Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Poppers Inverted Fire Tiger

I tied these up for a swap on FTF. Hope you all like them, if anyone is still checking here. Having been posting much with it being summer and having the new baby home and all. I hope to start catching up some soon and get back to posting regularly.

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Monday, May 16, 2011

Almost a month!!! With Crease fly pics

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post. I don't imagine anyone is still paying attention to this blog anymore lol. A lot has happend, first my second son was born, then I had finals. I also picked up a 14ft. 1975 MirroCraft that I plan on using this summer, then doing a bass boat project on it in the winter. Should be fun. I am going to use some of the layouts on tinboats to create my perfect floor plan. Should be interesting as it progresses. I decided to tie up some crease fly's after a visit to the local Orvis and seeing what they had to offer. I wasn't impressed with what they had and haven't tied any in awhile so I tied a dozen of each in the pics. I'm thinking of tying a dozen of a bunch of warm water patterns and taking them up there to see if they are interested at all in them. A lot of their warm water stuff left a lot to be desired, not that I'm good by any stretch. I have managed to sell a few flies, and those that have bought them seem to be happy with them which is encouraging. These crease fly's are on size 2 mustads.

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Monday, April 18, 2011

Been awhile

Well it's been quite awhile since my last post. We were busy painting the baby room so it is ready for when he comes home. If he doesn't decide it's time by the 23rd their going to induce my wife, so by saturday we will have another little one running around. Between that, school, and working 16 hour days its been pretty hectic around here. I think I'm ging to take the summer semester off and enjoy myself and spend some extra time with the family. We've had exactly one nice day here so far and on that day I took my two year old out fishing. It was to windy for the fly rod, but he made me take it anyway because he likes it. The water is still really cold and the gills weren't reallly active, but he did manage to land one little sunfish on a silver jig that I recieved in a swap that is now put away for safe keeping. He was so excited, it was a ton of fun, and he really enjoyed himself.

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It was so nice out he refused to keep his shoes on, I told him about hooks and eventually got him to put them back on.

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I am supposed to pick up a small 15ft aluminum boat from my Dad this week, and am thinking of buying a melting pot and mold to make some jigs. We have a couple of nice inland lakes nearby that I would love to be able to crappie fish on, I just need to decide on the best sizes. I also have access to a ton of free lead, so this seems like it might be something fun to do this summer.

I finished up my swap flies fo the ant swap, as well as the bluegill invitational on FTF, unfortunately I didn't take any pics before sending them off. Hopefully someone will post pics so I can add them to the blog.

Friday, April 1, 2011

New popper

Did a couple this way. I have a couple of different color combos in mind for some of the remainder of the poppers I have already prepped. I am thinking of combining the two I have posted here to see how it would look with the blended colors and the dots on the same popper. For some reason the dots just seem to look right on the poppers, the one I did where I just blended the colors with the brush just seems so plain to me. Is it just me or is using dots where it's at? I'm starting to run low on the prepped bodies now, hope my shipment comes soon I'm having a blast experimenting with these. I did take advantage of the sale at the Fly Tyers Dungeon, and also ordered a ton of Congo hair to do some baitfish patterns with. We're supposed to get some good weather here soon so hopefully some of these new flies will see some time. Onto the pics!

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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Humbug's for the "bream" swap on FTF

So I was in the "bream" swap not to long ago on FTF and tied up some humbug's, and BigJ on FTF posted this pic up about a week ago with my Humbug sticking in the mouth of a big gill and thought it was pretty cool, so I figured I'd put it here since I can't get out fishing yet. I also took some pics of some poppers I did today but can't seem to find my cable to download them to the computer, so pretty soon I should have some new popper pics up. Anyway here's the pic, just makes me want to take these things out to the pond right now lol.

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Monday, March 28, 2011

First Popper

I can't believe it's been two week since I last posted. I went on vacation to visit family in Virginia. It was pretty hard to come home and leave that weather behind. I did the first popper fairly simple, from white to yellow to green. After seeing some other popper pics I have a couple of ideas in mind for the next few to try. I can see why guy's love making these, their pretty fun to do. Let me know what you think of it and any improvements that could be made.

