Is it finally a marriage between the fly side and the gear side? Have fly tyers finally learned that bass, pike, and other finny guys want something to chomp on besides dry fly and nymph? Or is it all just a marketing ploy? Well, from my 6 plus decades of fly fishing the globe, I […]
Our friend, Theo Bakelaar is chasing pike in Holland. They have just come off the spawn, and are moving into the rivers, hunting voraciously. He took a very fine fish the other day, only to have a young boy nail a really big one fifteen minutes later. But that’s fishing. On another note, Chuck Furimsky, […]
Whenever I give tying demos at shows and clubs, attendees regularly ask about the heavy tying threads that I use. It’s a flat nylon thread called Nymo, the favorite of the late Polly Rosborough. The heaver sizes that I use for spinning my big flies are available through Fire Mountain Gems at: http://www.firemountaingems.com/shop/nylon-thread It only […]
Bill Edson was one of the early bucktail innovators. Flies like his Edson Light Tiger and Edson Dark Tiger are still superb trout flies. As he designed his flies, he wanted to add jungle cock eyes to them, but had trouble getting them. So he added small, oval brass eyes in their place. These added […]
This weekend I am at the Fly Fishing Show in Somerset, NJ. But before the show, I am taking a day to be with the Mainline Fly Tiers, near Philadelphia, PA. We will have an afternoon fly tying workshop from 2-4 and then an evening program at 7. My friend, Jay Kapolka, picked me up […]
I’m headed to Alaska with my friend, Dave Graebel, in search of some big rainbows on the dry fly. This is the time to do it. The trout are not yet so fixated on eggs that they will take nothing else. And, the mayflies are on the wing—both the Western Green Drake and the PMDs. […]
Just had an email from Theo Bakelaar about snails. He noted that snails are always around and so when the inset food fare is low, snails are a good bet. Yes, they certainly are. Theo tied a foam snail and did just fine. Bob Pelzl and I developed a snail fly back in the 1970s based […]
There are those that love the “clown” eggs—eggs of two or more different colors. I like them, too, and tying them with the Knotted Egg method is very simple. Rather than using one strand of chenille, use two. The colors may be complimentary—like pink and magenta—or they may contrast more—like yellow and bright orange—or whatever. […]
Theo has been out giving the trout a bad time, again. This time it was with his foam caddis (http://www.garyborger.com/2014/05/04/theos-foam-caddis/). It floats very high and offers a great profile—at least the trout think so.
I’m always searching about “sussing out” the best materials with which to tie my flies. Sometimes I find new materials that look promising, but which turn out to be no better than the materials I have on hand. Other times I really do find something that appeals to me. This is one of those times. […]