snuck away for a few minutes during a double-hand casting course i gave yesterday to let the guy do his thing on his own and found some nice shapes.
when i came back he had worked out what he was working on and i get the chance to show you some of my spring colours. breaks are good.
Lady Compara
a low-in-the surface egg laying Adams Comparadun by Davie McPhail
some most excellent and inspiring craftsmanship in this just-out tying tutorial. i particularly liked the details of the wing and tail and going back through the wing fibres with the dubbing body to splay out the deer hair.
this one’s a real gem, enjoy !
“I intend to live forever, or die trying”
～ Groucho Marx
for the love of water
an easy indicator hight adjustment system
ok, those thingamathingies aren’t my thing…
but ! this trick is as ingenious, simple, quick and cheap as it gets. if we abstract the thingy for a moment and look for other potential uses, the fly line stopper, single, double, triple (and eventually in different colours to be effective in varied light conditions) in itself can be used as an adjustable indicator for Euro or sight nymphing or even as a take indicator for dry flies when there’s a lot of natural flies on the water and we’re not so sure if we’re tracking our own imitation or a natural.
i’ve been using the same nail-knot method with fluo-coloured nylons such as Amnesia red for years to be able to track parts of long leaders in complex currents and can see how the fly line trick will make tracking easier as it should stay on or closer to the surface, specially once floatant is applied. for sure something to try out.
pretty much all of us have old fly lines hanging around so this is a really good way to recycle them.
as for the nail-knot tool, i almost always have one on me but it’s not a necessity as it can very easily be done by hand with Gary Borger’s ‘Nail-Less Nail Knot’.
note that these hold on better on level lengths of line than on taped ones. have fun experimenting !
drying off flies with a rubber band
funny how this old trick is old-hat in some parts of the world and unheard of in others. this great tip’s for the latter.
simple and inexpensive as can be, all you need is a rubber band or two to dry off a water soaked dry fly in just a few seconds and that’s it, no paper towels, drying patch or dumb chemicals.
and here’s how to do it. the video’s in spanish but if you don’t understand a word it’s ok, there really isn’t all that much to understand.
great for any material, this is a real bonus for cdc flies. no more of this ‘once and away‘ stuff !
- a single or double rubber band is attached to your vest-chest-pack-shirt-whatever
- if the fly just caught a fish clean it well in the water to remove any residual fish slime
- place the hook at the end of the band
- hold the leader 20 or so cm from the fly and just hold the band and tippet tight without excessive pulling
- pluck the band several times till all the water flies off (the guy in the video goes a little ‘excessive’ here, most of the time 3-4-5 plucks does the trick)
- resume fishing
- simples !
side note- rubber bands usually don’t last long when exposed to uv rays so you might wanna add a spare in your kit.
here’s a fancified band made of silicone with a wire snap at one end so it easily holds the smallest of flies. shrink tube ends keep it slim and out of the way.
(i know, i can’t help it… )
downstreaming
or maybe that was up ?..
