DonAndersen

Years ago in a section of Field and Stream magazine there was a column call Tapply's Tips. This bobbin holder was one of the "tips". Bobbins freely swinging were a pain. This bobbin holder resolved the irritation. The holder is made from a wire clothes hanger. Grab one end and roll around your 3/8" shaft vise. The turns have to be slack fit so that the bobbin holder will rotate when you have to get to the head of the fly. The other end was bent into a rough square with the open end lashed tight to the wire with string. A couple of coats of varnish on the lashings held the thing together for over 30 years. The top picture shows general layout, the bottom, the bobbin rest. Don

Needed a finished fly and hook holder. made this up of 3/4" plywood, a couple of 3/4" wood dowels cemented into place. The grey stuff is water pipe insulation available from most decent hardware stores @ a couple of bucks for 3' lengths. The insulation is foam and wears out so I hold it into place with elastic bands. Replace when needed. Don

Guys/Gals, Well I like to experiment. One thing I like to do is vary the colours of Scud Back by dying. Scud back is really bra elastic that is available in larger sewing shops. It comes in 1/4 & 3/8" widths. Well I needed to cut it to smaller widths. The tool below does just that. Cut about 1 1/2" into the end of the elastic and slip over the razor blade. Hold both ends with equal pressure and pull them past the blade controlling the width of cut with your other hand. I cut about 10 yards in 5 minutes. The angle material is aluminum c/w with light bolts to hold razor blade @ the right angle. NOTE: BUY GOOD RAZOR BLADES. THE CHINESE STUFF WON'T CUT IT!!! catch ya' Don

Guys, Lots of us use Pentax WP cameras. A guy on the BC forum posted this link. http://www.fit2paddle.com/photokayaker/C56...3629/index.html Looks interesting. Don

Some more, Something we all share is scissors. I started with embroidery scissors [#1] some 50 years ago. They were cheap and readily available. About 20 years later when I was tying commercially, I found that picking up and laying down of scissors was a real pain/time waster and modified the thumb hole of the scissor by cutting off the thumb section and brazing it higher on the scissor shaft. [#2] Worked like a hot damn. When they needed replacement, I went to silver soldering for a "cleaner" finish. [#3]. Then I tried curved blade scissor and epoxied the thumb section on. [#4]. They worked OK but I really didn't like the curved blade so I bought a set of Iris Scissors from a Medical supply store. Costly - about $40 or so 20 years ago. The thumb was again silver soldered on [ #5]. Somebody was looking over my shoulder and decided to produce just the scissors I needed. [#6]This were sold by Griffin Tying Tool Company but a brief look at their web site doesn't show them. [ I'm not sure that they were Griffin tools but may have been Anvil Scissors]. Finally I found a supplier of scissors that really does the job.[#7] Anvil Products sells a great line of scissors. See http://anvilusa.com/fly.htm. I use the Bio-tech long reach type and the best part is that Anvil sell scissors for us left handed types. So there ya' go - a 50 year evolution of scissors. catch ya' Don

DonnieM, Try http://clarksclassicflyrodforum.yuku.com/f...o-Fly-Rods.html There is a bunch of folks that collect on this forum. Don

And a third This tool is used to twist dubbing or herl. I always use a thread loop to reinforce herl ropes. This twister makes the job quite easy. Further, I've used it for twisting various combinations like: * golden pheasant tail fibers + gold wire * ringneck pheasant and red wire * various types of dubbing + flashabou * dubbing + flashabou + wire of various colors * antron carpet yarns + wire The handle is the remains of a Matarelli Rotating Hackle Plier that the jaw broke off. Spread the handle loop enough to get broken part off and reinstall the Sunrise Hackle Plier. This twister + a rotary vise gets lots of interesting effects. Some that occasionally catch fish. The heat shrink tubing I got somewhere. Needs replacement every now and then. For those w/o a heat gun to shrink the tubing- your wife/girl friend/boy friend generally has a hair blower that works just fine to shrink the tubing. catch ya' Don

