fly tying | Bonefish on the Brain

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05
Jan 19

Why I’ll get back to Mexico at some point

Trigger Food

This fly had the misfortune to find itself in the mouth of a trigger fish. Man… those chompers are serious.

Guide Nick Denbow put me on this fish down out of Mahahaul, MX back in 2016.

A trigger, and Costas

I found other triggers, hooked a few, but found them tough to get to hand and VERY tough on flies. I fished for an hour with one of those bitters crimped by a trigger before I noticed.

As I head to Christmas Island here in a few weeks I’m thinking about triggers again and I’m trying to tie up some flies durable enough to get the job done. I’m using epoxy (really for the first time) and I’m working on things crabby.

That’s some heavy wire, man… heavy…

I don’t even know what these hooks are. Found them at Bass Pro and not in the fly tying section. This is some kind of bait hook and about 4x heavier than any other fly hook that size I’ve ever seen. That’ll do… that’ll do.

Look out triggers… I’m coming for you… wherever you are.

All the other stuff — 2 Comments
08
Dec 18

Nightmare – Belize Edition

I almost never remember my dreams. Maybe once every couple of months I’l wake up with a vague notion of what passed through my brain in the middle of the night or a random comment during the day will unlock some stored and normally inaccessible memory. There is, however, one way I get a little glimpse into what’s flowing through my head in the slumbering hours.

I have an almost 5 year old.

He’ll walk into our bedroom at very odd hours and interrupt his parents’ sleep because…

His music has turned off.
His sheets are messed up.
A book has fallen off his bed.
He has to pee.
He’s had a bad dream.

Usually, it is 1-4, rarely 5. You can get an idea from the list that these are not exactly 3:00 AM emergencies, but, he’s a good boy, so… we allow it.

Last night he came in and not only did he interrupt our sleep, but he caught me in the middle of a bit of a nightmare of my own.

I was either in Belize or on my way to Belize. I had WAY under-packed. I found myself with a simple backpack and a rod tube. One rod. I had brought an 8 wt (probably my favorite, my Helios 2). But… where was my 10 wt? Where was the tarpon stick? Where was the cuda rod?

You can see what a nightmare that would be, right?

Now… because I tend to believe dreams actually do relate to the real world, I have traced back that particular dream to two places.

First… I saw this pick on good ole’ Facebook:

The final piece, the tarpon.

That’s a tarpon caught out of El Pescador in Ambergris. It happens to be the lodge where I spent my honeymoon and where I got my Grand Slam.

Second source, I believe, for this dream/nightmare is that I’m going to Christmas Island in about 2 months and I am WAYYYYYYY behind on my tying (I’m about a dozen flies into what should be about 5 or 6 dozen flies tied).

That which is left undone is one of those underlying reasons for many a nightmare or sense of anxiety (or so I believe). When you feel like something isn’t totally right, it usually has roots in some task or job you haven’t taken to 100%.

So… I guess I better get tying.

Flies — 1 Comment
11
Mar 18

Me and my favorite fly – Reverse Glassback Hot-Nosed Gotcha

Yeah… not professionally done, but, ya know… here’s a go.

I love this fly. I end up tying it when I don’t know what else to tie. I have this fly in many, many sizes and variations. I usually start with this fly in some form and I’ll fish it all day if it is working at all.

Seems like, maybe, I should have turned the phone over on its side?

Enjoy?

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16
Jul 17

On finishing

I do a lot of cooking and so I buy the big spice containers. I have to say, when I finish one, a big container of garlic powder or onion powder or cumin, there is a sense of accomplishment. Finishing one of those says “You are serious about it. You have put in your time.”

Running out of ink in a favorite pen or running out of paper in a work journal is the manifestation of effort expended. It is evidence. Proof.

So it is with a spool of thread at the tying desk. I like finishing spools of thread. I like running out of hooks and craft fur and crystal flash.

I’m putting in the time. I am putting in the wraps.

Not much left of this one.

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15
Jul 17

Time with my vice

I forget just how much I enjoy sitting at the vice and pounding out some flies. My vice and tying table don’t live in the house. I’m relegated to the garage, but that means I can be a bit messier than my wife would allow inside, so it could be all for the best.

The desk is something I’ve had for 13 years now. I used it as a computer desk at one point before I saw the obvious and converted it into my tying desk. I’ve gone through a few vices, even one that was sent to me by a reader of the blog. This vice works well. I’m not sure of the brand, as that has never been really important to me. I just need it to work and this works.

I’ve been tying for Mexico, which happens in about a week. I need to go through my existing boxes and pull out flies that I know I won’t fish. Some flies have been sitting there for years and are rusty, others I have consistently bypassed for the past 5 years so should probably take out of the box in favor of something I might actually fish.

I like tying. I like creating. I like sitting there in my garage and watching a fly take shape with a few wraps of thread and bits of fur. It is “crafting for dudes.” For those of you who still aren’t in to tying, I recommend it. It brings you just one step further into the game. Catching a fish on a fly you tied is pretty awesome.

