flyangler

Two for trout. One and a fly wallet for steelhead.

When the water is hard, your casts have to be extremely accurate to get the fly into the little hole.

I know where he lives and I'm going back for him. I swear. I skittered a smallish Royal Stimulator past a downed pine thinking "there ought to be a cutt in there." Then, as if somebody standing on the river bottom tossed it straight into the air with both hands, this bull launched out of the water, full body at once. Not head, followed by back followed by tail, like a porpoise, it showed it's full length in one go. This was followed by the awe and disbelief something much bigger than expected will inspire. That my hook came back to me still bent is a source of continued amazement. This was followed by the continuing longing for one more cast at this spot. Pardon the repetition of both the photo and the story.

Well done! You're a goner now.

http://www.discoverourtown.com/MT/Great%20...ining-2779.html You'll want to avoid anything from Bud or Miller IMO. But then, I don't like a Kokanee either. Not unless it's hot and dusty out and I've just caught an armload of Alberta 'bows on hoppers. Everything in it's place.

Yeah, I've floated the Missouri in April. But it was in a canoe in Iowa. It was big, fast, muddy, laden with farm chemicals and packing plant effluent and fished like a box of chocolates. You never knew what you were gonna get; pike, gar, carp, sturgeon, catfish, bullhead, bass, redhorse, skipjack, dead guy, family pet, grain barge. . . .

The 4wt I built has a "fighting butt" however it is quite small. Mainly, it keeps the reel up off the ground when I lean the rod against the truck.

That's all three stores in my home state. 200 people will be laid off. We're down to two mom and pop flyshops in the 5 county metro area and two big boxes. The flyfishing manager at one SW recently offered the company's support for both my river clean up in April and a Casting for Recovery retreat scheduled for July. I don't expect that's going to come through. Worse than that, I wonder what a fellow his vintage is going to do for work in this economy.

They might. As with many of my Pain In The Arse or PITA flies, these were donated to a TU auction in display boxes. They are made of deer hair, so they should float, theoretically. If you really want a spider to fish with, it's quicker and easier to use foam for the body and rubber legs.

Well, if you miss her a lot Andrew, you can tie your own. Little bit of a different color scheme. A fellow by the last name of Martin had some spiders in a fly tying magazine a few years back that inspired me. I used his method to tie the "flies" above with deer hair bodies, mono legs and nail polish for color. Cool photos. Glad you found her before she found you.

Glad to be done with the first set. Thanks for the kind words. They'll fuel me in finishing the second and LAST set. Then it's nothing but fishing flies for me. I get to go fishing tomorrow!

Here is the first collection in a shadow box. The lid has a glass insert and closes with magnetic clasps. It will be donated to a local (Minnesota) TU chapter for their fundraising auction. I have begun a second collection and will have a carpenter build me a box, an artist cut a mat, and hope this will improve things.

My husband, who is 43, is having his cataract surgery next month. I wonder if all the UV exposure before the polarized fishing glasses had anything to do with it. He's got none of the risk factors you named either. I told him he shouldn't get them fixed or he'll see all my wrinkles.

Not sure what you mean by regular flies. You may know all the things I'm going to tell you, but since your question was brief, bear with me. "Soft-hackle flies" are an old fashioned fish getter tied and fished as subsurface patterns. I like to tie the old classic "Partridge and Orange" with orange ultrawire in place of the floss. They work for me in green, orange, chartreuse, red and gold wires. Wire makes them quick to tie, durable, slightly heavy and attractive to fish and angler alike. They are related to "North Country Spiders" in that they often have no tail and lack the shiny, more stiff type of hackle that will help a dry fly to float. Soft hackle feathers are widely available if you hunt or know hunters who target pheasant, grouse, partridge, quail and that sort of game bird. Good soft hackle feathers have fine, flexible stems and are not overly webby (web is created by hooks on each feather barb that interlock with neighboring barbs). They give the fly bug like movement in the water as the feather flows with the water. Google both the terms in quotation marks above for countless photos, recipes and discussions on their merits. I am a mere student in these matters.

Thanks Max, great compliment coming from a tyer like you.

All done. I just don't know how to display them. Cutting a mat for 80 flies sounds crazy-making.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm reinventing the wheel. I've been storing these mallard wings for at least a decade and this project used up the first matching primaries. That's how often I use winged wet flies. I'm getting comfortable with the idea that they don't all turn out like this dry fly. They're all free hand, as you say. The "new" tying desk I picked up at the thrift store has been inspirational for both tying and tidying up- I finally got all my tying mess off the dining room table. We can eat without blowing feathers out of our food. It closes up nicely when cats or guests appear.

Finished all the wet flies, this Col Fuller is the last. I have about 16 of the dry flies done.

Ha ha Lynn, you've got it all worked out. You'd be wanting rainbows though, I bet. As for black spots, you have to look rrrreeeeeeeaaaaaalllllll close to see the vanilla bean seeds. But you'd probably eat the rejects anyway, right?

Here's the recipe. I skipped the last two ingredients and step 5 and just used a store bought "icing pen" to outline them. I also didn't use any silly umbrella shaped cookie cutter: http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/umbrella-sugar-cookies They ARE sweet and tasty. But for the sake of my waistline and arteries, he took most of them to work.

http://i41.tinypic.com/2hi73ah.jpg My husband is 29 again. I made these sugar cookies that have added lemon zest and vanilla bean seeds for his birthday today. They are sanded with golden yellow decorative sugar and chocolate sprinkles to make them Brown Trout.

Thanks for the resources, Klaas. I've seen quite a few of Donald's flies on FAOL over the past few years.

The colorplate is tucked into the center of an old book on fly tying so I have the recipes. The images of each fly are not photos, but some kind of artwork, which is where I got the template idea. Probably just have to let go of my perfectionism long enough to tie the dang flies without worrying so much about the outcome. This is a process, after all, and the lessons I learn may be unexpected.

Thanks fellas. I just hope they make a nice display. I've made a color photocopy of the page and plan to display that in a frame near a shadowbox for the flies. My first qualm is that the page has such stylized wings (they must have been a template that the graphic artist colored in with the appropriate colors for each fly) that my flies won't look at all the same.

I'm tying all the flies on this old catalog page. Got a ways to go.