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Fly Tying
Mark Knapp

What bugs you?

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Things that bugged me this year-

 

*Rushing a blood knot with cold fingers because it was 29 degrees and losing a really nice fish.

*Pulling just a little to hard on light tippet and losing a really nice fish.

*Not setting the hook hard enough and losing a really nice fish.

*Incorrectly choosing which side of a downstream rock a hooked rainbow would run past and losing a really, really nice fish.

*Going for a swim in November because the next step was 3' deeper and spooking a lot of really nice fish.

*Tying a really nice fly, then realizing I forgot to tie in the rib right after the whip finish.

*Tying a really nice nymph, then realizing I forgot to weight the hook right after the whip finish.

*Breaking the hackle or peacock hurl on the final turn.

*Dropping a #22 hook onto the carpet and not being able to find it. I know its out there, mocking me and just waiting for my wife's bare foot to happen by.

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Snapping the thread on the head when doing the first whip finish by hand! Like they say "that chaps my hide"

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It bugged me two days ago when I was tying a Royal Coachman (wet). I was about to tie on the wings when I noticed I forgot to tie in the darn tail!! Bugged me so much I got up and it's still hanging on the vise. I think the fix will be to put in a different wing and call it something else.

 

Also, like someone said, It bugs me when I string up the rod wrong.

 

Jeff

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excuses

getting old(er)

my toys are better than your toys attitude

the ever popular broken thread- not really a big deal - we all do it from time to time

dropping hooks on a dark carpet

poorly tied flies

ceiling fan vs marabou - try it sometime, youll understand

stupidity - guilty at times

absentmindedness - forgetting a tying step

fly tying/fishing magazines

crowding the hook eye

head cementing the hook eye and forgetting to clean it out

not having the materials to tie the fly you want to tie

out of focus fly photography

forgetting that half hitch and the bump - everything unravels

crappy uv resins

crappy fly tying videos

having to decipher a question that has limited information to give a proper answer

frustration with a tying technique - i usally back away from the vise and return when i'm in a better mood - sometimes days later

having to increase the power of the reading glasses to see tying a fly

trying to understand why a size 32 is such a big thing

demanding immediate responses to fly tying questions

repeatedly dropping some type of tying material/tools on the floor

properly setting quill wing slips on winged wet flies

slippery hackle pliers that dont hold hackles

whats the "best" of this and that

spilling a bottle of head cement or any other fly tying liquid on your tying bench - it will happen when you least expect it

dried out crazy glue just when you need it

having a bad fly tying day

losing interest in fly tying - usually short lived

 

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*Dropping a #22 hook onto the carpet and not being able to find it. I know its out there, mocking me and just waiting for my wife's bare foot to happen by.

A magnet is your friend: https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_669129_669129

 

I keep one next to my tying desk, and use it regularly.

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Seeing patterns you created through hard work and testing posted by other people passed off as their creations with their names on them.

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Screwing around with a tiny blemish on the head of a finished fly only

to turn it into a disaster. Lol.

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*Dropping a #22 hook onto the carpet and not being able to find it. I know its out there, mocking me and just waiting for my wife's bare foot to happen by.

A magnet is your friend: https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_669129_669129

 

I keep one next to my tying desk, and use it regularly.

 

Good advice, thank you!

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I hate it when I drop a copper or tungsten bead on the floor. We have hard wood floors and when a bead hits, it bounces and bounces never to be seen again; ever!

Joe

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Glue a couple of rare earth magnets on a dowel so you don't have to bend over.

 

My Roomba picks up hooks very well, also.

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Most of the above. The clunk of the bobbin hitting the base when you were just trimming the excess feathers. The mess you get on the front of your shirt while tying (I keep a lint roller handy to bench at all times now). I am inherently clumsy and tip stuff and knock it off the bench all the time. This is why I TRY to always put caps back on immediately but doesn't always work. As for dropped hooks I keep the world's strongest extendable magnet at desk and when I run it on hardwood floor to find a hook I usually come up with a couple and a fly to boot. Also keep a big 8"x2" sweeper magnet on stalk for major work and nice thing about tungsten beads is they do get picked up by strong magnets.

 

Had an unusual happening with a dropped hook last week. First, I have no idea how the hook ended up on the back side of my shorts. Drop hooks all the time but not on my chair since I'm sitting on it. However I was going to get in shower and dropping shorts and something hurt about halfway down my right cheek. Tried to pull it free and it really hurt. Had to call wife to see what was going on. Had about a size 20 hook hooked in my shorts and buried in my cheek. She kept tentatively trying to get it out and just made it hurt worse. I finally had her get the needlenose and grab it and pull it out of there even if some meat came with. Well, it came out but dang I feel sorry for fish now and will go totally barbless after this.

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I've had many over the years, including most of the ones already mentioned, but my #1 has to be cutting or puncturing my fingers with razor blades or hook points to the point of drawing enough blood to require a Band-Aid. My tying bench is in the basement, and at the opposite end of the house from the bathroom where the band-aids are kept, so it's a good 5-10 minute distraction from tying, at minimum. As my ex-father-in-law would say, it really frosts my cookies.

 

Of course, as I've been typing this post, it has (at last) occurred to me that what a smart person would do is just keep a box of band-aids on the tying bench....huh. Only took twenty years for that to dawn on me. :- /

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