SalarMan

Question...Has any of this been of any help? I'd just like to know what you plan to do. It would benefit all of us.

One more thing to consider regarding the HMH TRV...and that is how you can position the jaws. What you see here is a size 22 fine wire hook. I don't have any 24's on hand, but you'll get the idea when it comes to access to the small hooks.

Any decision made on a vise?

As an addition to what I said earlier. The Cottarelli was originally conceived as a vise for classic salmon flies. The thinking was the double head design would protect the finish on the expensive hand made blind eye hooks preferred for those flies. However if you remove one of the vise's heads and set the jaws more upright you would have plenty of clearance to tie even the tiniest of flies, while having a vise that can handle LARGE hooks as well.

Hope this helps a bit more.

I own 3 vises - Renzetti Master Series, HMH-TRV & Cottarelli T-Rex Kit. The extent of my tying these days is on larger hooks, specifically 3/0, 4/0,& 5/0 salmon hooks for Classic Atlantic Salmon flies.

That being said, there is no doubt in my mind the HMH-TRV and its LAW Vise jaw design would be my choice for smaller hooks. I've tied down to size 24 with that vise with no issues. Sorry I don't have any photos of that, but believe me it is super for a wide variety of tying applications. The HMH website's photos will give you a fair and honest look at the vise's abilities.

My Renzetti would be my very close second for the work you describe.

Of course your budget would be the final determination for the vise of choice.

On 1/14/2024 at 8:59 PM, Hhassani said:

I’m saddened to hear about this. I was fortunate enough to take a in person lesson with him in 2017 and it took my classic salmon fly tying to next level.

I never had the pleasure of meeting him one on one, but he and I did email back and forth on a semi-regular basis when I was getting started tying classics on a serious level. He always had time to answer my emails, give me solid advice from the photos I sent and offer nothing but encouragement. Wonderful man to say the least.

6 hours ago, flytire said:

it came out okay 👍😁

Okay my ass 😂👍 That is great !!!!!

8 hours ago, flytire said:

Fall Favorite

Hook - Single salmon
Thread - Red
Body - Embossed silver tinsel over an underbody of tapered white floss or yarn
Hackle - Scarlet red tied on as a collar and tied back and down
Wing - Orange calf tail tied over the body

Lloyd Silvius of Eureka, California, originated this pattern in the mid-1940s.

Fish Flies: The Encyclopedia of the Fly Tier's Art

Can't use this word about flies very often, but that body on this fly is "flawless" Norm. Just super...

I don't know. Seems like too little attention on the flies thanks to the elaborate display device.

OOPS!!! Accidently posted this elsewhere on the forum.

Well...I planned to get right back over the tying vise after being a slug for the last 5 or 6 weeks. We went to a dinner party on Monday the 1st and it didn't take long for COVID to start spreading through the attendees. My wife Linda had symptoms on Friday and tested positive on Saturday. I woke up with a scratchy throat on Sunday, tested positive on Monday. Went to the ER at the hospital yesterday just for peace of mind. After being examined, getting a chest x-ray I was assured I had nothing else going on in my lungs and I should go home, take it easy and stick with the cough medicine script to help me get more sleep at night. But my wife has better genes I guess...happy to say she is fine.

So...I will start my tying year one day very, very soon. Not just when planned.

OOPS!!! Should have been in joke of the day.

Look at the bright side Norm...you now have a few extra pesos to pick up that $12,500.00 LAW vise on ebay. Poor guy couldn't sell it at $15,000.00 or even at $14,000.00. This is the time for you to make the move - 😂 😂

https://www.ebay.com/itm/225946099638

3 hours ago, flytire said:

yes 

the yantic river in norwich, which is always prone to flooding, did a number in a few places and a few flooded buildings along its banks

it didnt help with a dam upstream in fitchville partially collapsed

Flooding traps people inside Domino’s in Norwich – NBC Connecticut

no pizzas for awhile

i'm nowhere near the flooded areas in norwich + my mobile home is about 2 1/2 feet above ground

Good to know you're safe and sound...sorry about the pizza 🍕😁 🍺

23 hours ago, flytire said:

Green Plume

Hook - Single salmon
Thread - Red
Tip - Flat silver tinsel
Tail - Golden pheasant tippet barbs
Butt - Insect green ostrich herl or substitute
Body - Fluorescent green floss, with a joint of insect green ostrich herl (or substitute) tied in at the front
Hackle - Grizzly hen hackle barbs tied in at the throat
Wing - Dyed green gray squirrel tail tied low over the body

Fish Flies: The Encyclopedia of the Fly Tier's Art - Terry Hellekson

I saw on the national news that Norwich got hit hard by the recent weather. See your work tells me you managed to get through it fine.
Glad to see that.

Very nicely done...that's for sure. Love that Cottarelli vise too.
One request however...Put a neutral background behind the fly when photographing.
Make the fly  stand out from the clutter behind it. Even a piece of cardboard would do the job.
Just look at flytire's work.

As flyfinger said...another rabbit hole to joyfully go down. Personally I thing you would have to break down the tyers by the types of flies they specialized  in...such as trout, steelhead, warmwater, saltwater, classic Atlantic Salmon flies and then their country of origin comes into play of course.

Are the modern "internet" tyers really any better than some of the old time folks from the Catskills, the Adirondacks, New England, the UK and continental Europe for starters?

Most interesting topic...to say the least.