Here is what I’ve been tying up.

All of these are new ties for Mexico and the box in general.

Some different patterns.

Trying to bring some order to what I’m tying.

Flies — 2 Comments
31
Jan 16

Back at the vice

We moved and in that process all my fly tying materials, even the desk itself, were packed up and carted the 2.7 miles from the first house to our new home (I’m never moving again). This was the sixth move for the fly tying desk in the past 9 years, but it is still with me.

Moved, but not ready.

The new home didn’t have room for my desk, but the garage did have room and that’s where it ended up. It is a little cold in there, but this is California, so a little cold is just that and nothing a space heater couldn’t rectify.

Now… now I have a trip on the books and speeding toward me like Christmas or my anniversary, close now and soon it will be right on top of me and I better get to planning and actually DOING stuff to get ready or I won’t be.

So the boxes got unpacked and put away and I figured out how to get some power over to my little detached corner for the light and the heater and found a folding chair and now I’m back in business.

It felt good to be back at the vice after a few months of not being there. It felt good to set up a little bit of tropical thinking in this little corner of suburbia.

I tied flies for bonefish to reject, to flee and to crush, all of these outcomes are almost certain to happen, maybe even on the same cast.

Two weeks and they are getting on a plane (on planes, plural) with me and flying across the country and then out of it and touching down in a place I don’t know well at all, but kind of love and know I will love for the rest of my days and I’m going to use those bits of metal and plastic and thread to carry out one of those imperatives of my soul, of my being, to look for the shadow on the sandy flat, the movement contrary to the chop or the current, the flash of a tail, the gray ghost in his stunning habitat.

I think about that as I’m wrapping the bare hook in my garage with the space heater humming and a glass of not-very-good rum sitting mostly undrunk on my desk, getting in a Caribbean mindset. I think of what might look good to a bonefish. I think about movement and flash and what might tangle and how something might fish and the colors that might be intoxicating or repulsive to a creature with a brain the size of a pea and who will outsmart me more than I will outsmart it.

And I tie. I tie each fly in its own way, creating what seems to be asking to be created. Whip finish and head cement and take out from the jaws of the vice and put it with its new fraternity and put the next blank canvas in the vice and think again of skinny water, casting decks and polarized lenses.

The haul for the night.

Uncategorized — 3 Comments
23
May 15

Ruined

I just can’t get into tying trout flies anymore. I just can’t do it. The salt stuff is just too much fun. It’s so big and expressive and substantial. I don’t want to tie any more #16’s.

I know which I’d rather tie.

Flies / Gear — 2 Comments
03
May 15

Vices

A new member to the family… my new Peak Vice.

Peak vice

It was time for a new vice and while I like nice things, I don’t like paying a lot of money. There are a lot of very nice vices out the and some come with eye watering prices. I’m never going to own one of those. The Peak was a decent compromise. It isn’t a $30 vice, but it isn’t a $500 vice. The cost, $149, seems like a pretty good value. “Made in the USA,” the vice seems well made and solid. I’m looking forward to it.

The c-clamp this came with was too bulky to work with the fly tying desk I have, which has doors I can close to keep all the hooks and goodies safe from our toddler. I simply used the other c-clamp I had, which has a nice skinny profile and works better with the doors.

I’ve tied a few flies on this so far and it takes a 1/0 pretty well. Maybe it will work on a #22 and I will do everything I can never to find out.

Welcome to the family Peak.

Flies — 3 Comments
16
Dec 13

Mono Eyes

I like tying with mono eyes, but my attempts to actually burn mono have not really looked right. Because of this failure on my part, I’ve bought them (at $5.50 a pack) instead of making them.

This weekend I suddenly figured out how to make mono eyes using UV cure stuff (I use the loon UV Clear Fly Finish).

All you have to do is just dip a single piece of mono into the UV gel, set it and then dip it again and then set that. Repeat the process about 4-5 times and you’ll have a really nice round eye on a stalk. Get some black nail polish and paint the eyes, wait for them to dry and then coat them one more time with the UV cure gel.

The final product is a pretty good looking mono eye.

Not bad.

There are other ways to make the eyes, as I found out on the Facebook page, but I think this one is going to be how I do these myself.

Flies — 4 Comments
15
Dec 13

simple vs. complex

I’ve been spending some time at the vice lately and looking at putting some new patterns in my box. I was looking at Dick Brown’s Bonefish Fly Patterns and I was struck by just how simple some of the patterns were, and by complex others were.

Here are a couple of examples from my desk from last night.

A crab pattern I tied up last night. Inspired by, but not very similar to Peterson’s Peeking Crab (from Dicks book). Lots of steps involved.

A lot of steps in that there lil crab.

Jim’s Rubber Band Worm (from Dick Brown’s book). Just about as simple as it gets. Anyone ever caught a fish on this fly?

It’s a frigging rubber band…

What’s the simplest patter you tie or have caught fish on?

Bonefish on the Brain Bonefish and all that relates (maybe a bit about tarpon too).

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