Christmas Trash Fly 2012

This is a story good friends, grape fruits, soft peppermint candy, recycling, and ofcourse 'trash flies'. Every year just before Christmas break my neighboring teachers in the Agriculture course have a big citrus fruit sale. The money goes to help the students travel to activities. It is a very successful enterprise. This year was no exception. The whole departments section of the build smelled like a giant fruit salad or a citrus grove.

Grape fruit, soft peppermint candy, and
one of several bags of flash materials.

As the fruit arrived this year I walked through their shop and notice something really odd about the boxes. The citrus was packed in a holographic tensile material. My eyes lite up. There boxes of 'flash material' that would likely wind up in the trash bit. This could not happen. I spoke to the teacher and made arrangements for the fruit free boxes to be brought to my area. Imediately I started to get the holograph gold out and put it into bag. Then I noticed something weird in the tinsle the distributor had packed soft peppermint candies. Truly one my favorites. So as I collected the 'trash' I also pocked a lot of candy. This was ' a sweet deal' pardon the pun.

Recipe:

Hook: #2 streamer

Bottom wing: White craft fur

Top wing: Chartreuse craft fur

Flash: Recycle packing materials from citrus fruit boxes

Weight: Med. dumb bell eye

Thread: Black 8/0

Glue: Brush on crazy glue

 

#2 Streamer Hook

Coat the hook shank with headcement or super glues. Wrap with thread and tie a mound as a stop for the dumb bell eye.

 Tie in the dumb bell eye figure 8 style and the wrap to lock. Add a bit of glue here as well.

Tie in a clump of wing materials.

Add the flash materials between the top and bottom wings.

 The finished fly with the piece of flash material adding the lateral line as well as a bit of scale flash seem in baitfish in the water.

The above pattern is know world wide and made famous by it's creator Bob Clouser

To find detailed tying videos of the orginal pattern and some great variation visit YouTube.

Please feel free to comment.

Join us on FaceBook at the Trash Flies group.

Dedicated to my son. I love you.

Stealth Bomber demo with Students at MHS

The Madison High School Fly Fishing and Tying Group meet for the first time yesterday. I had 7 students show up.

Spent 30 minutes of Smart Lunch teaching a group of students about fly fishing, tying, and entomology. They payed really good attention and ask relevant questions. I personally enjoyed it and plan to continue.

This the pattern I discussed and showed them.

Stealth Bomber

Here is a link to the creator, history, and tying instructions.

http://www.flyfishga.com/stealth.htm

This pattern is awesome for smallies, largemouth and big bluegill.



Note: The eyes are soft polymer beads strung on mono and set with glue. The legs are the core of Bungee material.

Dedicated to my son. Ilove you.

Head Cement Tip:

 If you use a pen applicator for Sally Hansen as head cement and it starts thickening. Don't pitch it. Just add some fresh Sally Hansen and it will thin the whole bottle.

Dedicated to my son. I love You.

Wing Burner Idea

I was watching my son with his multi-tool make impressons in a piece of plastic. It occured to me if you had a narrow pair of 'needle noised pliers' you could use them as a quicky wing burner. The thought stuck. I am going to test it out soon. If someone does get to test it or has already tried this share your results and opinions please.

Dedicated to my son.

Well

I am not dead. I have just been working on other interests. Time to get back to Trash Flies.

In the near future working on a article using local organic farmers fiber scraps. Alpacas, lamas, turkeys and chickens.

Wing burner ideas.

I'm backkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.....................  :)

DIY - CDC Tool

Here's the store bought version. It works really well in my opinion.

http://www.sfotf.ca/fly-tying/2009/7/15/cdc-caddis.html

 Recommend you buy one if you are not inclined to make one. Here is how to make one if you want.

Three T-Pins bound together with heavy tying thread. Coat thread with epoxy or super glue. In preliminary test it work just like the store bought version.

Dedicated to my son. I Love You.

Yarn Woolly Bugger

#10 2x Nymph Hook

10 wrap of lead

the rest is yarn.