And another for turning epoxy flies. The base and ends are 6" wide oak, the shafting is 1/2" rod, the white foam material is where the flies are stuck into. It was salvaged from a motor shipment packing. The motor is from a barbeque rotisserie. The bearings in the left side is a piece of UMHW bored to 1/2" and screwed to the side plate. The shaft into the rotisserie motor was milled to 3/8" square and slack fit. It runs quiet. Cost was about $30.00. catch ya' Don

Guys/Gals, After the post by Flytyer, it got me to thinking that there might be lot of tools and inventions that tiers have made, modified or invented to do some technique or another. So, what are yours? Here are some of the things that I've made over the past while. I own a Dyna King Barracuda and really didn't like the balance of the head so I made up a counter-balance of 7/8" ni-silver, that I bored to 1/4 and hot glued onto the handle. The handle set screw was loosened and rotated 180 degrees. Now with very light pressure on the rotating brake screw, the head stays anywhere in a 360 circle. The bobbin holder that came with the vise was a pain as it took effort to hit the little groove every time so I built another out of a slice of UMHW that I carved to the shape I wanted. The rod is a stainless steel 1/8" welding rod with the flux removed. No more looking for the little groove in the bobbin holder. More later after I get the pictures resized. catch ya' Don

I fish 'cause I have to. Mind you, I now draw the line @ fishing through ice. Used to do it. The only excitement was when I fell asleep and toppled off my 5 gallon pail. Now I figure ice is only good for poor whiskey. The good stuff doesn't need it. Don

Guys, Just find it curious: * that the Mega Mall NE of Calgary had to "buy" water from an irrigation district to supply their business as Calgary wouldn't do it. A CDN first that sets us up for water exports to the States as now water has value and is a commodity * ranchers are told not to supply water to their cows * the Bow is over allocated 130% * Okotoks is committed to limiting growth due some issues like water - this growth limit will likely be extended to both Black Diamond and Turner Valley. * no more new water licenses are being issued for the Bow drainage or is it the whole S. Sask basin * and Calgary builds more "lake" communities. Seems like the Provincial Govt is really not doing their job of managing water well. Creating lakes in a semi-desert just to add to life style strikes me as a tad ridiculous. catch ya' Don

Hi, Does anyone know the source water for the man made lakes Lake Midnapore, Sundance Lake, Lake Chaparral or the lake in NE Okotoks? Just curious - watching every ending news stories about water availability dropping in the Bow drainage. Wondered if this water comes from the Bow/Elbow/Sheep to fill these things. Do recall some years ago when Okotoks was restricting water supplies to residents all the while a man made lake was being filled by the developer. The rancher who told was cut off from emergency water supplies from the Sheep for his cows as his wells were dry. regards, Don

Hot Damn - there is a name for everything. Used this technique about 50 years ago fishing with maggots for whitefish on the Highwood. For the bottom weight, I originally used 3 nails captured by a rubber band. The band broke when I hung up. Graduated to using speedometer cables in short lengths. Found that they would "snake" through the rocks. After speedometer cables got hard to find, I used steel clothes line wire. Nobody in the neighborhood was safe. As a brief aside, steel is a lot less damaging to the stream and downstream users than lead shot. catch ya' Don

can not count

Mac 10?

Silly little people

How about Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry - that 44 mag and a drift boat passing close with him whispering "Make my day" catch ya, Don

Bowbiker, Was good BSing with you @ Fishtales. It was a interesting week. The winding checks should work fine. Wonder about the epoxy though. I've had little luck getting it to stick to rubber/vinyl. May have been the type I used. I have had good luck using Urethane glues for different type of material gluing. I have had good luck with Aquaseal [ which I've heard is just urethane glue] on rubber based compounds. Sure liked the look of the wood handle and the arrangement was a very neat idea. Give me a shout when you're coming up. regards, Don

http://video.kenblockracing.com/flash/smal...&autoplay=0

Folks, When I am varnishing cane rods and I have little to do but watch a rod get pulled from the varnish @ 2.5"/minute - I read. Was doing some reading of one of my earliest FF books. Fly Rods and Fly Tackle published in 1885 Found a section on hook styles with a drawing of a barbless hook Found a comment on what he thinks of barbless hooks And here I thought that the barbless hooks I got in 1970 were a new thing. And for Toolmans' sake - still reading and laughing @ his take on long [+13'] FF rods. catch ya' Don [/img] [/img] [/img]

