Hi Guys:
Here are a few helpful hints for your fly tying bench and tying flies:
Pre-Tape Underwrap: This is a very thin Foam, available at athletic stores, and sporting goods stores. $3.00 will buy you a lifetime supply of this material. It takes dye very well, it builds a nice tapered body on your flies and you can wrap tinsel and dubbing fur over the top of this material. Its uses are limitless to the flytyer.
Recycling Wine Bottle Corks: This may not be a new idea, but I think it desrves another look. Corks from wine bottles have their use on the fly tying bench. They are great for bodkins, needles and stilettos from getting lost in the clutter on the tying bench, they are useful for drying flies also. They also make great panfish and Bass poppers when coated with epoxy and painted with acrylic paint. Any you get a free bottle of wine when you purchase the corks.
Taming Feather Wings: When tying feather wing streamers, the feathers often can be persuaded to match, even if they're all rights" or lefts" Take a hackle, place the quill across your thumbnail and gently pull the feather across your nail. The more pressured applied, the greater the arc obtained. Do the same thing with the feather on the other side. If you've used equal pressure, the feathers should cup together nicely.
False Eyelashes: Fly tyers find uses for the darnest materials. False eyelashes make dandy tails on dry flies. The curve is just right for fly patterns and they tie in nicely with little pressure.
BenchTop Anchor: Florist's clay that it used for flower arrangements, can be a god send for anchoring tippables on your tying bench. A small dab of this clay on your cemnet bottles, will prevent it from tipping over on your tying table. And another large chunk of this material is great storage for tools and other assorceries on your table also.
Wooden Spice Rack: A wooden spice rack can be substituted for holding cements, head lacquers, bottles of paint and other products and hung on the wall or put in front of your tying area, they are stored and easy readable and you know where they are.
Unlimited Fur Bonanza: Coyote fur which is readily available now, with most ranchers and farmers, shooting this animal for raiding their stock. This fur is a treasure trove of different colors and textures. This great fur for dubbing and also used for winging material on some of your favorite patterns. Depending on the individual animal the colors of the fur can vary from ashy blonde, often with black barring, to a chestnut brown color. Scrape the flesh side well, nail the hide, hair side down on the board, borax it and let dry. When cured usually about a week or so, I find it easier to handle at this stage by cuttting the skin in to reasonable size squares. Then wash and rinse, air dry and put into the microwave for about 15 seconds to kill any nits or or larva that may be hiding in the fur. Store in plastic storage bags with moth balls. This is a great substiture for gray fox and it can be dyed in various other colors very easily.
Heron Substitute: No doubt about it, there has been a surge in tying Spey type flies, They make excellent steelhead flies and salmon flies, with lots of movement in the water to tempt fish. The problem is that HERON, which is the feather called for in these dressings, is unobtainable by legal means, and the usual substitutes are too short for large size 1/0 and 3/0 hooks. The answer? Prime marabou blood feathers, with long fine tips, tied in tip first, either the entrie feather, or with one half stripped sway, depending on the sparseness of your fly dresssing. Once the feather is secured, take a small amount of mousse and stroke it into the feather, then pick eahc strand apart from its neightbor with our bodkin and continue to stroke the feather until dry. You will end up to what appears to be real heron. Until the fly is wet, the marabou will sty this way, so its a good solution for wall-hanger type flies for shadowboxes.
Kool Aid dyes: I use Kool Aid in different flavors for dying rabbit fur. I took a piece of rabbit fur and let it soak a few minutes in warm orange clolored flavored Kool-Aid. The result was a rabbit fur that looked just like red fox squirrel belly. Rabbit fur is easy to come by and the longer fibers are a cinch to dub. The addition of a tablespoon of white vinager to the Kool-Aid will help set the color of it and keep it from fading.
Compara-Dun Wings: I used to have a hard time with my Compra Duns wings to look the way I wanted too. I started tying them in reverse with the tips facing forward, as illustrated in by Caucci and Nastasi in the book " Hatches. I ve since gotton away from this problem by tying them in backwards with the tipe sof hair pointing toward the rear of the hook. I think tied this way they look more natural.
