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3. What Does Your Tying Area Look Like?, Page 2

"Plus, a beginner is going to have a heck of a time tying with 11" long saddle hackles."

That is what scissors are for; cut 11" in half and it is much more manageable.

That is still 5-1/2" long, which is still too long for a beginner wrapping around the vise... and after you tie a fly what do you do with all those pieces? IMHO, I can tie a lot more flies and get a lot more sizes with a Hebert Miner Pro Grade neck.

Spence, you make me sick. I'm so freakin' jealous...I just tell myself, when I move out on my own again, I will get a nice, permanent place to tie - as opposed to the mess I am looking at right now.

JMD

Jon,

I'm 56 years old and have worked somewhere since junior high school in the mid-60's...My wife has run her own insurance agency almost since we met...We have no children unless, according to meine Frau, you count me...The fly tying area is really over-kill, you know, "boys and their toys"...

My two "hobbies", fly fishing and ice hockey, I have been "into" all my life, but put them off for the university and my first marriage...It took me time to get it together and find some time to devote to these pass-times. You will get there mister...

I wish, in retrospect, that I had had someone to school me in this stuff when I was 12, but it didn't happen that way...On the other hand I missed out on Vietnam, never was in the service,or shot at, pretty healthy save for a bum back I inherited...All in all, again if you ask the wife, I have lived the life of a prince.

Spence the Prince (this was my nickname when I drove truck at the Detroit Free Press back in the 70's while I worked my way through Wayne State...Jimmy Keyes gave everyone a nickname and this was mine...I'll send you a private message to explain it).

Spence, I actually did a little time in the Army Reserve - remember my stories about rapelling off the Dental Building at U of M? Never went full active, however, so I never got shot at either, thank goodness - though I certainly know how to shoot back thanks to a most serious firearms hobbyist in my father! (I actually surprised him with my pistol shooting on my 46th birthday - better than ever before and I hadn't discharged a firearm in at least a decade...) My other hobbies include amateur astronomy (THERE'S a way to spend a lot of $$$), mountain biking, cross-country skiing (doing it right now as much as I can while the snow stays!!), kayaking, snorkeling, fishkeeping (go figure), camping/backpacking, etc. And lots of reading...Good thing I have lots to do, otherwise the last 2+ years of near non-employment would have driven me INSANE.

I do have to say that I have done a LOT more fishing in the last two years, although it's not like I wasn't fishing a lot before. Hell, I just like to fish whenever and wherever I can - trout streams, warmwater streams, lakes, ponds, old gravel pits, anything that holds decent fish than can put up a fight. I am dying to do more trout waters, but the good old panfish and bass (maybe I'm just an overgrown child) have more than sustained my soul in recent years - and I've caught some really NICE ones and had some terrific battles with big bass! How about a 16-inch smallmouth on a 3-WEIGHT??? (And a 17-inch largemouth too...).

As far as fly tying is concerned, I have actually tried to keep my setup mobile, for tying on trips as I did last August at the U of M Bio Station. I have one large and one small tackle box absolutely STUFFED with 20 years of accumulated materials (and a substantial amount of them actually date back that far!). However, my envy was to have the space to SPREAD OUT and get some organizing tools and cabinets, especially as in recent times my tying, and material purchases, have increased substantially (it's that unemployment thing again - LOTS of time to tie!). As I hope to be moving out in a few months, I will look for a place that I can set up a tying desk and lay everything out nice and visible so I don't have to dig through the PILES I am right now.

I do appreciate the words of encouragement, as always. BTW, I have been out steelhead fishing about a dozen times now, and still no steelhead - but I did get a pretty 13" brownie the Saturday before Christmas!

Jonathon

Jon,

I used to drag all my stuff around when I spent a week or more fishing somewhere. The wildest was my trip to Montana in 1995 where I had this huge duffle bag and there was more fly tying stuff in there than clean clothes! I flew out and if that bag was lost I was screwed!

