What flavor of weirdness do you have?
- Thread starter Bob Rankin
- Start date
You keep me inspired. Recently I've had good luck getting the wings set. A bit much tail but the wings are OK.
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joefromchicago
Steelhead
I would say my particular brand of weirdness runs to tying old-fashioned flies with modern, usually synthetic, materials. One I tyed to emulate the pheasant-tail nymph that I call 'Today's Frank Sawyer', using copper holographic tinsel over-wound with clear Larva Lace, peacock ice dubbing and flashback for the wing case, for example.
notaspeyguy
Smolt
I have been going for as much natural material as I can and trying to get the job done with 2 or three materials per fly.
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I have a fairly unhealthy obsession with bucktail. Any time I tie a pattern that doesn't typically use bucktail I almost always try to find a way to add some.
Like Brian I tie an absurd amount of clousers. They're just so damned effective, and I highly enjoy tying them as well as tweaking em with different materials and such.
My absolute favorite though is tying albacore flies. I have more albacore flies on hand than I could go through in the next 5 seasons. I don't tend to lose a lot of flies offshore after all. Still, anytime I sit down at the vise I almost always start off with a tuna fly. If I'm wanting to tie but not sure what, it'll be a tuna fly. Hell, if I sit down to tie two dozen Squimps for upcoming trips I still almost always find myself putting a 2/0 in the vise before I know it.
I enjoy tying all manner of saltwater flies to some degree, but albacore flies is what I find myself enjoying more than anything
Like Brian I tie an absurd amount of clousers. They're just so damned effective, and I highly enjoy tying them as well as tweaking em with different materials and such.
My absolute favorite though is tying albacore flies. I have more albacore flies on hand than I could go through in the next 5 seasons. I don't tend to lose a lot of flies offshore after all. Still, anytime I sit down at the vise I almost always start off with a tuna fly. If I'm wanting to tie but not sure what, it'll be a tuna fly. Hell, if I sit down to tie two dozen Squimps for upcoming trips I still almost always find myself putting a 2/0 in the vise before I know it.
I enjoy tying all manner of saltwater flies to some degree, but albacore flies is what I find myself enjoying more than anything
Love the Rush reference! Today's Frank Sawyer, mean, mean fly!
YOU have an unhealthy bucktail obsession!?
I should throw up a photo of the premium stuff alone I've purchased....nevermind....I don't wanna see the numbers and calculate my cost on those.
YOU have an unhealthy bucktail obsession!?
I should throw up a photo of the premium stuff alone I've purchased....nevermind....I don't wanna see the numbers and calculate my cost on those.
Haha No doubt you've got me beat in the quality department, and along the same lines probably the financial investment department as well. However, I may need to empty out my bucktail drawer and take stock of just how many I have on hand. If it's less than triple digits I'll be awfully surprised!
Speaking of that...have you ever thrown away a bucktail? I don't know that I ever have. I have a whole separate container full of mostly used up bucktails that have just a bit of hair that I just know I'll be able to make use of some day haha. For that matter, how is it that I can have so many tails yet I'm always missing one color anytime I sit down to tie something new? One of life's great mysteries!
Tube flies and clousers. Spent a few months fishing only clousers one year, everything from #22s to 4/0, and caught fish on them in creeks, rivers, lakes, and salt. No noticeable drop in productivity, and I was going to do the whole year, but it got boring.
Tube flies because they fish beautifully, are bombproof, can go from surface skaters to deep divers without changing flies, can fish multiple species with a simple hook chang, and they don’t rust.
I have a hard time tying more than three flies of a pattern and color, so I also like to experiment. I'm currently playing with tube flies with short interchangeable sections.
edit: Just realized that I was supposed to add a picture.
Tubes I’m happy with (and had a handy photo of)
Experiments with squimp (a productive pattern that’s not mine)
led to these abject failures. Look fine, and they keel and kick properly, but they don't even get a nibble from any fish in any fishery I've thrown them.
#22 Clouser
Tube flies because they fish beautifully, are bombproof, can go from surface skaters to deep divers without changing flies, can fish multiple species with a simple hook chang, and they don’t rust.
I have a hard time tying more than three flies of a pattern and color, so I also like to experiment. I'm currently playing with tube flies with short interchangeable sections.
edit: Just realized that I was supposed to add a picture.
Tubes I’m happy with (and had a handy photo of)
Experiments with squimp (a productive pattern that’s not mine)
led to these abject failures. Look fine, and they keel and kick properly, but they don't even get a nibble from any fish in any fishery I've thrown them.
#22 Clouser
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Scudley Do Right
Life of the Party
9 out of 10 times it's a cutthroat or coho fly. Another thing I like to do is sit down and tie something out of scraps off the desk.
