What's in your vise?

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Coyote Shrimp? (..edit: nope. name taken by puglisi….)

I’ve been reading about desert vernal shrimp — and they’re crazy. Eggs (cysts) can lie dormant for decades waiting for ponds. Mature in 3 weeks, 5000x hatch weight in 7 days, up to about 1” long. Gotta be what lets the desert stillwaters bounce back so fast from drought. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.

 
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I recently acquired a couple of Woodchuck Tails. The Woodchuck is a ubiquitous rodent in the Eastern US and Canada but his cousin we know as Marmots out here in the West. I was unfamiliar with Woodchuck hair specifically, but did understand it was really just another big squirrel. So, I knocked out a few different patterns to see how I could best use the Woodchuck Tail hair. I found it very similar to Fox Squirrel tail hair--medium fine, not hollow and rather easy to stack. The color however was a much more dark mottled look with a lot of tail hair having white tips. Made for very attractive dark colored flies.
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Wulff style with WC wing and tail
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Wulff style with WC wing, tail and body from WC tail fluff
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Stonefly style with WC tail and wing
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Stonefly style with WC tail and wing
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Trude style with WC wing
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Muddler style with WC tail and wing
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Cricket style with WC tail and wing
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I think the original Grand Ronde River Rat, tied by Scott Odonnel, used dyed woodchuck for the wings. I remember reading that, and trying to find woodchuck at the local flyshop. They laughed at me and told me everyone just uses squirrel tail for the pattern.
 
One more glider for now. This one came out right at 11"....same long shank up front with an Ahrex 4/0 Trout Predator short behind.

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maybe you've been doing it all along, but I just started noticing the artistic side of your pictures....the detail, depth of focus, background/setting color choices, etc. Nice.

and I gotta ask....what's this one staged on? a pinecone of some sort? a sugar apple?

Mike d
 
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pinecone from local park. I walk during lunch break and pick up dry leaf, rhododendrons fallen leaf, pinecone or something with texture like small piece of bark
 
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