Funny thing about that trip...I tied for a year in preparing for the trip and my buddy Bill added a ton more flies to my stash...But I pretty much needed only one fly on the Madison! It was a caddis we tie that we call the Partridge Caddis but it's different than Mike Lawson's version from out west...

I would be sitting on the bank with my back against all these huge shrubs along the bank. I would look up and there would be a trillion caddis chasing each other around at the top of the shrubs...Then they were out over the water and then dropping to the water to deposit eggs I guess...Then these beautiful porpoising head tail rises...You would of wet yourself!

If I ever get our scanner set up in here I'll scan some photos for you...Go figure...In 1987 I purchased a Nikon F-3 and a couple great lens' and a decade later everyone went digital!

Partridge Caddis for Madison in late July early August...Dry fly hook of choice...size 14 and 16's...Wrap dark brown thread back to bend and leave there a tag end from the thread for ribbing (can use fine wire here if you must...can use tan thread)...Dub a caddis shaped body to (tannish brown...I use beaver here but hey use what you want) front of fly an eye length or so from the eye of hook...Attach a nice quality brown rooster hackle by the butt end and palmer rearwards to thread tag and catch it with a couple wraps of thread and snip off excess. Spiral wrap thread back through the hackle to your working thread and bind it down and snip off what's left...Find a nice, not mangled, brown mottled partidge feather with even tips and bind it down over the top like you would the wing on an Elk Hair Caddis to just a smidge past the bend/rear of fly. Attach another hackle that matches the length of the hackle nearest the hook eye and wrap just one wrap of hackle in front of wing to give the fly a finished look. It's an elk hair, give or take, but with a partridge wing instead of elk or deer hair...Hint...Michigan's version of Grannom and the Chimmara (Little Black Caddis)...change hook to correct size (14/16 for Grannom, 16/18 for the Little Black Caddis)...Grizzly hackle instead of brown...dark brown to blackish body...The gray mottled partridge feather for wing...

In 1995 if there had been a one fly contest on the Madison with dry flies I would of cleaned up! Imagine this...I was with a group for a few days and the guides were trying to show us short line nymphing...I wasn't getting any hits when one of the guides stopped by me to tell me lunch was ready...I was standing in the area at $3.00 Bridge known as the Boulders for obvious reasons...I saw a fish rise and snipped off the nymph etc and re-worked my tippet and tied on one of the above flies and took a 17" Bow in front of the guide with just enough line out from the top guide to get the leader to the fish...He was that close!

Two days prior to this I had taken my first fish on the Madison, I was by myself, on this same fly and it was a 20" Bow! This was after some young buck at the Madison River Fishing Co in Ennis had told me that the fish on the Madison only get caught below the surface...He, he!

Take Care!

Spence

Funny how you can tie a freakin' duffle bag full of flies and yet you find only ONE that really works!! I used to load up my vest with every single type of fly that I could imagine, and yet I always used the same dozen or so patterns. In recent years I have gone to a simple shoulder-pack type of arrangement with just two fly boxes, some tippet spools, and a few basic tools. I started doing this in San Marcos, TX because I had to wade up to my neck to reach a favorite fishing pool - obviously waders weren't going to work but I didn't need them in 70 F TX spring water, especially on 90+ F days! Anyway, everything in the vest would get soaked and have to be spread out to dry lest my hooks all rusted and the dye colors of the flies all ran together. With a shoulder pack I could just lift it all above my head and if it did get soaked, well, there was that much less to worry about spreading out to dry. A few months ago I purchased - actually, it was FREE because of coupons I received in the mail!! - a new Orvis Sling Pack and it is the cat's meow. I'll never wear a vest again! I highly recommend this piece of gear.

