catskilljohn

Sheesh, what is it with these mom's? You could be hanging out on street corners learning how to be a thug, instead your tying flies. Just tell her that. I agree with the above statements on buying a used desk. Materials are so expensive, and I almost guarantee you will find one all ready to tye on thats way below the cost of you attempting to do it yourself. If you haven't made drawers and slides before you may get so frustrated you wont even finish it. Find one thats a little beat up if you feel like you want to do some woodwork, at least the structure is there. CJ

They are similar, both share an orange body and brown hackle, but on the Catskill no rib and there is a gold tag. The Q-o-Waters has a gold rib, and mallard wings, no tag. The Catskill pictured is tyed per the Dette's dressing, but like you mentioned there were variations through the years. Many of these dry flies started off as wet flies, and evolved into top water flies when that came into popularity. A little thing my friends and I do is, if your going to call a fly by its name, be prepared to have written documentation as to where you got the dressing, or you have to call it a variant. Valla's book is the real deal, and he grew up with the Dette's so your getting it as real as it gets! CJ

Your cookin with gas man, that looks nice. I would move everything up towards the eye a little more, I realize your going for the space behind the eye look, but its a little overly exaggerated on this one. Love the body color and hackle, good stuff. CJ ps...a year or so ago, Jim Slattery tyed a tribute fly, the "Walt Dette" tail-cree, body-amber fox fur, hackle-cree [palmered over body and conventional collar] wing- wood duck upright and divided. It looked alot like yours.

Thanks fly fischa! Here is a side shot. I was tying these a few years ago at the CFFCM, and a famous older tyer by the name Ralph Graves was watching. After I popped it out of the vise, he looked over and said "you know how you test these to see if they are tyed correctly?" I didn't know, so he picked it up and stood it on end, like the photo here, and when he let it go, it stayed. I was in shock. Thank goodness it worked, cause there were about 15 other people standing there also! Now every one gets the "Graves" test before going into service. Thanks CJ

Been tying a few dozen of these for the up-coming season, tyed on a Mustad 94842 #16 hook with Collins spade hackle. Lt ginger hackle fronted with bustard flank... Dk Ginger hackle fronted with guinea hen... Lt Ginger hackle fronted with wood duck... CJ

Here are a few G.P's, the long ones are on Waddington shanks and the others Partridge hooks. CJ

Got my package today also...great flies to add to the collection. Thanks Andy for pulling off another successful swap, and thanks everyone for participating. Cant wait till the fall "Andy's wet fly swap" CJ

Ready for delivery, I will bring them to Somerset Saturday Andy, looking forward to a good time. CJ This swap is right up my alley!

Andy, I would like to participate also... Lady Beaverkill ok? CJ

And here they are, just when I posted I would love to see more :bugeyes: Those are beautiful, I love the Akroyd and Eagle, what a great job on all of them. CJ

Thats cool! You are something else man! Great job. I would love to see some more of those babys. CJ

A Silver Doctor, this is my last 25mm Waddington shank, hopeing to receive an order soon so I can get back to these :yahoo: CJ

Wow, you certainly have your hairwings down to an artform...beautiful. CJ

Damian, I am sure you could use mono, but the material I have is more like a plastic coated wire called "fire-line", probably equivelant to 1x mono. I cut a section, double it and put it through the eye of the stinger hook, so there is a loop that the hook goes through,pull it tight and cinch it to the eye. The nice thing about doing it this way is if you were to damage a hook fishing it, you could loosen the loop and switch out the hook without having to throw the fly away. Then with the doubled section that goes to the Waddington shank, wrap it the whole length with the tag ends hanging over the eye of the Waddington, pull them back over the wrapped shank and bind them down again. This will insure they wont pull out. Thanks for the comments, I will post more as they come along! CJ

Instead of an actual wing, I used goose shoulder in green and orange, along with bronze mallard and a teal front. As I am tying these, I started to wonder how they will swim since they dont have a hook bend to keep them upright. Its probably a good idea to tye them "in the round". Let me know what you think, CJ