alhuger

Nice fish Terrance. That reminds of a conversation I had recently at how bulls look in coastal streams versus in AB. They are allot darker w/ more chrome in coastal water in my experience and less yellow/gold like we see in AB. This is a side shot of a coastal bull and it sort of illustrates the chrome, particularly on the head/gill plate: Here is another shot but of the top:

I would second that. I love my DC 12.6 5/6. I have fished it on the coast and on the bow, it worked great in both places on bulls and trout but as SD indicated it handles chromers as well. I fish mine with a compact skagit 420 with a type 6 10-12 foot tip. It's a bit short but it works well if you keep it slow. Plus, the price is great as is the Echo's. al

Those are beautiful and the river looks stunning as well, congrats.

Amen, I think supporting local small shops helps build a healthy local fly fishing community. I know that people in the shops being friendly really helped me overcome how intimidating fly fishing can be to people who are new to it (like me). I went by Basspro today w/ headscan, it's pretty overwhelming. There is a mind boggling amount of stuffed game in there, seemed almost macabre. My money will continue to go to small shops but it's also nice to see how many people Bass Pro is employing, in this economy that's something to be happy about. al

Seemed like a better alternative than trying to shave it...

Over the winter I spent some time dying polar bear fur. I dyed a series of smallish tufts (although a little does go along way) into a variety of colors. I used Veniard dye and RIT fabric dye and was generally pretty pleased with both. Veniard is more expensive and difficult to find but it does have some more unique colors than RIT. I ended up going with my own method for dying based of conversations with Veniard and trial and error. Veniard sent me the following instructions for using their dyes, which was quite helpful (my dye had no instructions): . ◦First clean the feathers by soaking in any good detergent (Venpol for preference), or a quality soap powder for a few minutes.(Waterfowl feathers must be soaked considerably longer to allow penetration of the natural oil coating). Rinse in cold water. 

 . ◦Dissolve approximately a quarter of a teaspoon of dye in about a litre of boiling water and stir until completely dissolved, then add one table spoon of Acetic acid (if available) or Vinegar. (To fix the colour)
 . ◦Black and all other dark shades should have a much stronger dye bath with more acid or vinegar.

 . ◦Put in the feathers to be dyed and return to the simmer keeping the plumes moving all the time.

 . ◦Most dyes are a mixture of three colours so it is essential to allow time for all the colours to penetrate to obtain the correct shade. They do not fix at the same rate so withdrawing the feathers too soon could result in the wrong shade. You can get a good idea of what the final shade will be by watching the quill or by holding a single feather up to the light. (bear in mind the feather will look a lot darker when wet).

 . ◦Remove all feathers from the dye bath and rinse well in cold water. Press the feathers between cloth or paper to remove most of the moisture. Allow to dry naturally.

 . ◦To bring hackles back to their natural brilliance they should be partially dried and then placed in a cardboard lid blown with a hair dryer and shaken gently until dry.

 . ◦These directions also apply to furs and wool’s etc. 
 I ended up using this process more or less except I used palm olive (which works well) and white vinegar (which also works well). I cut the fur to the lengths I desired and then put the dye in the (Sunterra) tupperware containers. I followed this by pouring boiled water from the tea kettle on it. I would then stir it until the color was consistent and leave it stirring it every now and then. I would generally leave them over night and then remove them and thoroughly rinse them in cold water. After I removed them I air dried them for the day. If when they were dry and the colors were not deep enough I re-dyed them. I found that I got some great colors like a frosty grey/black by under dying a shank of black fur. My first pass looked like this: I plan to dye some longer shanks soon and I will write up the details when they are fresh in my mind. I actually just read an excellent post on Speypages in reference to this topic. Here it is: http://speypages.com/speyclave/showthread....+best+way+to+go Absolutely worth a read. My favorite colors so far are below. Any advice would be appreciated. Kingfisher Blue Hot Pink Gold

I am looking for some open water for practicing river left casting, can anyone suggest some open water right now? PM's are welcome if you do not want to post to the forum. al

No idea. I would think a mix of sustained anchor and touch and go casts and it's generally for dries of one sort or another. I can see that. I do not single hand spey much (my timing is comical) so I have no experience to base how fishable I would find it. Interesting, in the context of a single handed spey, how do you apply more top than bottom hand? It feels like I am missing something important here. al

Depends on the line really. Take a look at this: http://www.emeraldwateranglers.com/speylin...ifications.html Generally though I think you will find most spey lines are weight forward tapers. I am not a line guy, but are not most dry lines pretty aggressively tapered for presentation? Plenty of people I know swear by the 40+ for single hand spey casting so I suspect it might be down to personal preference.

