Fly tyers fall into two groups: the insane and the almost-insane Those who tie the most realistic bug they can, and the impressionists, who are seeking flies that only need be buggy.

I’m firmly in the latter camp, but that’s likely a reflection of laziness; I do sloppy “buggy” well. Still, even the rampant impressionists want their flies to look like something edible, which is why Michelle Mahood’s photography site will probably see a lot of fly tying visitors soon.

A small sample of the bug photos available at Mahood's site (click image to go there)

It’s practically a photographic encyclopedia of Northern California trout food, so next time an annoying, Type A fly tyer chastises you for too-heavily speckled Callibaetis wings (yes, this did happen), you can bitch slap him using Ms. Mahood’s excellent photographs.

The Underground’s Favorite Photo? Probably the blood curdling assault on a fly fisherman by a giant crustacean. Keep you up nights.

See you staring at the monitor, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: bugs, Fly Fishing, Fly Tying, fly tying photography

The Underground is all about embracing diversity, especially when it comes to fly patterns. In fact, my all-inclusive, non-judgmental nature allows me to steal scam test flies from the fly boxes of almost every fly fisherman I meet, so I’ve never been sucked into the “Catskill vs Parachute” or “Foam vs Fur” jihads that limit other fly fishermen who could simply steal flies instead of tying them.

In fact, there’s nothing I like better on a small stream than a dry fly that won’t drown after a few small brookies frisk the thing around the riffles, which explains my recent fascination with the Unsinkable Dry Flies book – and the interest in foam fly company “River Road Creations” profiled in the Missoulian newspaper (Question of the Day: is Tomsu in fact an Undergrounder?):

The ultra-realistic hopper imposter is the creation of Tony Tomsu. And with the help of tools available from his Stevensville company, River Road Creations Inc., you can reproduce this fly pattern – called Tomsu’s Supreme Hopper – and a host of other innovative foam flies ranging from tiny size 20 trico mayflies to mega-sized creatures designed to dupe bass and saltwater denizens.

Tomsu and his wife Kathi formed their company as a “hobby business” 11 years ago after moving to the Bitterroot Valley from Texas.

River Road Creations is now the world’s largest manufacturer of foam fly-tying tools and supplier of specialty foam fly-tying materials. Its handmade products are distributed worldwide. As a bonus, the company’s Web site, www.riverroadcreations.com, is an excellent source of detailed instruction in tying a wide range of foam fly patterns, including a Bitterroot favorite – the skwala stonefly.

I never really understood a trout’s attraction for the Chernobyl Ant, but my inability to understand ceases to matter when a fish eats the fly. The same is true of yellow bass/panfish poppers (the Official Gurgling, Oversized Dry Fly of the Trout Underground), and we can’t help but notice the above-mentioned River Road Creations actually sells cutters to manufacture the killer flies.

Foam popper cutters? The Underground's heart beats faster.

Ohhh. The Undeground’s interested. More to come on materials diversity – especially as summer takes hold and the Smallies get rambunctious.

See you at the tying bench, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: Fly Fishing, Fly Tying, foam flies

Remember everything we said about diversity in our prior post? Well, scratch that.

We’re basically really, really concerned about Singlebarbed’s obvious addiction to Earth, Wind & Fire-esque fly patterns (and craft stores) – especially now that he’s threatening to manufacture charm bracelets.

Donations to the “Save Singlebarbed” Fund (the money I don’t spend on beer will be invested in kidnapping and deprogramming Singlebarbed) should be sent to:

Save Singlebarbed from His Disco Nightmare
1234 Shad Lane
Yourekidding, CA 66666

See you with sunglasses on, Tom Chandler.

fly fishing, fly tying, fly fishing for shad, shad flies, fly tying materials

Technorati Tags: Fly Fishing, fly fishing for shad, Fly Tying, fly tying materials, shad flies

My recent post about David Cowardin’s “Unsinkable” dry flies (using heat-shrink tubing) caused one curmudgeonly Undergrounder to forward us the Web site of the original unsinkable dry fly – the Bunyan Bug:

Bunyan bugs: Cool, but $45?? (click image to visit site)

We know they’re seriously cool and retro (they were featured in A River Runs Through It), but the price suggests these aren’t exactly your father’s Bunyan Bugs – they’re $45 each.

Any takers among the Undergrounders?

See you at the bank, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: a river runs through it, bunyan bug, dry fly, unsinkable dry fly

An “unsinkable” dry fly might be the Underground’s holy grail (I’m the guy who can’t get his soft hackles to sink or his dry flies to float). And on a daylong smallstream jag, those little trout can turn your dries into nymphs in a matter of minutes.

So when Oregon’s David Cowardin sent me a copy of his Unsinkable Dry Flies book for review, I – being essentially lazy – paid attention.

