Snipe Soft Hackles

I have been playing lately with different soft-hackled flies which utilize snipe covert feathers. Pictured above is an emerger with highly movable materials: snipe tail and collar, ostrich body and the thorax made of loosely dubbed opossum fur. It will be interesting to find out how trout respond to the red hooks. I had used them successfully for many of my saltwater flies, but never for trout patterns.

Pictured on the left are are some traditional sparse soft hackles for trout and greyling, with bodies of waxed silk "dusted" with dubbing. Single turn of folded snipe covert feather completes the fly.

Reel Seats, Streamer Flies

I have just received a couple of reel seats which will be used on my new glass rods. The hardware is modeled after Walton Powell seats, with an up-lock design and exposed grip slot. The inserts are satin finished curly walnut and buckeye burl. They will go nicely with honey-yellow and brown glass blanks.

We got more snow over the weekend in MN, so I tied some more streamers... The weather was perfect for fly tying. Pictured below are the Royal Coachman with the Spey twist and the Hollow Fly on the top of my old "Striper Killer" hip flask.

Project BLUEPRINT

Music and flyfishing have never crossed their paths in my life until now. I do try to keep them separated, but this is the perfect opportunity for them to mix and merge. Eighteen of my images (most of them have already appeared in this blog) will be used in this project, along with myself performing.

BLUEPRINT

A live presentation of sound and image with

Anthony Cox- Acoustic and Electric Basses

Carol Lee Chase- Artwork, Film, Images

Dave King- Drums, Percussion

Kyle Novak- Woodwinds, Electronics

Vladan Milenkovic- Prepared Piano, Synths, Samples, Melodica

February 2nd & 3rd, 2007
Red Eye Theater
Minneapolis, MN

Surf Dream

Winter is a dreaming time for striper fishermen, especially if you are landlocked in Minnesota. These are some of my images which were taken around the coast of New England (Summer 2003), just before my move to the Midwest.

I sat down today and tied some foam divers (top picture), dreaming of the perfect surf. They will be tried this summer, time permitting...

Nymphs

I had pretty good success with this pale olive mayfly nymph during the past season (the abdomen of the nymph is actually pale olive color, even though it appears off-white on the photo.)

I played today with some new versions of this fly, with Swiss-straw thorax cover instead of the synthetic Thin Skin. All of them are quick and pretty easy to tie.

Spey Cray

Jos jedna musica inspirisana receptom iz musicarskog magazina (ne secam se tacno kog)... Zamisljena je kao imresionisticka imitacija recnog raka. Ova moja modifikovana verzija ima conehead otezanje koje ce musici dati jig-akciju. Isprobacu je ove godine na donjem delu reke Rush, gde je moguce uloviti kako pastrmku tako i bass-a.

Jasper-body Flymph

I have been playing lately with some twisted antron fibers as a body material. I wanted to create an effect similar to the silk jasper rod-winding thread. Instead of the Pearsall's or Gudebrod silk, I used twisted antron fibers to create my own jasper thread. For the March Brown Flymph (pictured above), I used three flo-orange fibers, three rust and three dark mahagony brown fibers to create a nine-ply antron thread. Add some fox squirrel thorax, speckled hen hackle and tail, and copper wire rib to complete the fly.

The color combinations are endless. With the regular jasper thread (silk or poly) you have only two mixed colors, while this method allows you to mix colors indefinitely. For instance, the combination of olive, pale yellow and grey twisted fibers works great for the BWO body. You can vary the number of individual fibers to get the desired hue or thickness.

Old Favourite Revisited

Spey Zonker-Leech is an old favourite of mine. Here is the slightly updated version...

Hook: TMC or Gamakatsu salmon fly
Tail: Burgundy marabou
Body: Claret Angora/Lite Brite blend, teased out
Wing: Black zonker strip
Cone: Flo-orange (brass)
Hackle: Orange-brown pheasant rump feather