broken-fish.net

The Northern Lights had a fly swap recently – in which I participated. The theme of the swap was Packing Foam, and the only requirement was that packing foam had to be one of the materials used in your chosen pattern. (I’ve created a gallery with photos of all the flies submitted in this swap)

I tried a couple different Stimulator patterns – once of which is using cat fur for dubbing – our cat was pretty co-operative – likes getting brushed I guess, for a little while anyway.  Used packing foam for the bodies.

I wasn’t completely happy with them though – and ended up tying a dozen red floss chironomids.  I used thicker pieces of foam at the head – I think that these will actually be pretty effective – hopefully keeping the chironomid right at the surface film.

Tags: swap

Call it revenge ;^)

iPhone Reincarnated

Gadget Reincarnation: Drowned iPhone 3G Reincarnated as Beautiful Fishing Lure

One of the members on the Calgary Flyfishing Forum posted up this excellent step-by-step, complete with some excellent photos, for this amazing looking Golden Stone.

Tags: fly tying

I hadn’t been by the Peak web site in a while – and during my recent tying binge, a couple accessory wishes came to mind, prompting me to go have a look.

Wow – have things changed since my last visit!  To be honest, my last visit was probably around the same time that I bought my Peak vice – which will be 2 years old this August!

Anyway, one of the accessories that I’m thinking about is a tying basket – something to catch all the clippings.  However, I’m not sure about something that mounts to the post like the Peak basket.  I think that something that tucks under the desk might be more desireable.

The profile plate would be nice, but the last photos I did (of the woven dragon) I thought turned out really nice.  The background is just a sheet of black craft foam, propped up against a big book.

These items really caught my eye though:

• magnifying glass and lamp
• dubbing brush tool

The lamp might be overkill – as I already have an OTT lamp, and I do have a roll of hook and look material – the hooks make great dubbing brushes…. but the tool would be nice ;^)  Now the magnifying glass – that I could really use – as I definitely don’t have the 20/20+ of my younger days.

Tags: accessories, fly tying, tools

Was doing some experimentation this evening, and put together a few flies that show some promise I think.

Using a weaving technique that I saw Don Freschi (one of the hosts on Sport Fishing on the Fly) use for a chironomid pattern, I built up a really nice looking body, using contrasting colors of chenille and yarn. The effect was great – building up the body really nice. Using foam underneath the weave also helped build up the body, and along with the foam eyes, I hope that it floats!

The basic pattern was something like this:

Hook: #6 streamer
Tail: Olive marabou
Underbody: 1/8″ strip of foam
Body: Medium dark olive chenille and light olive chenille (tried other combinations, including peacock ice yarn, which looked very good)
Legs:
Olive sillilegs and olive partridge rump – wrapped a couple times like a sparse carey.
Eyes: black foam

Here are a couple other variations that I did. The one without the foam eyes also uses a lead underbody instead of foam.

Tags: dragon fly, flies, fly tying, patterns, woven