

Alaska, there are no walleye here. I've caught burbot in water as shallow as 10 feet but they tend to be in water deeper than that. I remember the eelpout festival from my years in Minn. though I never attended.

It would be pretty tought to break a record where I live.

The world record for grayling is 5 pounds 15 oz. you would have a tough time braking that record but, the 4 lb. line class record is only 2lb. 8oz., you could probably brake that record in the Clearwater. The 12, 16, and 20lb line classes for grayling are currently vacant so you could set the record for those easily.

For halibut the current world record for the 2 lb line class is only 11 pounds, that shouldn't be too hard to break. In the junior class for halibut the record is only 124 lb's. You've got till you turn seventeen to break that.

So there you go, you could have your name in the record books.

Let's try to get something straight TIER. Are you talking about Northern Pike and Burbot, also known as Lawyers, eelpout, and a few other things. I'm thinking since you mention them along with Pike you might be meaning Bowfin, otherwise known popularly as dogfish. They are easy to tell apart. When you grab a burbot by the head he wraps his body around your arm like a snake. Bowfin are ugly prehistoric scaled beasts that fight like crazy and DON"T try to lip them like a bass. And Walleys are called Pike in some areas. If you mean, and I think you do, Northern Pike in the Exos family with pickerel and musky, then big flies stripped hard with short pauses are usually the best way to take them.

 

If you have dogfish in the same waters they might hit the streamer you're fishing for northerns but will just swim up lazy and grab it and hold it until you set hook. I've often seen them swim by right next to the boat (I used to live up north) with a bluegill or small bass in their mouth making no attempt to eat until they were sure it was dead and not going to swim away.If you PM me your address I'll send you a couple of flies like we used to use for pike up north plus a few of the newer articulated styles.

 

Nick

 

ps...If you do have walleye in your lakes I used to catch them on black feather streamers that I assumed they took for a leech, one of the popular live baits for them. If you have them let me know and I can include a few flies like I used for them and though I didn't have any then I'm thinking a bunny leech in black or brown would do the job when they're shallow in the evening.

No, he's talking about Northern pike and burbot. We don't have snake heads or walleye up here.

We fish for northern pike and burbot in the same waters. Although we sometimes catch pike while fishing for burbot with live bait (dead herring), they are most often fished for using very different methods.

Pike are fished near weed beds or other structure with generally large, flashy flies or lures in fairly shallow water while burbot are generally still fished on the bottoms of deep slow pools, generally with dead bait.

One of the most challenging species to catch on a fly is burbot. I'm sure it can be done, it's one of the things I really want to do.

It would be pretty tought to break a record where I live.

The world record grayling was broken just a few years ago, guided by a friend of mine.

There are tippet class records for all kinds of fish that are obtainable.

Someone will catch a thirty inch rainbow in quartz lake this year. That in itself would be a record. Why can't it be you.

The current world record halibut was caught by a guy who lives not far from you.

Last I saw, there were 28 new world records applied for this year to the IGFA. Records are there to be broken. You're a young guy. What could be more fun than to challenge yourself to break a couple of records in your lifetime.

Well, that's a pretty happy looking kid.

In most of my fishing the need to switch to a different line is a spur of the moment thing. Like when a school of shallow pelagic rock fish show up in the fish finder while we are fishing bottom fish. Or I float past the mouth of a slough where I need a streamer for pike instead of a dry fly for grayling.

There is such a variety of species to fish in both fresh and salt water here.

For these reasons I always have more than on rod strung up and ready to go. Sometimes as many as four rods with different lines and terminal gear are ready.