Charlie P. (NY)

Brilliant! I used to be heavy into B&W (worked for Ilford so I got free film) and still have a Nikon FE and full gear. * sigh * But my little Nikon Coolpix S9100 has defied me for macro. Have to try a styrofoam cup!

Wow! Very nice! Hope you heal up well. Our whole cabin is either knotty pine or logs - I have been tempted to make one room something other than bare wood . . . but have never screwed up the courage. Your oscar tank reminds me of one we had. He was a big 'ol tiger oscar that was hand tamed, would beg and rub for a "feeder fish". Probably 3+ lbs when he finally floated and maybe 14 years old. Quite the guy. Ate 2" feeders and was intolerant of any new additions we attempted but never bothered the little corydorus catfish we had in with him - and a plecky of the same age that was about 15" who we donated to a local pet store.

Gorgeous! Bathe her and have her sent to my tent.

Beautiful work. You went with the later-in-life-cycle Quill Gordon Spinner coloration. ;-) The fly itself is a specific mayfly: Epeorus pleuralis (Quill Gordon) Mayfly Dun. That nice medium dun color.

Can't argue with that one. Another easy tie but VERY effective is the Casual Dress Nymph. Smaller sizes for trout (down to 14) and up to size 6 for bass. Mimics dragonfly and stonefly nymphs. https://news.orvis.com/fly-fishing/video-tie-casual-dress

Well that changes my tactical nymph concept. Though reading through some of the attachments you can see why Jim Leisenring and Charlie Brooks liked "in-the-round" suggestive nymph patterns that looked the same from top/bottom and sides.

I have used Ligas for a long time and never was disappointed. Always my go-to for my much relied upon Elk Hair Caddis (#3 Caddis Green and #46 Rusty Amber) and Light Hendrickson dressings (hard to find the "Urine Stained Fox Belly Fur" the pattern calls for, but #33 Pink Fox does fine). ;-)

I leave them whole and pluck as needed.

Too true. Stick a hook 1/2 inch in along a 4" x 1/4" strip of rabbit fur and it will likely out fish anything else on some days. But where's the fun in that?

No. That would be something. We raise for meat, now mostly layers. We only keep a dozen or so birds and multiple roosters don't play nice together. Though some of our Ameraucana hens obligingly produce what looks for all the world like a partridge feather If you have tried to raise birds for the feathers you appreciate what a deal the Whiting capes are. They must raise them in individual cages. Though Murray McMurray does offer a "Fly Tyer's Special" selection of roosters. ;-) https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/fly_tyer_special.html

Also: Ed Shenk's Minnow (You Tube has it was Ed Shenk's White Minnow but all colors work). I also weigh the above and fish it deep. Harry Murray Strymph. Easy AND two of the best.

First you should hire an attorney and then you will have to prove that their action or defect in the product caused you quantifiable harm.

I have and still do raise chickens. And I have used my own rooster capes (Harry and Elsie Darbee were idols of mine). But the breeding that lead to the Whiting necks is far and away beyond anything you find on an egg farm. Just astonishing.

A handful of foam spiders for panfish (I admit I love fly-fishing for bluegills - but I can stop anytime). Pretty straight forward - but I do add a dubbing of synthetic Fly Fur and then snip the topside flush to the hook so I can CA the foam body. That keeps it from turning on the shank in use. Also - instead of a "Hopper and dropper" I sometimes make a "Spider and Rider" and use them as indicators over a nymph. Hence the poly yarn tuft.

That's what I have also noticed. On the one good trout creek in my county the banks overhang with trees and brush and some stretches may have 10 feet wide of open space for maybe 10 feet over the water before tree branches become an issue. Yes, you can cast straight upstream or downstream. But a cast from one bank to the other has no hope of a back-cast. A side-cast stopped short can give you just the perfect drift under the brush and along the bank. That's not really handicapped with a foot longer of rod length.

Do well, guys. In 1973 I was at the BSA Jamboree in Morraine, PA and I sat with my chin on the table of a man who I later came to believe was Ed Shenk and it changed my fishing life forever and for the better.

I actually stopped using oil of any kind on my reels (including spinning) and use small amounts of white lithium grease. S/A pistols as well. Though I wipe them off with an oil like CLP Breakfree or B-C Barricade as a metal protectant.

Howdy! Used to "spring" along the Eastern Shore with various trailerable sailboats in April to get a jump on the season. Cambridge, Queenstown, Chestertown and backwaters on the Choptank River. THE ADMIRAL and I loved Maryland. But lately we've been more homebodies.

