SilverDoctor

So you think you're spending too much on tying materials, check this out also check out the Million Dollar lure.

A great many flies. Blue wing olives, Callibaetis Dry's, lots of spinner patterns, Cahill's and otehr mayfiles, to mention a very few. Good color for a lot of patterns.

Black Dose Hair-Wing Streamer variation.

Great job Meagan, and welcome!!

Just depends I have some in my box not a lot, but I prefer non brass bead variety for most flies. There are some exceptions like Chironomids and other flies and bead headed buggers. where I like to include glass beads in various colors. So I guess it's a cross section depending on the type. With nymphs I like to weight them instead of using a bead head, though I have a few with beads on the body.. There are also times where a bead can be used to simulate the bubble some nymphs use to rise to the surface so I guess it's a variety.

Questions for you first. What's you leveL of fly fishing? where do Where are you located? ? Most of the small waters are iced up to some degree so you need to know about winter fishing. Little early for dry fly fishing. On the Bow look for opened water anywhere. The best place to start is to read previous posts on this forum. a bit of research will answer all of your questions. This question has been asked many times.

Trips to BC like always. More trips to small streams in Alberta, maybe with some new faces..

I have a couple of Grafton suites and love em.

Anythiong over 500 fps is considered a pistol and needs a pal. I have some old Crossman air guns that creep into that area.

I fish a lot of soft hackles, winged wets and flynphs. Often swinging braces with my Spey rod, although I love running them with a softer action rod. An older fiberglass or one of my bamboo. I find I get better control and hook ups. Been fishing this style of fly since the mid 60's. Love tying the flies, especially winged wets. Haven't done my tying for this year yet, finally finished up my tying commitments so hopefully soon..

fly fishing is like sex… when it’s good, it’s really good, and when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good

Still use Wincutters a lot myself.

Have to agree with you Headscan. Tried the Sharkskin line and it didn't suit my style at all. Had the same anchor issues. My brother in law now has the line and he seems OK with it. On this issue of short casts I usually do a high stick method initially off the tip. then slowly add line till I can achieve a full Spey cast working the water out from shoreline to distant holes. When the the hatch is on and tiny dry's hit the water I flip over to my dry fly rods. The spey excels at nymph rigs fished deep. Indicator rigs, and swinging wets and streamers. It's also great for skidding bitches over long stretches. Big river big rods. BUT when the caddis and blue wings are on the water or I hit my smaller steams or lakes there is another rod in my caddy (often several). I love a lot of different fishing styles. They all have their charm, and their place.

Heal your injury. In the mean time tie flies get out and study the water etc.

Those are great photos, thanks for posting. Looks like a great area.

I bought the one I had from Fishtails a couple of years ago. Did they stop selling the TFO professional in Canada? Just curious.

A couple of dozen for me. Especially when nymphing, if you're not loosing flies you're not fishing.

The chart I have is only Daiichi, Avalon, Mustad, Orvis, Eagle Claw, Partridge and Tiemco. its' here

I tie shank to eye. I fish single double and triple rigs depending on the tiem of year and size of prey. Sometimes a larger chasing smaller Sometimes school fry. Lots of combos. I never put split shot between, good way to get a tangle. I prefer a sink tip or weighted streamer.

Unfortunately there are a few specialty hooks being phased out or already gone. Some of my favorite salmon blind eye display hooks have already disappeared. Along with a few of my fav wet fly series. Back to rejigging and reshapping display hooks I guess.

Certainly the price of hooks has climbed. I do tie quite a bit and hooks arn't cheap. I have noticed that some manufactures hook quality seems to suffer. I have always been curious about a variety of manufactures, always looking at quality verses price. My brother in law in BC sent me some samples of some very attractively priced hooks. He bought packages of dry and wet and sent me a few samples. The quality was disappointing. I tied a couple of dries and one hook actually snapped in the vice as I tied. I decided to take small pliers to them and found them to be terribly brittle snapping at the upper bend quite easily but not consistently. Tested out the wet fly hooks and actually found the reverse. They don't seem to have proper tempering. It was not hard to pull the bend out. More than I would trust in my brand of fishing. A few in the packages where miss shaped, that is, not quite the right shape by about a sixteenth.. Not sure If i just got a bad batch but it didn't look good. Basically the hooks looked good but there are tempering problems. They are not overly sharp. These hooks would be great if you where running fly tying classes and needed a bulk buy but they are not to my particular taste. Generally a number of different companies product has not overly impressed me. There are a number of others that are great quality including some great truly great UK producers who I purchase display quality hooks from.In other posts i have mentioned manufactures that I respect. Now you have noticed that I have intentionally not mentioned company names. I don't intend to. I would also ask other posters to kindly respect my thread and do the same please. I dont' want to dice any manufacturer as what I don't care for may be just the ticket for another tier. I just want to open a discussion about hooks and their quality. In the past I have bought other brands that I have thrown away because of temper problems. Do you feel the quality of some products out there suffer as I do? Do you like to tie on a quality product and are willing to pay for it. Or do you like to buy a more modestly priced product.

No problems with length, I'm with Max. as I like a bit of action. i find strikes are usually at the front or mid area. I have a certain brown's strike burned in my mind forever. I drifted a bugger past a big submerged rock and he rolled on it smacking it along the hook shank to "kill" the bugger then turned to finish it off and I had him. Funny how certain fish affect you.

Welcome to the board. look forward to reading your posts.

I would have to second that for the Pfluger president, super reel for the price. Well manufactured, I have two. I still use my Dad's Pfluger Medalist from the 30's so it tells a lot about quality. You might also check out the trading post, Max has a bauer mx4 on there. Jahad also had some nice reels there. You could also pick up a Hardy Cascapedia's with the British pound down and a 40% off right now on the Harris Site it's a good bet also if ou like click prawls.

Here you go. Hardy's Favorite Hook: Mustad 3399 #8-12 Thread: Black Tail: Golden Pheasant Tippets Rib: Red Floss Body: Bright Peacock Herl Hackle: Brown Wing: Mottled Turkey Quill