Will heat shrink tubing replace floatant?

Cowardin uses heat shrink tubing to construct his flies, sealing the tubes with a soldering iron (sample assembly instructions on his blog). Essentially, he’s creating flies that operate on the same principle as your float tube.

It’s an interesting concept; I initially shook my head, but quickly realized that foam is now a staple material among western tyers – why not heat shrink tubing?

It seems like it would be especially useful for big dries

Sadly, the book and handful of sample flies arrived in the middle of winter, so I still can’t speak to the effectiveness of the flies.

As for the method, I’m intriguided, but because I’m a lot better at a keyboard than a fly tying vise, I’m turning to the Underground’s Department of Fly Tying Geeks Wizards, which includes the heavy-metal rich Singlebarbed (who frightened us yet again with another militaristic fly tying materials post) and newly obsessed Atlantic Salmon Fly Tyer Dave Roberts (who actually could kill you if you got in his way).

We’ve got questions. They’ve got answers. More as we hear it.

The Big Idea

You’d automatically assume the technique would be more useful on larger patterns (like salmonflies, the season for which is fast approaching), though Cowardin has developed a full set of patterns, including BWO emergers. He admits flies smaller than size 18 are sometimes difficult to tie, but seems to have otherwise developed a fairly complete set of techniques.

He colors tubing with markers or even by coating them with an adhesive, which is then used to anchor dubbing or other colored “dust” materials.

A Heat Shrink Emerger?

Given my love of Quigley Cripples, Cowardin’s emerger/cripple pattern (see purple fly above) is an especially interesting idea (though I think the hackle’s tied a little on the heavy side), though each fly tyer will have to decide if heat shrink is a better “floatant” than closed cell foams.

Prior Art

Heat shrink tubing for no-sink flies?

A quick search of the Internet didn’t turn up much in the way of prior work (surprisingly), but then Cowardin’s own book didn’t come up on Google until the middle of page 2 (which means it’s time he invested in the Underground’s SEO program for unknown fly fishentrepreneurs).

In Hatches Magazine, we found an article about Euro tyer Ulf Hagstrom’s use of heath shrink tubing on his frighteningly realistic flies, though that’s limited to appendages like legs.

All in all, Cowardin’s self-published Unsinkable Dry Flies book offers some interesting glimpses into a fly tying technique that probably isn’t wholly new, but likely hasn’t been fully explored either.

You can read more about his technique (and order his book) on his blogger site. If you do, the Underground would love to hear your feedback.

See you at the bookstore, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: Fly Fishing, Fly Tying, heat shrink tubing, unsinkable dry flies

It’s the time of year when those too lazy to shovel snow who live in warmer climates start chirping about spring, yet in the mountains, March is more promise than actual delivery.

The Upper Sacramento is typically running high (with temps in the mid-50s forecast this week, it’s going to run even higher), real spring weather can be more than a month away, and you can still deceive yourself into thinking you’ve got time to tie that hundred dozen flies you planned for the winter.

OK, I’ll be up front: I’m not going to make it to one hundred dozen. In fact, because I’m writing this instead of tying those, I’ll be lucky to make it to a couple dozen, which makes the following fact a good thing: I like simple flies.

Really simple flies.

The Annual Fly Freak Out

Not only am I forced to confront my essential laziness, it’s about this time of year that my love for simple flies is taken to absurd new heights; every late winter, I find myself idly toying with the idea of stripping my fly selection down to a mindlessly bare essential – like fishing a whole year with flies tied from nothing but grizzly hackle and Hare’s Ear dubbing.

That’s something I probably couldn’t get away with, but I bet I could get away tying and fishing nothing but soft hackles.

One fly, all year? Could a lazy/greedy fly fisherman survive one year on a steady diet of soft hackles?

You can effectively fish soft hackles as everything from tiny midge nymphs to mayfly emergers to caddis to small streamers, though most people don’t – a reality which suggests soft hackles need a better publicist.

It’s an interesting idea (and the materials would be wildly affordable), but it’s just something I threaten to do in front of my friends (“Just put the hackle pliers down and back away” Dave Roberts will say, “and nobody gets hurt.”).

I haven’t yet pulled the trigger, and probably never will.

After all, I’m lazy but I’m also greedy, and while I’ve successfully whittled my fly selection down to a handful of simple flies, I haven’t yet worked myself up to what would amount to a fly fishing stunt (though it would make interesting blog fodder).

Still how little could I sneak by with that wouldn’t amount to a stunt? Let’s see:

• Parachute dries (size & color to match the handful of mayfly hatches in this part of the world)
• Stimulators (from small caddis sizes to the big, deadly dark numbers)
• A small handful of soft hackle patterns (PTs to Hare’s Ears to biot bodies, they’re the force multiplier of the fly world)
• Woolly Buggers

Sure, there are big gaping holes in that list, but you’d be surprised what you could accomplish by stretching the definition of “soft hackle” even a little.