Guys/Gals, Jack Garside has used this type of feather for a host of flies. Here is his take on the feather in an article from Blue Ribbon Flies entitled " What To Do With A Pheasant Skin" by Jack Gartside: The Aftershaft Underneath just about every body feather we've considered, you'll find another feather, a downy, usually grayish and very soft feather. This is the aftershaft feather (hypor hachis) or insulating feather. This feather is sometimes misidentified as a "philo" or "filo" feather or plume. There is such a feather as the "filoplume," but believe me this is NOT it. True filoplumes are those hair-like (filo means hair in Greek) single-strands with a tuft (or plume) on them. Filoplumes are visible only when you've plucked the skin almost bare and are of little use to the practical flytyer. The aftershaft feather has many uses: as very soft hackle for tying soft hackle flies or traditional wet flies, as wing cases on nymphs, as bodies (when wound on) for dragonfly nymphs, or for collars on my Sparrow nymph. One of my favorite aftershaft-bodied flies is the Wet Mouse, which can also be fished as a dragonfly nymph catch ya' Don

Folks, The licensing of Guides in Alberta was an issue that the Provincial Fisheries Roundtable looked at over the past year. Here is a comparison of Guide Licensing Fees across Canada. The only Province that may charge guides enough to recover the cost of administration may be BC. The indication of SRD was that licensing of guides in Alberta will not happen. catch ya' Don

1] How to reduce landfill costs - ban Chinese junk. 2] Cane is cooked in a pizza oven 3] Easy bake - I'll do it if you dress in your frillies and help. Don

Guys, Bloom is right here. Stocking #'s on Bullshead went from 2003 @ 68,000, 2004 @ 40,000, 2005@ 70,000, 06@ 35,000, 07 @ 34,800 and 08@ 39,000. Stocking numbers are down a lot. The 2005 fish will mostly die over winter helping the growth rate a fair pile. The Triploids stocked are AF3N's from Trout Lodge see: http://www.troutlodge.com/. They were eyed eggs bought in 2006. Tim, Swan maintains good growth and low kill due to it's location - far from people, lower stock rates, summer kill, heavy duty algae blooms, lousy campground and fish cysts. All in all, guaranteed to reduce fish takes. And the bears - lots of them. Dolberg growth rates are down a lot from even 4 years ago. 2005 @ 8 lbs. to today @ 3 lbs. or so. And Muir - the catch rates are up. No surprise. The growth rates, I haven't a clue although I've heard that several fish were landed over 20" this past summer. These are probably 5 year old fish. Once they are gone, who knows. I'd suspect that the lake might level out about 14>16" as the best fish. A far cry from the management objective of 20" fish. regards all, Don

Clive, The Quality Lake Policy says: "Desired Characteristics of Prospective Quality Fisheries: 1. Water bodies preferred for quality fisheries will have the capability to produce 50 cm plus trout within a minimum of 4 years of stocking. 2. Management of the fishery can achieve maintaining 10 to15% of the stock in the 50 cm + size range" And now it gets hairy: If the stock used are 2N or 3N and NOT AF3N stock, you will lose about 50% of the males in thier second year due to spawning issues. So of the first stocking in year one, only 18.75% are left @ year 4 due to spawning issues. This discounts all other impacts on the fish. Gonna be tough to meet the Quality Lake Policy standards w/o no kill and AF3N's. This assumes that a four year old fish can get to 50 cms. In most lakes in Alberta, they can't - grits are gone. regards, Don