Dedicated toMy Son. I Love You

Tip: Flash Materials

In the next town over they open a $1 Tree store. Now I have been in them other places and have found some cool fly tying materials on the cheap. (Repurpose :) ) On this occassion the had packs of colored plastic tensile/grass. One pack was pearl It is the same stuff you use from the shops for wingcases, lateral lines, underbodies, and you get the idea. A dollar buys a lot of the stuff.

Hunter Banks is hosting the movie

, Where the Yellowstone Goes at Highland Brewery Thursday, June 28th, 2012.

Doors open at 5:00 pm, Movie at 7:00 pm.

Ticket $10 available at Hunter Banks Co. (after June 5th)

The Church Lady Nymph Variant

I know the title of this piece has you thinking of Saturday Night Live and Dana Carvey. Well that was not my inspiration for the title. It came from my youth going to Sunday Services in a Western North Carolina Baptist Church. A good many of the older women of the church had fur collars they wore regularly in the colder months. I am sure they were very prized possesons. Well fur has lost favor as a garment and those ladies are now hopefully in heaven. A year or two ago I started noticing these fur, that were usually mink, were showing up at yardsales and fleamarkets. Usually at a pretty affordable price.

 I bought one to see what I could do with it. Tied a bushy big nymph. Sort a AP Nymph meets Hares Ear looking thing. I did think much of it other than it wound up in my warmwater nymphing box. One day fishing the French Broad River for bluegill, smallmouth bass, and anything else that would eat the revered olive Woolly Bugger I added one as a trailing fly. Now after a few casts and swinging retrieves the bits started picking up. Most all the bit were on this weird creation of by gone fashion meets recycling on the cheap.

The day I bought the pelt I used for this article my son (7years old) and I were shopping the fleamarket mostly letting him find and haggle for toys he wanted. I saw the fur and ask a price before I fully saw what it was. It wasn't one but seven mink pelts sewen together. Said $10 and countered with $5. Guess it was mowing so fast and he said take it. I drapped it over my arm. My son refused to continue with me if I did find a bag and put them in it.

For this post I thought I would share my idea of recycling this out of fashion mink collars. Now I'm not sure where PETA and like is going to fall on this one. Remember when I got them they were already dead by at sevearl years :)

One of the seven mink pelts after I seperated them.

 Molting goose feather found on the shore of Douglas Lake in Tennessee.

Now I am sure there is some exiting fly pattern that is tied just like this. I didn't invint the fly but maybe I did come up with a way to let those fur collars from a different day make somebody happy one last time.

Dedicated to my son. I love you.

Fureled Leaders Jig from Scrap and Recycled

Check this great Furled Leader jig layout.
http://opff.org/furled-leader/furled_leader.html

Furled leaders are great to fish with. $15 and up prices may turn folks away from trying and using them. The jig I made was based on the site above.

Material I used were: Recycled 2"x 4" (1), Cup Hook (1), Dowel Pieces 3/8" dia x 3" long and (6), Push pin (1).

I use them for streamer fishing, carp fishing, and other larger game on the fly.

Cutting Board Backdrop for Fly Vise

Ok I have made several back drops for my fly tying vise from trash and junk. Here's a new take on the back drop idea. I was in a small junk shop (Daily Deal) in the near by town of Marshall, NC. I spotted these little cutting board for a $1.50 a piece. The light went off. At those prices you couldn't pass them up?

Here's where I went. Take the two boards and fabricate a hing and lock.

Two 1/4-20 Eye Bolts, 1/4-20 Stove Bolt, Thumb screw and some assorted washer for spacer and alignment.

This is what you wind up with. A white back drop and a white work surface below the vise as well.

Feedback and opinions are welcome.

Dedicated to my son. I love you.

Material Strip Cutting Tool for the 'Chip Bag' Fly Pattern Family

There is a world of great materials out there that make some awesome Trash Flies. That material lies in some obvious places and sometimes some not so obvious places. I have found gems of recyclable material in all sorts of places. The problem with a lot of found treasures is that the shape of the material not conducive to a hook. Sheets of Mylar and Mylar ( Balloon and chip bags) like material becomes tedious to cut down to narrow enough to make small flies like size 18 or 20's.