In fact, soft hackles could cover everything from midge pupae to stonefly nymphs with a detour into emerging caddis, PT nymphs, and emerging, in-the-film mayflies.

I think I could pull it off.

The flies in the minimalist ointment here are the patterns sent to me by well-meaning friends, apparently unaware I’m trying to kick a bad habit.

Dave Roberts keeps waving innovative March Brown patterns under my nose, and [name redacted] keeps contributing BWO patterns that seemingly never fail (the Roy Palm  soft hackle emerger rarely fails either, but it’s hard to see).

Then there’s my growing interest in streamers, and while I could get by with Woolly Buggers in two colors (black & silver/white), a plain brown package just arrived from Ian Rutter’s end of the country stuffed with what may be the perfect streamer, though more (and serious) testing on smallies, rainbows and big brown trouts is desperately needed (yes, I know where a few lurk).

In short, I may be simultaneously lazy and greedy, but when it comes to slimming down my fly selection, I’m also apparently weak (Hi, I’m Tom, and I’m powerless in the face of free flies).

See you at the vise (barely), Tom Chandler

fly fishing, fly tying, soft hackle, stimulators, nymphs

Technorati Tags: Fly Fishing, Fly Tying, nymphs, soft hackle, stimulators

Singlebarbed continues his series of frightening innovative fly tying posts by extolling the virtues of Boa Yarn, something that looks awesome on a hook, though you wouldn’t necessarily want to trim your hat with it before heading out with the guys:

To catch a glimpse of the workings of Singlebarbed’s tortured inner psyche a creative fly tyer at work, read the rest of his most excellent post here.

fly tying, fly fishing, singlebarbed

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Technorati Tags: Fly Fishing, Fly Tying, singlebarbed

It’s clear brownlining is coming into its own as a bona-fide segment of the fly fishing world – especially once you see the kind of frightening brooding creativity being poured into the flies being created to fool carp.

Often imitating food sources little seen in fly fishing, the new wave of brownliners are tying flies more reminiscent of saltwater patterns than those used on trout streams, and in truth, the growth in “brownline patterns” mirrors the not-so-long-ago explosion in saltwater fly patterns.

Carol’s Grass Carp Fly (courtesy Roughfisher)

The Boa Crayfish (courtesy Singlebarbed)

Singlebarbed’s Death Clam (courtesy Singlebarbed)

As a truly lazy fly tyer, I’m content to whip out a few Beetle Bugs and Hares Ears and call it a day, so I’m constantly amazed at the lengths to which inveterate materials hound Singlebarbed pursues new fly tying materials.

It’s either a sign of rampant creativity or a serious pathology, and since the guy shrugs off heavy metals and advanced bio-toxins over the course of the average fishing day, it’s probably best if I assume the former.

Of course, it’s Fly Fishing Industry Week here at the Underground, so we have to ask; now that brownlining’s picking up steam, will the industry respond?

Will the latest carp flies suddenly become centerpieces in the Umpqua catalog?

Will freshwater-tapered 7wt “carp rods” sprout at rod racks nationwide?

Can the feature-length “Carp X” be far behind?

The Underground doesn’t know. But I’ll keep my eyes peeled for signs of Brownline life at FFR.

brownlining, brownliner, carp, flies, fly pattern, fly tying

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Technorati Tags: brownliner, brownlining, carp, Flies, fly pattern, Fly Tying

HMH has chosen the winner of their fly tying vise giveaway (the ad has been appearing on the Trout Underground, Singlebarbed, Fly Fish Chick and the Day Tripper for the last three months).

The lucky bastard winner is Roland Meehan of Milton, NH, and I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that free fly tying vise is rightfully mine those who didn’t win will still be on the receiving end of HMH’s e-newsletter, which should prove interesting.

I’m putting together a little essay for the next issue, and even if you hate reading email, HMH just fired up their own forum.

The Underground thanks them for their support, and as for you Roland, I’m going to hunt you down happy to congratulate you on your win.

See you at the fly tying bench, Tom Chandler.

Does a bite of fly fishing art each day keep the I’m-Not-fly-fishing blues away?

Frankly, it’s damned unlikely, but it’s still better than a sharp 6wt in the eye. That’s why I’m wondering how I missed this cool site for so long:

The artist’s goal is to post a piece of artwork each day for a year — and the artwork centers on fly fishing’s biggest phonies: artificial flies. (What did you think we were going to say?)

Give the site a visit (we’re on day 180-something of 365). See you at the art gallery, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: artificial flies, fishing, fishing flies, Fly Fishing, fly fishing art, Fly Tying

The eagle-eyed among you have already noticed the sidebar banner ad announcing the HMH fly tying vise giveaway. After all, you’re Undergrounders, so you’re cheap bastards thrifty types, and free stuff tends to catch your eye.