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Monday, March 14, 2011

Marabou Miss, Marabou Damsels, V1.2 ants, and more Green Steroid Ants

Haven't posted in almost a week, with school taking up so much free time and work being overly busy I've had hardly any time for anything else. Who thought grad school would be so hard lol. I do make time to tie at least a couple bugs a day as it helps me unwind before bed. I ordered a ton of stuff from a couple of different places and I hope it shows up today. Ordered my first set of foam cutters so I'll be making a ton of hoppers here shortly. The chartruese marabou miss's are weighted, I should have transitioned them a little better but I just wanted to get some with weight on them to see how they act before making a ton of them. The green steroid ants I used a new dubbing I got from the Fly Tyers Dungeon, its a green peacock blend and matches the foam perfectly so I think I'll be ordering more of that as well. V1.2 of the ants is done, the only difference between this version and the last is that I used foam for the head instead of the floating yarn. It is definately a little less time consuming using the yarn because you don't have to use two seperate small pieces of foam, but I like how these turned out. Let me know what you guys think.

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Monday, March 7, 2011

Gill Getter's and V.1 hot butt ant

I tied up a dozen gill getters last night after my son went to bed. They are a fairly easy tie and they went by quickly. I also messed around a bit wanting to make a floating version of the glass bead ants I posted earlier. I wanted to try something a little different and instead of using foam for the head I used a floating yarn. I think V 1.2 is going to have a foam head and I'll see which I like better. The rest of the ant is moose mane for the tail, red foam with red antron yarn wrapped underneath, floating yarn head, and hackle for the wing. I also considered mixing in a little of the white polypropylene floating yarn into the wing as well. What do you guys think? Leave it with and try a foam head, foam head and white yarn mixed in wing, or leave it the way it is?

I also found an awesome roll top desk on craigslist. It's oak and huge, definately big enough to fit all my tying supplies and would be big enough to build a rod on. I sent an email to the seller today so here's to hoping to hear back from them so I can pick up a new tying station.

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Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Rubbber legged dragon, steroid ants, beetles, and peacock ticklers

Tied up a dozen of the dragons, half dozen of the ants and beetles, and 4 of the peacock tickler's trying to get read for the spring gill's. Been tough trying to find time to tie between school, and looking for a new "project" car. I decided I just don't have time to finish up the frame off resto on my malibu anytime soon. So I am looking for one that is nice enough to just put my motor/trans/rearend in and drive it around. I might even just try to find one that I can cruise for the summer and work on next winter. I think I found one, and we're negotiating now so we'll see. So betweeen that search and writing what seems like endless amounts of essays I haven't tied much the last week. Oh and did I mention trying to finish off the new baby room, for our new baby boy that's coming in May. Anyway back to the flies. I left the legs on the beetles a little long for now, gonna trim them down based on what works that day, the ticklers for some reason just weren't coming out up to par to me. Not sure what was going on that day. The ants, and dragons were done on Allen fly fishing hooks 3761 size 10's, the ticklers were done on Allen Fly fishing hooks 2488 size 10. The beetles were on Mustad 3366 size 10's. I have some popper bodies that need painted, I may start working on those tonight. On to the pics.


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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

First attempt at the crochet crawdad...

My first attempt, wasn't sure the best way to take a pic of it. What do you think?




New Drying rack and first batch of ants

After seeing this pattern on warmfly I decided I needed to make a bunch, but to do that I needed to make a rack so as to not waste the epoxy. Here is what I came up with and my first batch on this rack. Can't wait to do a set of crease flies and poppers on here now. I put the finished flies back in with the hackle attached because I forgot to snap a pic while they were drying. These were done on Allen Fly Fishing 3761 size 10 hooks with the barb crimped.







Well had to jump on the blog bandwagon...

I don't know if its the winter blahs or what but after seeing all the cool blogs on FTF I decided to make one. I'm hoping this will get me motivated to snap some pics of my ties and put them up for critique/help/tips/whatever. I really only tie bluegill and bass bugs, so that is what you'll be in store for here. A little about myself: I'm 29, married, one son and another due in May. I am currently a grad student at Cleveland State University. This summer I probably won't get out much due to the new baby and overwhelming amount of course work that I'm going to have, but I try to make at least a half hour - hour a night to tie some flies. It helps me to relax after work/school/life. I'm waiting for a order from J.Stockard and I'm going to start cranking out a bunch of Carter's Rubber Legged Dragon's and a bunch of Claire's Daddy's. I did do a bunch of glass bead ants the other day I need to snap a pic of on my new drying rack that I made as well. Till next time...