Bristle Hopper Legs: Realistic hopper and cricket legs can be made from vaious clolored synethic broom and bristles. Hold a pair of bristles together against a soldering iron and gently bend them into shape of the legs you want.
Fur storage system: If your tired of your flytying area being lettered with loose bags of dubbing. Find someone who sells baseball cards and buy a clear plastic storage containers designed for holding 21/2 by 1/2 inch collectible cards. These heavy,, nine-carpartment. Polypropylene Collector card pages have a 3 ring binder holes to store in a notebook, and can labeled with magic marker.
Aunt Lydias Craft Yarn: You can create beautiful wings , bodies and tails out of this rug yarn. Be sure you purchase the polyester sparkle type, and not the fuzzy type. I use three-ply Aunt Lydias Craft & Rug yarn for most of my flies.
Eye Holders: If you paint dumbell eyes for Cloweser Minnows and other flies, you can solve this problem with spring loaded wooden clothespins. I wittle away the nose of the closepin down to hold the eyes and paint them, you also have a neat stand for them to dry after painting.
Filing Fly Tying Materials: Like many tiers, I use Zip-Lock bags to separate my materials, But I've found that by inserting into each bag a piece of light cardboard with the name of the contents printed clearly across the top, that I have a ready made filing system which can be stored standing up in a file storage box, available at walmart in metal or plastic. This is a neat filing system for a variety of materials. As well as large rubber maid containers of different size which are great for filing materials away also, and they are stackable and can be marked and labeled with permanant magic markers.
Hair Cement: If you work with deer hair, and tie a few of these you might want to use Flyrite Cement, this cement does not dry out on the work bench and its great for working with hair flies. A small bottle of these will last a long time on the work bench .
PiloBond for Streamer Wing Assemblies: Carrie Stevens method of pre-assembled the wings for her famous Grey Ghost streamers has been widely written of. and without question, preassembling this rather complex wings saves a lot of grief. Using head cement, all the components are assembled, lefts and rights, and then mounted on the fly. I used this system for a number of years, but then discovered that Pliobond works even better than head cement, in that the resultant assembly has bit more flexibility, hence a bit more durable and certainly more action in the water to attract trout and salmon. I highly reccommend this technique next time at the tying bench.
Tips for Tying Teachers: A common problem for the fly tying students is to see what the instructor is doing. I have been using my small video camara hooked up to a small television set. This enlarges the fly that Im working on at the time, and allows my students to view all the steps in construction of the fly. The camera is mounted on a tripod over my shoulder, and aimed at the vise. Set the camera on macro automatic adjustment and focus on mine. Hook the camcorder to the TV input with the cord you use for direct viewing. Mine has a channel 3 & 4 switch on it. This will enlarge the fly to about 12 inches on a 19 color tv. A added feature is you can control the volume, and you dont have to raise your voice to explain things to the students. Your students are able to hear you as well as have a clear view of your tying process.
Mylar Windfall: One morning after the night before I was cleaning up and was about to throw away the potato chip bag when I looked at it a bit, discovering loads of mylar in almost any length or width I desired. And added to this gift, was a mulitude of colors on the other side of the bag, A smooth cutting sureface, a straitedge and a sharp pointed exacto knife and your in business, for a supply of mylar.
Clear Labels as Name Tags: The clear, self-stick labels that are available at most stationary outlets are great for putting your name and address on your flyboxes, If by some misfortune you loose your flybox, it can be easly returned to you, most flyfisherman are honest and will return your box of flies with address enclosed.
Steam Cleaning Flies: A tea kettle works great for steam cleaning flies, as well as a small oil can with a long stem on it. Fill the oil can with water and bring to a boil on low heat, take a pair of foreceps to hold your favorite fly pattern over this extremely hot stream of steam coming from the long spout on the oil can.
Easy Humpies: Humpies, or Goofus Bugs, are not he easiest of flies to construct but here is a easy way that may help, After tying in the tail fibers, Scotch tape them to the vise. Then when collecting the deer hair to form the hump , there is no need to separate the fibers from the tail of the fly. When the fly is finished, carefully remove the tape. This procedure has saved me time and aggravation on tying this pattern.
