The pic above was taken 5 years ago, to the day.  It was a catskill style Light Cahill.

Man, I sucked.

Santa brought me a new video camera.  While it will get most of it’s use at chorus concerts and the kids’ sporting events, it’ll spend its off time at the tying bench and on the water…

I’ve got a lot to learn when it comes to this video stuff, but I gotta say that I’m pretty happy with the results of the tying video I did below at the camera’s default settings and basic lighting.  I should be able to ramp up the quality level a notch or two once I figure out all the buttons and stuff.

Anyways, here is a video tutorial on how to tie a very simple damselfly nymph pattern that proved itself over and over again on my local panfish puddles in ’09.

The biggest perk of this blogging thing is the friends I’ve made along the way.  One such friend is Keith Barton, the dude who writes the Singlebarbed blog.  Among his many talents, Keith makes a pretty sweet dubbing blend or three.  I got a baggie of one of his newest blends a month back or so, the peackock blend I used on the bottom right flies in the pic.  I think Keith nailed the peacock herl color scheme in this blend, but what I was really impressed with was how soft the stuff is.  It stuck to the thread like glue.

The copper/brown mix at the top is also from Keith, but isn’t really a blend, more of an uncut ingredient that isn’t too shabby by it’s lonesome.  The flo-orange stuff on the bottom left color scheme is the stuff you get at your local fly shop.  It isn’t too bad to work with, unlike some sparkle dubbing stuff I’ve used in the past, but it lacks the softness of Keith’s stash.

There comes a point in every fly tyer’s life that they’ll want, or need, to use epoxy.  Unfortunately, epoxy is oftern frustrating to work with.  You’ve gotta mix it right; you’ve only got a limited amount of time to get it on there, etc.  It’s because of this that several alternatives to epoxy have become increasingly popular with fly tyers: Tuffleye, Rio Knot Sealer, and Loon UV Wader Repair.

Now, there’s a new player at the table. Clear Cure Goo.

Clear Cure Goo is still a mom & pop operation at this point, however, after reading the test results  on this stuff when compared to it’s rivals- I’m guessing it will be a household name in no time- at least where fly tyers live.

Clear Cure Goo is another UV light cured product.  However, unlike the Rio and Loon products, this stuff stays clear after exposure to extended periods of heat.  And unlike the Tuffleye,  it’s pretty much unbreakable after it’s been cured.

In other words, it’s pretty much the best stuff going right now.

I’m hoping to get my hands on this stuff soon to do some testing of my own. I work in this big old lab with all these fancy testing gizmos around me, it should be fun to use them on something interesting for once.  I’ll keep you posted.  In the meantime, check out their website by clicking the link above.

I used to take fly tying way too seriously. When I wasn’t tying flies, I was probably sitting in front of the computer at my fly tying bench; reading about flies; talking about flies on message boards; or, looking for new materials to tie flies with.  I lived fly tying, and the only reason I fly fished ~100 trips per year was to use what I was tying.

First, I got the hang of everyday fishing patterns;  then I started spinning deerhair; then it was time to try realistics and full dressed salmon flies.  With the utmost modesty, it was all coming naturally to me.  Not because I had a fly tying gene buried somewhere in my genome, it was cause I spent an absurd amount of time tying flies. The lunch pail I took to work everyday converted into a fly tying bench.

There was a message board just for full dressed salmon and steelhead flies.  People would post pictures of their flies, and ask others to critique them.  Really, most were just asking for constructive criticism as a chance to show off, but that’s a topic for a different day.

One day, a guy posted a picture of a fly he had just tied.  It was beautiful, but the tag was too long, the ribbing wasn’t evenly spaced, the wing was too high and a little long, and the head was lumpy.  Like I said, the fly was beautiful-  9/10 people wouldn’t hesitate to stick it in a frame and hang it above their tying bench. But there I was, concentrating on it’s flaws.

To put it mildly, I was disgusted with myself.

