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Flies — 10 Comments
07
Jan 14

Anyone up for tying?

UPDATED – I think we are full at this point. We’ll also have an extra box donated by Cliff Outdoors that we’ll fill and auction off for BTT.

I’ll get the deets up soon.

 

There are people that buy flies and people that tie them. I, myself am a hybrid of those two things.

I used to love tying trout nymphs and had a few patterns I could count on for my home waters. I never really got into tying dry flies and bought at my local (usually the Ted Fay Fly Shop).

Then I started bonefishing and I fell in love with tying #4’s and #2’s and I found I had a hard time putting a #16 in the vice. I don’t tie my trout bugs anymore, but I very much enjoy tying bonefish patterns.

I know we have more than a couple fly tiers readers here, so I’m wondering if folks might be up for a fly swap.

This would be bonefish specific flies and I’d think we’d look to do up to 10 people tying enough for each person to have two of each pattern (you can’t have just one of a fly… what if it works?).

Let me know if you are interested.

Prep central.

Prep central.

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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.

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.

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Flies — 3 Comments
07
Jan 13

Tying up a storm

UPDATE: Cliff is going to throw me a Crab Shack box to fill up and give away to one of you lucky SOB’s.

 

Sometimes I just seem to need to tie. There are nights when I can’t get my mind on the task and I find myself having tied 4 flies in an hour of tinkering and waffling about materials and patterns. There are other nights when I set out hooks and then more hooks and then more hooks and I just seem to be in the flow. I know what flies I’m tying and with which materials and I tie those flies. Those are the nights I fill up my boxes.

I’ve had a few nights like that recently.

Yeah... that should work.

Yeah… that should work.

It isn’t about filling the boxes anymore, really. The boxes are kind of full. I’ll need to remove some flies to make room for the new ones. I only bring two boxes with me on my hip pack and I’ll bring a box of tarpon/cuda flies if I’m fishing from a boat. Any more than the two boxes (I use Bugger Barn boxes from Cliff Outdoors) and it just becomes a little hard to manage.

If I can convince Cliff to give me a box I’ll fill the box and we can do a give away here on the blog. I don’t really do many give aways, but I’m not opposed to it and this kind of thing would be kind of fun. If I can convince them to give two boxes I think we should make it a communal give away with flies contributed from all of you fine, fine people. Anyone know the Cliff guys?  Let’s make it happen.

The bottom three rows are from the past couple nights.

The bottom three rows are from the past couple nights.

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