Drying Wet Flies: It is almost inevitable that at some time your flybox will get a soaking, A full box of flies represents not only a lot of time, but also materials and hooks that will be ruined if not dried quickly. The problem was solved when I got home by placing a small section of scrap window screen over the fly boxes and using my hair dryer to dry the flies and bring them back to life, the window screen preventing the flies from escaping thier compartments while drying.
Fish Like Scales: Many tyers have difficulty in creating realistic looking scales on their streamers. Here is a easy way t accomplish this trick. Wrap a piece of 15-30 lb mono on the hook shank and wrap you tinsel body over this to the head of the fly, take your mono and wrap over your tinsel body, giving it a durable lifelike scaly look, and increases the durability of the fly pattern, coat with expoxy or head cement, and let dry.
Punch those Ant bodies: Anytime you need a cylinder of foam material for ant bodies or the like, I found a rotary head leather punch, avaiable at any Tandy Leathercraft store, makes a dandy way to create them, and in vary diameters, Just compact and punch as many as you need.
Eyes by the Yard: I have been searching for a product that was easy to use, and cheap and didnt involve melting mono to provide eyes of various sizes for my flies. At a large fabric and sewing supply store I found a product called 'Pearls by the Yard' They come in a continuous chain, and in a variety of colors to match most fishing patterns for nymphs, crayfish, mice etc.
Braided Peacock Herl: Here is one more way to increase the durability of your peacock bodied flies. Braid three strands of peacock herl together, before wrapping around your hook. It takes only seconds, and does make a nice body on most fly patterns. Use a strand of peacock cystal flash also in your bodies for extra strength and flash. Twist around the herl also for added strength.
Cure for Winter Fingers: I doubt that there a tyers in the cold country who does not suffer from dry, chapped , rough skin on his or her hands and fingers during the winter months, while tying flies. A product called Gatherette a fingertip moistener for bank tellers and chashier that is sensational for the fly tyers. It contains glycerine, glycol and lanolin among other things, and makes handling floss, threads and other materials a cinch.
Safety First Dubbing Needle: A dubbing needle or bodkin is one of the flytyers most useful tools, but it can inflict a nasty stab if picked up or stored carelessly on the tying bench. A 5 mm Pentel or other mechanical pencil makes a safe alternative. Empty out all of the lead in the pencil and insert asmall diameter needle (Dritz Quiting needles size 10 work great) butt first into the hole on the tip of the pen. The bottom of the pencil will advance and retract the needle as if it were lead, and the chances of stabbing your self are miminal.
Get the Point: As a beginning flytyer, only too I manage to snag my thing thread on the point of the fish hook, fraying or usually cutting the thread. My solution is to put a small peice of flyline or section pf plastic tubing, small peice of cork will work wonders from pricking your thread.
Affordable Head cement: You can pick up a small bottle of Sally Hanson Hard as Nails, this is tough nail polish when dry and I use it for larger streamers and hair work.
Moth Control: If you want to protect your prized Necks & Saddles, here is a easy way of doing it. Prepare your moth proofing mixture by mixiing two parts of each perpperment and rosemary plus one part of thyme. Place a teaspoon of the mixture into small cheesecloths, gather the edges and tie, put these into your storage bags and flytying boxes, this will keep the moths at bay. Also available is Moth Away, distrubuted by Richards Hardware Inc Long Beach Ca. 90806
Tying One-on: If your having trouble tying a midge or other small fly onto your leader when the light starts to go, a good trick is to ake a half a dozen of your favorite midge pattersns. And pretie these to a length of tippet material. Its a lot easier to tie a barrel or double surgeons knot at dusk than it is to try and thread fine tippet material throught the eye of a 18 size hook.
Any questions on fly tying feel free to ask, we can find a answer for you with instructions or patterns.
Take care & Tight lines:
Fly Tying Instuctor
Bodidley (Ken Bohannon)
Area Cheif Texas Parks & Wildlife
Vice President Red River Flyfishers www.rrff.org
Writer: www.FishNetDailynews.com
Manager: TheFlyfishingBug@msn.com
