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terp

What Do You Do WIth Your Surplus Flies? / Confessions

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I have a 2 gallon Hellman’s mayonnaise jar where the extras get deposited.

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1 hour ago, flytire said:

i have in the past donated fly boxes of midges to the cutthroat chapter of trout unlimited in colorado for their annual chapter and state fund raising auctions

 

@flytire that's my chapter!

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Well I'm always the odd man out, the black sheep. I have no such problem.  I'm a husband and father first and foremost and nothing comes before that. My career comes way before fly tying as do my friends, pets and my 401K. I'm an angler who ties flies, pours lead, makes jigs and fishes with every kind of rod and reel out there, except tenkara. If I don't need a fly I don't tie a fly. Even with this mentality at times I have to many flies so I give them away to friends and personally I don't keep more than 5 or 6 small fly boxes with flies. I also have a lifetime supply of flies, they just need to be assembled.  I don't strive to tie what others perceive to be perfect flies with the perfect proportions and perfect material. I do like looking at the flies tied by others but I have no desire to tie like anybody other than myself. I tie what catches fish for me and could care less about having the knowledge to tie a fly that works somewhere  I'm not.  When the day comes where I can't get out to fish I will most definatly not be sitting at my vise tying flies. Weird, right, but it's the gods honest truth. 

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I just donated approximately 150 flies to a Healing Waters group and hope they can get put to use .  Every 2-3 years I end up with more materials than I can use in a lifetime and the extra gets donated to a local boy scout troop for their use in their fly tying merit badge program. 

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2 hours ago, Sandan said:

@flytire that's my chapter!

Interesting 

I was Vice President of that chapter a long time ago and annual auction chairman for the chapter and the state when the chapter was involved

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I don't have surplus flies as I don't tie dozens at a time. Grubby flies are set aside, cleaned off the hook and tied again.

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Poopdeck and I are very similar.  I don't tie flies just to tie flies.  I, actually, don't tie flies if I don't need flies.  I tie to support my fishing.  I have 6 to 8 of each pattern I normally use.  When I get down to 2 or 3, I tie 6 more.  I don't know why I like that number, but I usually tie 6.  Sometimes fewer, never more.

So, no extra flies for me to worry about.

Good thing, too, as I don't have any friends to give them to if I had them.

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Lots of great ideas on what to do with the surplus.  I need to find a place to donate, plus I think I'll start recycling earlier versions of my flies that I can improve upon.  Poopdeck and Mikechell, I hope to be more like you when I grow up and conquer my obessions.  But after 53 years I haven't had much luck.

Sometimes on the weekends I wake up before my alarm goes off.  I get impatient waiting for it to sound so I can get up and start tying.

When I go to bed, I'm designing flies in my head.  Sometimes this keeps me awake for an extra hour.

flytire, let me know if you find a 12-step program.

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2 hours ago, mikechell said:

Poopdeck and I are very similar.  I don't tie flies just to tie flies.  I, actually, don't tie flies if I don't need flies.  I tie to support my fishing.  I have 6 to 8 of each pattern I normally use.  When I get down to 2 or 3, I tie 6 more.  I don't know why I like that number, but I usually tie 6.  Sometimes fewer, never more.

So, no extra flies for me to worry about.

Good thing, too, as I don't have any friends to give them to if I had them.

 

16 hours ago, Poopdeck said:

Well I'm always the odd man out, the black sheep. I have no such problem.  I'm a husband and father first and foremost and nothing comes before that. My career comes way before fly tyingas do my friends, pets and my 401K. I'm an angler who ties flies, pours lead, makes jigs and fishes with every kind of rod and reel out there, except tenkara. If I don't need a fly I don't tie a fly. Even with this mentality at times I have to many flies so I give them away to friends and personally I don't keep more than 5 or 6 small fly boxes with flies. I also have a lifetime supply of flies, they just need to be assembled.  I don't strive to tie what others perceive to be perfect flies with the perfect proportions and perfect material. I do like looking at the flies tied by others but I have no desire to tie like anybody other than myself. I tie what catches fish for me and could care less about having the knowledge to tie a fly that works somewhere  I'm not.  When the day comes where I can't get out to fish I will most definatly not be sitting at my vise tying flies. Weird, right, but it's the gods honest truth. 