Saddles are the long and wide feathers where, if you rode chickens, you would sit. The Hackles and neck are longer, thinner, stiffer fiber feathers (for keeping small dry flies dry). Shoulders and backs are the "spade" feathers that are wider and rounded but not very long. First I would recommend you decide specifically what flies you want to tie. No sense spending $99 on a light dun cape when you needed a dark dun cape. Second, wet flies and nymphs do fine with the much cheaper "Indian " necks and even hen necks. Probably better, in fact. Anything over size 14 you can do in a grade 2 ("Pro") neck. Saddles 4" to 6" (thick web feathers) are for wings on streamers or bass/saltwater flies or wet fly hackles or palmering larger flies. I'd been using Metz necks for years and someone showed me a Whiting neck. I'm a "parsimonius curmudgeon" and I can get three flies out of one hackle from a Whiting!

Yes. Face the wing case towards the hook point. Does it really make a difference? I can't say. I sometimes wonder whether the trout examine the flies for the proper number of legs and width of wing-case or just take what appears to be the right shape or approximately the proper shades of color . . . more or less . . . so long as it is drifting naturally at the proper depth. Show me any natural nymph that has a shiny gold head and a scorpion tail. ;-)

I used to think on small streams an 8 ft rod with a slightly "overloaded" line weight was the way to go. And it does fine. But some years back I got into Tenkara style. In those same streams I find a 14'7 rod just laying out 14 ft of leader and 6 ft of tippet lets me lay flies out over 30 ft away very gently with an "underhand" flip under brush and branches. The added control from the rod makes even tight pockets assailable. And line mending is easier as well. It's made me rethink rod length for small waters. My next rod will be 9 ft or 9'6", probably 5 wt, and not because I want to cast long distances. I seldom tie or fish smaller than size 20 hooks anymore. As you mention, 20 ft of line out lets you get into a lot of pockets. And if you do high-rod nymphing the added height increases your [limited] range.

The tail fibers can be used for wings or wrapped for nymph bodies. Carrie Stevens used the green body feathers for a streamer she called the Tomahawk. (Sorry - all the images I was able to find seemed banned and I don't have an example myself). Noahguide just posted these Lady Amerst streamers in the March 2019 Flies thread. You could do a brown variant.

I've never tied streamside. But I have tied on a boat that was in a marina and I would fly-fish off the transom while in the slip. So, technically, just a few feet from the fishing waters. ;-) Can just imagine the TSA agent poking through my tools box and giving the hairy eyeball to the scissors, razor knives, bodkins, etc. I had one that I thought for sure was going to confiscate my P-38 can opener off my key-ring. For those boat visits I would take a flexible zippered worm pouch (soft tackle) and put everything I needed for one specific pattern in each bag. Then I'd take two or three bags to the boat on weekends. If it was rainy I always had something to do. Mentioning that - my tying still is portable (in that I don't have a fixed base desk that I use) and I have found the zippered bags used for documents, travel pouches or "pencil bags" are the berries for compartmentalizing soft storage luggage. Big ones for capes and ostrich plumes down to smaller ones for spooled materials or dubbing in zip-lock baggies. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CK5NW5K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01JOQHE4K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DK2JSVS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Get a Dr. Killigan's Insect Buster Duster ("poofer") with diatomaceous earth. You can get a 10 lb bag for $15; and that's huge and many years supply. Won't hurt people or pets. But for insects it's like putting broken glass and Shuriken throwing stars in their lungs and joints. I use it to "Poof" our chickens for insect pests. A few shots in the neck storage box keeps the feather eating kritters out as well. As does the sprigs from a Rosemary plant - without the smell of mothballs. I kind of like that, but THE ADMIRAL does not. ;-)

I use but hate CA glues (though they are the best for building balsa R/C model wings and keeping hopper bodies from rotating on the hook) but a product called Bish's Original Tear Mender is the berries for applying with a toothpick to the base of deer hair to keep it together. Works great with any natural material. Also any time you have to do things like glue two different foam colors together for hoppers. Dries fast and makes a rubber-like cement when dry. And you'll never glue yourself to the fly. I make a few brown Clousers tied "fat" but with short fibers to imitate small crayfish in the Chenango River. Almost Crazy Charlie style. Deadly on smallmouth. But otherwise a sparse Clouser is a better performer (IMHO).