That was just under 3 years ago.  I haven’t tied much since.  Only the bare minimum to get me by- and usually not even that.  I haven’t tied a single fly for the sole purpose of  sharing it with fellow fly tyers, instead, they’ve all been to share with fish.  Sure, I’ve excitedly shared a new pattern with my friends while fishing, but that’s different.  It’s the way it should be.

Something has been tugging at my heartstrings the past few weeks.  It’s a feeling I’ve felt a few times over the past few years, but now it’s pulling harder.  It’s the part of me that is ready to move to the next phase, the one where I move back towards the center line between the two extremes.

Fly Tying Forum’s annual Fly Tyer of the Year Contest is coming up, and I plan on kicking some ass.

I haven't named this one yet, but I was stoked to finally tie something I've had pictured in my head for forever now

Well I finally got a chance to play with a couple new toys yesterday.  Singlebarbed’s 6th Finger Scissor, and  HMH’s Starter Tube Fly Tool.

To tie tubes in the past, I’ve either used an allen wrench, or just put the tube directly in my vise’s jaws.  The allen wrench works okay, but I’ve never been able to spin/stack deer hair without the wrench slipping a little in the jaws from all the torque on the tube.  Putting the tube right in my vise’s jaws worked alright, too, but I ran into the same problem when spinning hair, and would sometimes crush plastic tubes.

I ordered the HMH Tube Fly Tool from J Stockard Fly Fishing.  They aren’t one of my sponsors or anything, I just like doing business with them.  Plus, for my recent birthday, I got a $50 gift certificate to use there from my mother-in-law.

Like all poor bastards savvy shoppers, I spent a good deal of time going through the tying materials on the J Stockard site, trying to figure out a way to squeeze everything I’ve been meaning to add to my materials arsenal onto that $50 credit.  The list of stuff that I first filled my shopping cart with looked drastically different than my final order.  My first instinct was to get as many hooks as I could.  Then I remembered that I have been wanting to play with rattles on my carp flies, and Stalcup’s Damsel Body on my panfish flies.  Then I added a bunch of synthetic hair before I ran into the HMH tube fly coneheads and remembered that this is the tying season that I go to tubes for all my streamer patterns instead of regular hooks.  And before you knew it, I was removing just enough stuff that I could add the Tube Fly Tool pictured above to my cart without going over my $50 limit.

Now before I give a glowing review on this product, I’ve got to admit that  after a past experience with HMH while I was writing the DayTripper blog, I really didn’t want to.  I won’t go into details or anything, but I only point it out because I had sworn to myself that I’d never give a positive review for another HMH product again after what happened behind the scenes.

Yet here I am, about to tell you that the HMH Tube Fly Tool is rock solid in my vise- a Danvise by the way, so [tongue in cheek] I would guess that all of you who tie on a Renzetti/ Dynaking/ HMH/ etc., should have no problems with this tool [/tongue in cheek].

After tying a few typical tube patterns like the one pictured waaay up at the top of this post, and being happy with the tool’s holding power, I decided it was time to pull the deer hair out.

I went through my mental rolodex of patterns I’ve been wanting to convert to a tube, and sitting way up on top was the Crayfish Muddler, a crayfish pattern developed by Hatches Magazine Editor, Will Mullis.

As I put more and more force on the thread, the hair spun, and the tool stayed put in my vise’s jaws.  But more importantly, the metal rod that holds the tube didn’t bend, the tube didn’t spin, and I was happy enough with the results that I broke my blood oath to never endorse another HMH product again.

So, if you want to enter the world of tubes, I’d say this tool is well worth the $25.

Singlebarbed’s 6th Finger Scissors worked well, too.  Though I have to admit to setting them on my desk a few times between snips out of pure habit.

I almost felt bad when I realized that I had left the Conehead Madonna off my list of favorite streamers last month.  How could I forget about a fly that has worked it’s tail off- pun intended- for me for 4 years now?