Poopdeck/Mike, I too only tie flies that I fish with.  No "art" or "project" flies for me.  I do use a lot of patterns and sizes but I'm not fast at tying, it can take me an hour to produce a fly that a pro can do in 12 minutes.   I'm not interested in tying dozens of flies in a sitting just to fill fly boxes, my focus is on quality (relative to my ability and skill) not quantity.   I enjoy having a box of well tied flies even though it won't make much of a difference to the fish.  (I've caught some really nice fish on some awful flies).  I do like to hunt the net for and to try different patterns but everyone of them will hit the water.   I usually tie 2 in a few sizes.  If they don't produce after a season I'll cut them down and re use the hooks.  I rotate through the year between 5 small fly boxes, carrying 3 of them on the water.  I also have 1 large box for my salmon flies. I have never managed to completely fill any of them.  I fish mostly small streams with lots of fly eating over hangs and lots of submerge debris and seem to lose them as fast as I tie them.  Like you guys I try to balance the rate of attrition to the rate of production.   

 I do have a huge appreciation for those that tie classic salmon flies and realistics weather they fish with them or not.  It requires a lot of skill to tie those types of flies. 

 

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1 hour ago, terp said:

Lots of great ideas on what to do with the surplus.  I need to find a place to donate, plus I think I'll start recycling earlier versions of my flies that I can improve upon.  Poopdeck and Mikechell, I hope to be more like you when I grow up and conquer my obessions.  But after 53 years I haven't had much luck.

Sometimes on the weekends I wake up before my alarm goes off.  I get impatient waiting for it to sound so I can get up and start tying.

When I go to bed, I'm designing flies in my head.  Sometimes this keeps me awake for an extra hour.

flytire, let me know if you find a 12-step program.

Here's a couple that, as I said in an earlier post, are near and dear to my heart - not saying you HAVE to donate here - just trying to give you a start.

Casting For Recovery | Breast Cancer Fly Fishing Retreats - If you go to the "Retreats" page you can choose your state/area and at the top is the contact for your areas coordinator.  Just drop a line to them if you'd like your donation to go near you.

LOCATIONS - Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing - After you choose the "Locations", just click on your state.  On this next page it's best to choose "[your state's] Programs" and you'll get a list of the name of the Regional Coordinator in your state but the contact info for the Program Leads in the city nearest you.

Here are some other sites that I've not yet had the pleasure of donating to:

Here Are Some Charities Using Fishing To Support Veterans (shopkarls.com) - This article includes a list of 10 different  military related organizations that use fishing/fly fishing as part of there programs (and Healing Waters is #1 on their list).  Just click on the organizations name in this article to be forwarded to their site.

http://veteransflyfishing.org/

Home Page (donateyourflies.fishing)

Fishing for Forces | Contact Us

CastHope

Idaho2Fly | Idaho Men's Cancer Support Organization

Reel Recovery

I hope this helps you.

Kim

 

 

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17 hours ago, flytire said:

Interesting 

I was Vice President of that chapter a long time ago and annual auction chairman for the chapter and the state when the chapter was involved

Too bad we never met.

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3 hours ago, Sandan said:

Too bad we never met.

were you a member in the late 1980's?

i went on a lot of the yearly trips to the big horn river in montana

i left that chapter when i couldnt get many members to help me with the auctions 👎

i no longer belong to trout unlimited

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I have spent most of this off season going thru my fly boxes and picking out sub-par flies  or flies that I know I will never use. Of those, I decide either to "fix" or destroy them. Most, I find, only need minor adjustments to be made useable. I am of the opinion that I should not donate my sub-par flies if I would not fish them myself. I am always ready to give away flies whenever possible and have done so many times.

I actually enjoy fixing my ill conceived or poorly tied flies. Most are very easily fixed...if it isn't, then it gets the razor blade. I must admit, however, this hasn't solved my overpopulation of flies.

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