Since I generally stop wearing waders in the summer, it's not a problem if a massive caddis hatch causes me to "wet myself"...:oD

Jonathon

Spence,

I like the caddis pattern, and have saved it. Did you (or anyone else) see the most recent Flyfisherman magazine. It has some very interesting caddis patterns. Mike Mercer (I think it is) describes one I'm very eager to try out.

--Louis

"It has some very interesting caddis patterns."

I liked the idea of putting a hank of poly yarn on top of the normal wing to help you see the fly in different light conditions. I tied some of my "secret" caddis patterns with toppers of white, black, and orange poly yarn. You tie it so the yarn is narrower than the normal wing and the topper is not visible from underneath.

Louis,

I did see that article and posted some mention of it somewhere on here.
The thing that interests me has been during those times when I know the fish were on emerging caddis and I was having a hell of a time trying to get their interest at the surface with my offering...I didn't have the emergent version of the sparkle pupa but I had the deep version...I floated this over the fish, in the surface film, and caught fish. Something in that pattern has to have some real draw in it...What I won't swear to is whether or not it works because of the "trapped bubble" idea or because it looks basically disheveled and like a caddis that failed to emerge and looks like an easy target to the trout...


Matt I've seen many versions of what you are talking about. My fishing friend ties these "hi-viz" type things even on the tops of beetle patterns and others. I've seen an experimental spinner he was working on one time with a little post tied in of bright orange elk or deer and snipped real short after the fly is finished. It ends up with just a stub that may help the angler keep track of it on the water in low light, but it doesn't change the flush floating style of the pattern and the trout will never see it...Or if he does it's already too late and it's stuck in his jaw.

Spence

spence
although we don't experience great hex hatches the way that you michiganders do we have a helluva night-time whitefly hatch. it starts at dark and progresses for several hours. last year, i tried a spinner with a tuft of glow-in-the-dark krystal flash tied on top as described on this thread. i "charged" it with my u.v. knot sense lamp and it really glowed out on the water. to be honest, i caught a lot of fish on it, but not too many (if at all) more than i had without the glow. was kinda cool, though
gut

Gutcutter, that sounds a lot like a hatch we have here in MI around the same time, and it occurs amongst the Hex and also on nights when the Hex don't appear. I have used a Light Cahill #12 or a White Wulff #10 on this hatch and it is a riot! I think I've actually done better on this hatch at times than on the Hex. I had my first ever 10-fish night on this hatch many years ago on the Rifle, on a warm night in early July.

Jonathon

Hmm, so I'm not the only one who has a nuclear fly. Gut, in 2007 we had quite a controversy over a parachute spinner that I tie with a foam post and a dot of glow in the dark paint on the top of it. I've caught several nice fish in pitch dark on it, fish I would never have been able to take otherwise. I too use a UV light to charge the paint, which is more visible than anything else I've experimented with. I'll have to try the glow krystal flash. Two of our Johns, John Williams and John Dunn, have seen my glow spinner (or as JAD calls it, nuclear spinner) in action, and I believe both of them have one or two in their vests as well.

I keep mine in a lead box.

Best
JaD

well JAD you should make it unleaded and use it in slippery rock creek on hot august nights...
i wish we still had hendrickson hatches like that.
gut

Antonio
I reminder Slippery Rock creek when I was a boy,it was something.
When I was about twelve a neighbor took my to the creek to see the fish kill. According to my memories ,their were large fish laying dead ever where, but I mostly remember the very large brown trout I saw, a trophy in deed.

Best
JAD.

JAD,

Fish kill??? What was that about?

Spence

If I remember correctly In the late Fifties there were troubles with strip mine run off that polluted the creek.( Acid run off).

JAD

JAD,

That's too bad! My mother is from the western tip of Maryland and grew up in a little town that actually had a company store at one time. There are some pretty little streams running in those hills there and most of them only support a put-and-take fishery for the same reason. The chemical stew is too hot for the fish to make it too long there.

I think the one that ran nearby was called the Little Yakagany...She called it the Little Yak.

Spence