What's in your vise?

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Lil 9"er to trade/give away....

Yes, @MillCreekMinnow those are gross little eyes!

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A bit smaller, but a little more productive Spring pattern, not to mention a piece of cake to cast on just about anything.
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🍻
 
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About two decades ago, I was visiting YNP and stopped in Parks Fly Shop to pick up a few flies for the lower Gardner River. It was early summer, and runoff was just tapering off. The lower Gardner is rough and tumble pocket water and the favorite nymphing technique in early season is free lining large stonefly nymphs in the pockets behind boulders and along the edges of the river. At the time, the shop put me on to a very slender pattern that worked extremely well. Don't know if its got another name, but I call it the Slender Stone. The slender profile and tungsten bead gets it deep quick while the mylar body provides a lot of visibility in turbulent water. When I no longer had any in my stash, I went back to Parks several years later to get a few samples, but they no longer carried the pattern.
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Slender Stone
Hook: Firehole 718 #6, #4
Bead: 3/16" Tungsten
Thread: UTC 140, Black or Brunt Orange
Tail: Black or Yellow goose biots
Body: Saltwater Flashabou
Rib: UTC BR Wire Copper or Yellow
Thorax: Peacock herl
Wing Case: 1/4" Scud back Black or Brown
Legs: Barred rubber or vinyl

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Looks like my fall salmon water. Pretty much same tactics too, just using vaguely shrimp-like patterns. Bet this would work as-is on a bit larger hook. I'll keep this one in mind for Sept-Oct rains.
 
Thunderthighs Foam Sandwich

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Been playing with different variations/sequences for the past week; this one turned out okay. Will add a middle layer of foam for the body and see how that works on this size hook; anything smaller and it will be too fat.

hook - WFC Model 28 #8
thread - SemperFli 8/0 tan
core - 20lb mono
body/kickers - 2mm foam yellow
legs - medium rubber cornsnake
indicator - 1mm foam orange

Regards,
Scott
 
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Brookie Fin

Ribbing - Oval silver tinsel; Shaw’s dressing calls for silver wire
Body - Flat silver tinsel
Hackle - White hackle fibers; Shaw’s original dressing calls for polar bear
Wing - Narrow strips of white, black, and red; married to and topping remainder of orange goose quill sections

Don Bastian Note

Shaw’s formula in the recipe plate for the Brookie Fin calls for making the wing 2/3 orange, and 1/9 each Red, Black, and White. That is accurate, but personally I don’t feel like doing more math than I absolutely have to, especially math with fractions, and when I’m tying flies to boot. I generally use two strips each of white, black, and red, and make the rest of the wing, about 2/3, orange. That’s good for #4, #6, and #8 hooks. On a #2 hook, I’d go with three barbs or flues, and on #10 and #12 hooks, one must use only a single barb each of the topping colors. This type of detailed married-wing wet fly tying is what separates the men from the boys, or the women from the girls. It requires good keen eyesight, and steady hands.

No mention of the origin of the Brookie Fin appears in Shaw’s book, but it is quite likely that she originated it. She concluded her writing on the Brookie Fin with these words: “This is an exceptionally good wet-fly pattern, producing strikes when other patterns may prove to be ineffectual under many fishing conditions.”

Flies for Fish and Fishermen: The Wet Flies - Helen Shaw

Brookie Fin – Classic Wet Fly
 
Thunderthighs Club Sandwich (variation)

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Better body proportions with middle layer of foam on larger (#6-8) hooks.

hook - WFC Model 16 #8
thread - SemperFli 8/0 tan
core - 20lb mono
body - 2mm foam yellow/tan
head/kickers - 2mm foam yellow
legs - medium rubber cornsnake
indicator - 1mm foam orange

Regards,
Scott
 
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