46 minutes ago, DFoster said:

 

Guys here's a quick report-

"Underwhelming" is probably a fair statement  depending on why or what your reason is for attending.  Especially If your mainly looking for tying materials.  A few years ago there were a dozen fly shops set up and selling their wares.  This year sadly there were only 3. The 2 main ones were the Deerfield fly shop and Badger Creek.  The 3rd one I can't remember the name of.  They all had plenty of fur and feathers available for inspection but silk, tying tread, tinsel or any other spooled materials were very limited. They also had the usual supply of vises, tying tools and stream gear on hand

There were roughly 15 guide/fly fishing vacation dealers as well as T.U., Casting for Recovery,  a knife dealer, Hardy, Thomas and Thomas, at least 1 bamboo rod builder and 1 tenkara specialist.  Also books and several fly fishing art dealers.  If you're in the market for a high end rod they have the casting pool so you can try before you buy.  20 or so pro tiers were on hand with some of them selling materials.  One was selling "rare and exotic" feathers.  I spoke with him and he buys old materials from estate sales.  Antique hooks and so on.  He said he was mostly geared to the classic Atlantic fly market.  Not being a classic Atlantic tier I don't know how hard it is to find the feathers he had or if that alone would be worth the $18 admission fee.  I did  buy a pack of Golden Pheasant tails from him.   As usual Nor-vise and HMH have locations.

Speaking of HMH-  You guys all know that I'm an owner and big fan of the HMH TRV vise so I was really looking forward to seeing/trying the new HMH "A.K. Best vise that they just released.

Here's a brief review.  To be fair they only had this 1 display model and what appeared to be a size 8 fly.  I didn't try any other size hooks, mostly because I'm not in the market for another vise and didn't want to prevent serious buyers from seeing it.  I really wanted to love this vise. I have never tied on the original but I have always loved the look and design.  I was disappointed, no matter what I did I could not get this thing to hold that #8 fly securely, it would easily move when pushed.  The rotation and adjustment knobs had none of the "butter smooth"  movements of my TRV, or their Standard vises and felt decidedly poorly machined.  The vise seems to rotate only 1 direction and locks in place every  by quarter turn, though there might be and adjustment that will allow the vise to rotate either way without the stops, I don't know.  Again on this vise the rotation was not nearly as smooth as the other vises in the HMH line up. The list price on this vise is about $600.  I love HMH and I'm certainly not trying to trash them.  Maybe this particular one is just be a bad example?  I feel really bad writing this as I am a huge fan of the company but I'm just giving you all my honest opinion based on a few brief minutes with the vise.  I would say to anyone interested in buying one to find an example and try it out first.

 

Great info Dean. The fact that I live in SE Pennsylvania makes that show out of reach. Even the show in Edison is now too far for me.
My guess the classic salmon fly specialist was Roger Plourde. He's a Connecticut guy and we've done a fair amount of business together in the past. One of the good guys.

4 minutes ago, DFoster said:

George as a somewhat seasoned tier (15 years)  I love having the multitude of choices but it is very overwhelming to some one new.  This summer my granddaughter's boyfriend asked me if I would teach him to fly fish.  He ended up with a 5 wright Orvis clearwater set up and the basic stream side gear and has been advancing quickly .  This Fall he made his own vise in shop class and has asked me for some tying pointers.  The best advise I could give was to pick 1 or 2 flies that he had success with this year, hit the local fly shop and purchase only the hooks and materials required for those flies, then I would get him started.   Once he's got a handle on how tie the first 1 or 2 well enough to catch fish then pick 2 more and so on.  After a while the thousands of material and hook options a slowly start to make sense.  IMO that's the best way for someone new to come in without being completely overwhelmed and broke.

That makes all the sense in the world Dean. He is fortunate to have someone to mentor him and properly introduce him the various aspects of fly fishing.

WOW...I didn't bother looking at the prices since I'm not in the market for anything. Like Norm said elsewhere, I have many years of materials in stock so I just scan for the fun of it.

The bucktail story is sad. My experience with them has been good over the years, but my business consisted mostly of threads, wire, tinsels...that sort of thing. I don't blame you for the return and review!!

To far from SE Pennsylvania, but I agree with Norm on this one. I stopped going to these things a number of years ago looking for materials, tools or equipment I don't need. I also learned that there are no bargains to be had either.

When I was going, my stay became one of 2 or 3 hours and the visit was entirely social. Conversation with old buddies and friends, then head for home. With a drive of 1 1/2 hours or more each way...well not these days.

I received my 2024 J. Stockard Fly Tying catalog the other day...and it definitely falls into the fun/scary category. It is 124 pages of fly tying "stuff". The first 24 pages...yes 24 pages...is just hooks. After that we go through tools, tinsel, thread, glue, cements as well as synthetic and natural materials along with...ah hell I can't remember it all.

For many guys here like me, this sort of catalog is great fun to go through, and a wealth of info on what is out there. BUT...can you imagine being a beginner totally on your own trying to figure out what you need and what is of no use to you as a tyer and wonder what the devil is going on here. That is the scary part.

3 hours ago, flytire said:

no dont quit. give the forum another try

threads sometimes goes off on a wlid scientific tangent every now and then that has nothing to do with an original question being asked

just use your best judgement when sizing the diameter of a parachute post. fish dont count fibers 

Norm - Thanks for echoing what I said to Clip in a PM. This is a great site and deserves a fair shot from a newbie.