I often reach for a conehead madonna when I need to imitate those small darty minnows you see schooled up in lakes, or along the slackwater along river banks.  Though, I must admit, in rivers I’ll usually go with a clouser minnow to  imitate them.  In lakes, however, is where I feel this fly really shines.   When tied about 2″-3″ long, this fly almost suspends.  Just let it sink to the desired depth and strip it in. It’s probably one of the best Bass flies out there.

One thing before we talk about the recipe- don’t go crazy with the deer hair.  Just a small, Bic Pen sized clump is plenty of deer hair for about a size 6, 3XL streamer hook.

Hook: 3XL Streamer Hook
Body: Something flashy(Sparkle Braid-Estaz-Tinsel-ETC.)
Tail: White Rabbit Strip
Rib: Medium Silver Wire
Sides: 2-3 Strands of Small Diameter Rubber Legs on each side
Throat: 6-10 Strands of Red Krystal Flash
Head: Small Clump of White Spun Deer Hair
Conehead: Medium or Large Silver Conehead

I think my passion for throwing streamers can be linked back to my days of fishing with spinning gear.  Ya see, one of the toughest things to master in fly fishing is that whole dry fly delicacy thing.  Anyone can get a streamer tight against the bank and strip it in like a mad man; but it takes practice to defy the dynamics of fluid flow.  I sort of stumbled upon this epiphany the morning I clipped off a Light Cahill in favor of a yellow Zoo Cougar a few miles downstream of the Mio  on the Au Sable River.

Hours earlier, I caught my first trout on a fly during the early stages of a Sulpher hatch.  To this day, it’s still probably one of the most epic Sulpher hatches I’ve ever experienced.  The bugs just wouldn’t stop popping.  I waded into a side channel on the back side of a small island and for reasons I didn’t understand at the time, there were no bugs.  On a whim, I tied the Zoo Cougar on and found out the hard way that my casting skills weren’t what they needed to be to cast it.  So to compensate for my shortcomings, I stood at the top of the channel and stripped every inch of my fly line out.  Once the current pulled the entire length of line and the fly tight, I started stripping line back in.  On the first pass up the channel, I saw three fish charge the fly before backing out at the last second.  Again, I let the full length of fly line straighten out from the top of the channel, then after stripping in about 40′ of line, everything tightened up and I had adrenaline shooting out my ears.

I can still picture my left hand struggling to cradle the fish while my right held my fly rod up to it to guesstimate how big it was. My dry fly fishing days were over only hours after they began. Don’t get me wrong, I still fish dry flies.  I’d even go so far as to say I have fun matching hatches.  But for me, catching trout through finesse pales in comparison to pissing them off.

This mindset applies to all of the other fish I pursue- except steelhead.  For some reason I still prefer to catch them under a bobber than on the swing.  I often laugh about this with Shaq over at The Anglers Net.  He’s just the opposite.  For him, when it comes to chasing migratory fish, the tug is the drug.  Yet for the most part when trout fishing, he’ll only toss a streamer when there are no bugs coming off.

So since the streamer bite is on fire right now on rivers all across the country, I thought I’d share a few of my favorites.

The Zoo Cougar

Hook: 4XL or 3XL Streamer Hook
Tail: Marabou
Body: Sparkle Braid
Underwing: Calf Tail
Wing: Mallard Flank
Collar/Head: Deer Body Hair

EP Fiber Baitfish

Hook: Streamer Hook
Body: EP Fibers
Colors: Grab some markers and go!
Eyes: Doll Eyes

Butt Monkey

Tail: Marabou
Body: Sparkle Braid
Rib: Medium Wire
Wing: Rabbit Strip
Collar: Duck Flank
Head: Wool or Glo Bug Yarn clipped to shaped

Muddler Minnow

Hook: 3XL Streamer Hook
Tail: Turkey
Body: Tinsel
Wing: Turkey
Collar/Head: Deer Body Hair

Conrad’s Sculpin

Hooks: 2 Streamer hooks
Body: Palmered Marabou
Joint: Mono- use a few beads to help prevent fouling and also give the fly some sound
Head: Deer Body Hair
Eyes: Dumbell Eyes