Basically, you hand HMH your email address (they’ll eventually send you a newsletter, and promise not to spam you or offer your email address to anyone else), and they’ll enter you to win an HMH Spartan Vise and a Tube Fly Convertor.

That’s it. Easy, eh?

Yes. Hell Yes.

Frankly, when HMH mentioned a contest and said they wanted to advertise it on the Underground, I loved the idea. And yeah, when I realized that an advertiser probably shouldn’t enter the contest, I was bummed (I’ve tied on an HMH Standard for many, many years).

Still, what’s good for the Undergrounders is good for the Underground, and hardly anything’s better than free stuff.

So thanks to HMH for throwing down a little bit of their marketing budget and supporting the Trout Underground and the other Underground Writer’s sites (Singlebarbed, The Day Tripper, and Fly Fish Chick).

No fly fishing blog is currently attracting much in the way of ad dollars, and it’s nice to see that HMH is interested in the online world at the grassroots level.

The contest runs until June 1, and yes, their vises rock. To enter, just click on the ad in the sidebar, drop your email in the slot on the landing page, and you’re in. Even a fly tyer could do it.

See you at the Freebie Aisle, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: fly tying,hmh,hmh vise,spartan vise,tube flies,free stuff

Technorati Tags: Fly Tying, free stuff, hmh, hmh vise, spartan vise, tube flies

Fly tying season starts after the fishing season ends, but before the Prozac prescriptions for fly fishermen experiencing withdrawal are handed out like candy.

Like any psychotic disorder, fly tying tends to encourage obsessive behavior, and while we’d never suggest that the bloggers named below necessarily fall into that category, we would also caution you to shield the eyes of sensitive types and small children before scrolling any further.

It turns out that fly tying, my friends, is often unpretty.

The Daytripper Courts Organization… and Divorce

While you might think “unpretty” is a pretty strong word, how else do you describe the Daytripper’s recent attempt to completely catalog & rearrange his fly tying materials into some kind of logical system?

Has he not considered the damage done to the fly tying materials industry when tyers stop mistakenly buying two or three of every item because they’re aware they already have one at home? Is this the kind of economy-killing insanity we can look forward to from Daytripper?

Apparently not content to stifle our nation’s struggling economy, Alex even tempts divorce with an ill-advised plan to empty his wife’s file cabinet of valuable documents, converting it into fly tying materials storage.

They say you never see the bullet with your name on it, but any experienced fly tyer can see the Daytripper’s divorce papers hurtling his way.

RIP, Alex. You never saw it coming, but we did.

Tamanawis Does IT Again, and By “IT” We Mean “Goes Insane”

It’s never pretty when a fly tyer goes over the edge. Here we have a textbook case; Mike at Tamanawis isn’t content to simply organize his hooks or beads.

No siree, he steps wholly into the abyss with a Fly Tying Storage System Boldly Named: FARTS.

What was needed was a way to transport everything I could possibly need for any possible situation. Fluff, feathers, bobbins, the whole shebang. The system needed to be hardwearing, reliable, small and most importantly, easily transportable. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you… the Far-reaching And Ridiculously Tenacious fly tying System (FARTS to you and I).

Following on the heels of his Stand of Majesty, his new system includes the Folders of Beauty, the Cube of Domination and the Boxes of Sublime Reason. (We suggest an addition: The Little White Pills of Sanity [prozac].)

Sure, we normally love that Tamanawis guy, but now, frankly, we’re a little afraid of him. Before it’s too late, we urge him to STOP THE MADNESS (and you can tell we mean it because we used capital letters).

See you in the looney bin, Tom Chandler.

Technorati tags: fly tying, fly fishing, fly tyer, tamanawis, daytripper blog, insane behavior

Brave, brave SingleBarbed. Putting his household iron (and domestic bliss) on the line, he posts yet another in his growing line of fly tying experiments with a shiny, heat-fusible material (angelina).

The results are interesting, at least in as much as he ties some interesting flies with the stuff, though frankly, we would have been far more interested if he’d burned down the house and been pummeled by his girlfriend.

THAT would have made a great post (for future reference). Instead, we get:

Domestic bliss shattered by my failure to iron shirts, but as it was for Science, its a worthy martyrdom. Angelina fibers are available in a heat fusible flavor, insert a pinch of fibers into a paper napkin, pass an iron over them a couple times and the of fibers fuse flatly to each other, yielding a Tyvek style mesh cloth.

Prior posts concerning Angelina include a Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear test, and his initial post about the stuff. Worth a read for you fly tying geeks.

[tags]fly tying, fly fishing[/tags]