This sort of made some major batch ties of good Trash Fly Patterns is tough to get into. All the scissor work wasn't efficient or terribly satisfying.

Awhile back I came across a really cool video while researching Zonker strips. A Zonker strip is a narrow strip of rabbit skin or some similar pelt. If you harvest your own or buy pelts intact this strip, cutting process takes a turn to the tedious as well as not giving a good final product. The Video I refer to is below.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxWSpL22RuA

 It is a really great tutorial. I recommend you watch it.

That video got me to thinking about my own material forming issues. Here's how I adapted the idea to Mylar and Mylar like materials.

My version of the tool that is shown in the video. Only difference is my spacer may be thinner.

Cool Ranch Doritos bag cut into strips. The logo side of chip bags have some really 'buggy' colors. The inside is usually silver. Silver is great for some patterns and always a great flash strip in a wing case.

Check some previous articles for examples of flies tied with chip bag materials. Your feedback is always appreciated.

Please remember razor blades are extremely sharp. I would suggest you be careful and safe. 

Dedicated to my son. I love you.

Tie-One-On-Athon 2012 'Brief Recap'

Here's a few pictures of the Southern Culture on the Fly ,Tie-One-On-Athon 2012.

#20 Midges I tied using recycled 'headphone wire and insulation'

Pink 'Headphone' insulation.

Red 'Headphone' wire midge.

Project Healing Waters member tying some fishy looking streamer patterns.

Josh Garris " Great guide, fly tyer, and person in general."

Where great flies are born :)

Forrest rocking the vice making the bugs that get the fish.

Awesome Sculpin Pattern (Nice)

Randy Ratlif tying and teaching those how to make some awesome pattern. I learned some stuff. That's usual when I watch Randy at the bench. Great guy.

Thanks folks at SCOF for inviting me to participate and hangout. Project Healing Water is a great cause that attracts some awesome people as participants and volunteers. It was a honor to be involved.

Thin wire between a good midge and a great one.

Midges for those of you that are not familiar are the non-blood sucker cousin to a mosquito. They are very similar in appearances. They are found around the south eastern US in small streams to the grand trail-waters. In the tail-waters they can be counted on to catch fish year round. In the smaller streams a midge larvae can do a wonder on fish in the colder months of winter. It is a pattern worth learning to tie.

A lot of folks fear the midge larvae. This fear is not necessary, it is a easy pattern and one that can be tied with or with out the Trash Fly component. You know I went with the Trash Fly twist :)

 Tic-Tac bead tamer courtesy of my friend Overbrook

 Pringles lid hook keeper salvaged from a co-workers waste basket.

Hook: #18 Up-turned eye scud hook

Bead: Small brass

Thread: 8/0 Olive

Tail: two strands of flash

Rib: Salvaged wire strand from a communication cable.

Thread the hook with the bead already on it. Build the body up. Tie in strands for the tail and tip of the thin wire rib. Palmer the rib forward. Build a head behind the bead of thread. Coat the body in super glue, lacquer, or similar product.

Dedicated to my son. I love you.

Tie-One-On-Athon 2012

Wire from trash to Trash Flies

Started some long over due cleaning at work today. Got into a cabinet for a class I probably haven't taught in 13 years. Lots of stuff I am going to donate to other folks and a lot of stuff that just falls into the category of trash. I noticed the partial rolls of wire pictured above. I ask and nobody really wanted that sort of stuff. I guess they figured they were just relocating my garbage to their areas :)

Well that wire looked like maybe something that could be used for a fly pattern or two. Below is where I went with it. All tied on scud hooks.

Thread the hook prior to attaching the salvaged wire.

Wing cases were made from the chip bag picture.

Under wing made from royal blue poly yarn.

Feedback welcome. Be glad to hear from you.

Dedicate to my son. I love you.