Phylis is hot, full stop. Thanks for posting that.

I will have to get a demo from one of you at some point. For now the razor is working really well but I know it's risky.

Weird, that's pretty much exactly what I carry as well. Those Orvis boxes are life savers in terms of time.

I am very sorry to hear of your loss. Best, al

I posted this to speypages tonight but I figured enough people tie with Rhea here that it's worth a re-port. So, after much experimentation I have come up with a method which allows me to split my Rhea reliably (with very little waste) on low and high grade plumes both. In order to do it you need a cutting board and a good razor blade. The steps are: 1. Lay out the plume on your cutting board and ensure you have strong lighting over it. You will need to be pretty precise so the lighting is important. 2. Take your razor blade and slice an insert down the middle of the plume at the base of the stem. 3. Stand the razor blade up at the base of the stem with sharp end lightly inserted in the incision in the plume. 4. Gently start pushing feather, by the stem, the down the cutting board and towards the razor almost as you were using a sewing machine. The stem now should easily split cleanly down the middle. If the blade is sharp and your incision is clean the stem splits like butter under a hot knife. If at any time you feel your running off center you simply pull up the blade, redo an incision and start from there. This works really well for me but I still resort to manually splitting if the stem becomes too fine for the blade to split. You need to be very careful with the blade obviously and if you're pushing hard at all, something is wrong. The stem should move down the board and split along the razor with a very mild amount of pressure. Again, careful with the razor. al

I think the Rio spey video (one of them) has a demo or two on it from Simon G. doing single handed spey casts with a haul. You're welcome to borrow my copy if you do not have it, just PM me. If you ever run into Marc (headscan) on the water he tends to use it pretty heavily and does it pretty well. It's a pretty handy cast.

Got it, yeh well you have a point. The article from MTB is static though, not a thread hence no dialogue.

For me, 5/6 12'6 for swinging (including nymph rigs) and a 4 wt 9'0 for dries. I need practice with both, my casting can be comical at times, particularly for dry fly fishing.

Hmm, too technical you think? There is a thread there started by Brent which I thought was pretty good as well.

Did the GSP coil on you in the cold?

Happy Bday LK.

I was thinking something like a friendly FAQ or pointers to great static content like MTB's C&R paper (http://flyfishcalgary.com/catch_and_release.php). There are also some other frozen threads in the same section which would be great reference material.

I had that same experience w/ SA's floating mono running line last week. It also coiled allot on me in chilly (and this well above 0) water. I noticed on the water once you get into nice fish it straightens out well but it does have some memory.

It's been a while since I've read the welcome message so I cannot recall it's contents, does anyone know if it offers new links of useful content to the new fly fisher? I ask because being relatively new to this hobby I can still recall reading things here or learning things on the water with new, more experienced fly anglers, that I realized I had been doing horribly wrong on my own when fishing alone. Fish handling is one of those things. I think it might be handy for someone (I would be happy to volunteer) to put together a list of useful links to the beginner fly angler they could read when they join the board. I know I'm getting a little short watching pictures of hypoxic fish up on the rocks or ice but I cannot help it's because people do not know any better. I know I certainly did not at one time. al

Thanks Tool!

All, I have got a problem where I often screw up my forward stroke, it does not always follow a straight path and the result on the cast is not pretty. Typically when this happens I get a tailing loop which snags my line and blows my presentation. When I am out on the water I hate to have to re-factor cast after cast particularly because if I am steelheading or fishing for salmon as my time is really finite and valuable. I only get the opportunity to hunt big fish every so often and I want to spend that time fishing, not fixing my cast. What I have been doing to train myself out of it is just practicing the mechanics of the stroke with just the handle section of the rod. It allows me to see right away if my forward or back cast have deviance any of type. It helps me get used to what a good cast should feel like in terms of arm movement. It also helped me to get used to pulling down with my bottom hand versus my instinctual habit of pushing with the top hand (I fish skagit, not long/mid belly). It's been a useful tip, I would suggest it to anyone facing the same or similar issues. This along with concentrating on anchor placement (and SFD) have been the two biggest factors to helping me manage my cast into something more consistently fishable. al