Recent comments

I've made several of

I've made several of these over the years, the last for a 2 piece 9 1/2 foot 8 wt that was going in baggage when I flew back east. I went with an end cap I found in the hardware store that screws in flush with the end of the tube. It has an indented cross, like a huge phillips head screw, that requires a tool to open. I felt this would dicourage the merely curious from getting into it in transit. I also like to add a handle and shoulder strap that I pop rivet in place-but ALWAYS use a rod sock as the end of the rivet on the inside of the tube can scratch the rod.

Up until last year,

Up until last year, I tied at the kitchen table and my outfit had to be "portable". God smiles on fools sometimes and the right sized containers happened to be on hand. My grandfather's cedar tackle box was just right to hold two plastic compartment boxes that held hooks, beads, and thread spools. The single tray held tools, glue, the vise base and my magnifying glasses. The vise just fit inside the lid clamped with the table clamp to an"L" shaped braket I screwed on. All my materials went into clear plastic page protectors, available with many varying sized pockets, in 3 ring binders. I always worked on the dull side of a piece of white poster board to protect the table and give good contrast to the materials and reflect the light.

A couple of other va

A couple of other variations for this tie; Leave off the hackle collar, then cross the front biots and pull them down under the fly then split them with scissors- wah-lah, legs. Or, tie the front biots in as normal, then fold them back and tie them down. Trim them to 1/3 the length of the rest of the biot and color with brown marker- wing pads with wings emerging.

I built a bunch of t

I built a bunch of these indicators using strips of craft foam (instead of yarn) and a box of "O" rings in different sizes I got a Harbor Freight for about $4. I still prefer red, green, pink Lil' Corkys for indicators. I cut a slot thru the side with a hobby saw so I can put them on the leader or move them past tippet knots without removing my fly. I peg them in place with pieces of round wooden toothpicks and they stay put pretty well. Two drawbacks; when my casting gets lazy, the leader can get stuck on the toothpick if it isn't trimmed short. I've also had trout hit the indicator instead of the nymph. I plan to start coloring the bottoms so they're less attractive.

For a great story of

For a great story of an incredible cast (er), read Frank Woolner's introduction to "Fly Fishing In Salt Water" by Lefty Kreh.

What would you charg

What would you charge for a sign like this?

Production Fly tying

Production Fly tying is an excellant book. Very easy to understand and use. Lots of "why didn't I think of that" ideas ! One of the VERY BEST tying books...NOT FOR BEGINNERS....you really need to be an intermediate tyer to get your moneys worth.

Hi All,
I'v

Hi All,
I've been experimenting with lots of different kinds of foam lately, especially inexpensive hobby craft and free packing material types. I have trouble cutting the foam symetrically so, instead, I use wing burners, tweezers, clamps etc and singe the foam to shape with a Bic lighter.

One more pic.

Thsi is a healthy, cold mouthed bass.

Today's Bass

It was one of those days that I would have never even thought about Largemouth Bass fishing several years ago. Low 30's, strong winds, water temp at about 44 degrees F. I recently got the Clouser book and went to work on a few petterns and threw caution to the wind, literally, and gave it a try. If the pics do not come through I'll try again. I caught a dozen Bass by fishing chatruse clouser deep minnows. I let them sink to the bottom and crawled them back. Most of the pickups were while the fly was sitting still. Many of the fish have a huge headed appearance right now. The seventeen incher was only two pounds. That fish will put on a full pound by bedding time in 6-8 weeks. In two hours I hooked up twenty fish and landed a dozen. I cant think of a better way to freeze one's butt off.

What???

Iwas thinking about 9 or 11 weight..... Ok, small mistake:)... Ive got three or four months so I hope that somethinkll be done... I tied yesterday but it looks like giant leech with gold hea and Iam not still satisfied....Ive to belive to my fly...
You asked me if Iam gonna fish for them on stillwaters or rivers.... Now Iam prefer rivers because on still waters is not to easy to get them to close......
Dada

Let us know

David,

Let us know what fish you take out of the rivers.

Tight lines,
Kasper

Feedback: Martin, yo

Feedback: Martin, you asked for it.....I really do like your broadcasts....I live here in Southern California, but I used to go every spring to the Baltic Coast in "Schleswig/Germany" to fish for Seatrout. Every time I hear one of your broadcasts I remember the old days. One thing you could do is to talk a little bit about the flies you are using.....maybe even make a danish sea trout fly flytying podcast.....why not?

Cheers from San Diego, CA

Matthias

Great article. The

Great article. The polypro yarn is sometimes difficult to find. You can get it one-yard pieces or macrame rope @ $.40 each, at "www.carolsrugs.com", just look under "macrame cord", then "fly fishing cord".

Tight lines

I'm from the UK

I'm from the UK.
I've got to tie some of these flies up and try them in the rivers around me.

David

Dada,

Dada,

I used to cast this on a medium action 6wt, but as you can imagine it is about as difficult as trying to cast a live chicken..... it is a bit easier on a fast 8wt, but you will have to be happy with only casting about 15 -20meters , but it is well worth the sacrifice in distance. I have caught bore cats on this rig than anything else, plus Bass are also very fond of this combo.

Thanks...

Thank you Waterdog...
Its a lttle bit crazy combination for me, but why not? Everythink is make good vibrations, big siluet and size too. What rod your are using for this flies? It has to be very dificult to cast......

Here are some riffle

Here are some riffle hitch flies, actually tied by Lee Wulff.

http://montana-riverboats.com/Pages/Fly-Tying/Montana-Fly-Tiers/Lee-Wul…

IE issues

Thanks for the emails. According to request I have changed the coding. It didn't seem to work with the very latest of again changed microsoft anti-technology ... so know it should. Let me know if you encounter problems with using that flybox.

..... have I mentioned that I hate Microsoft? :mad:

I wish Partridge was

I wish Partridge was still made in Redditch.You make enough of Redditch on this site, so make 'em here

Hello Martin
I am f

Hello Martin
I am fishing for many years on the Mandal can you tell me about zone 2 I go in the second week of june , I am fishing with the fly , can you tell wich part on zone 2, you think .
Thank you
Rene van Heezik

Great article. I ma

Great article. I make poppers and streamers using foam popper heads. (just turn the popper around and it's a streamer.) My eyes are done the same way only smaller. I use the sharpened sticks like in the article. My iris is in gold and the pupil in black. (I've looked at a lot of fish and noticed the iris is gold on most.) The one thing I have found that works great is 30 min. epoxy to cover the heads. You can do a lot of streamers using the 30 min. epoxy. It makes a nice gloss finish that is real hard and holds up when you hit rocks or sticks.
Im going to make some of the streamers with the big eyes and test them out for bass and trout.
Thanks for a great article.

Dada,

Dada,

This is what my set up looks like, the popper is 2/0 and the leech is tied in size 1 , - smaller than when I use a leech only, but as you can imagine, this set up is quite difficult to cast. Also due to their moths being bone hard I use stainlessteel hooks only.

Hi Alan, No fishing

Hi Alan, No fishing for me in these parts this time of year. All these streams are closed to fishing. Even if they weren't, not too far around the bend from that pic, the ice is from shore to shore. There is some year around water on the Beaverkill and some of the other bigger waters, but I'd just as soon stay inside and tie flies than freeze my butt off chasing a couple half frozen trout. If I fish in the winter, it's up north for steelhead (something I don't do much anymore, unfortunately).