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We Never Know
If people could predict the future, I doubt that life would actually be any fun. For one thing, there would be too many rich people, and who knows what else would be different. Getting right to the...
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Partridge and Hare’s Ear Soft-Hackle
My friend Bill Shuck in Maryland just sent me another photo and recipe of his latest fly tying efforts. It is a Pete Hidy style rendition of the Partridge and Hare’s Ear Soft-hackle wet fly / flymph....
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Death By Powerpoint – an Update
Hi everyone, blog subscribers and visitors! Nice of you to drop by! Things have been quiet here lately, but there is a reason for that. Many of you saw my last post, “We Never Know,” and I finally...
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Roadhouse Blues
This is why I’m having so much fun in my life lately; I’ve become the full-time drummer in the Pepper Street Band. It’s also partly why I have not been as active here, and also why I am lagging a bit...
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Fly Order (SPAM)
Perhaps I’m getting a little creative in an odd sort of way, by throwing the word SPAM into the title of this article. I have actually gotten quite a few laughs over the last couple years by reading...
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Project Healing Waters Fly Tying
I recently received this e-mail and photo from Jim Ottevaere, coordinator of Project Healing Waters fly tying classes at US Army Ft. Belvior and MCB (Marine Corps Base) Quantico. I wanted to share this...
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Samantha Fish – Black Cat Bone
OK, I know it’s not fly tying, but a love of good music, and I like almost all kinds, is part of what makes me who I am; fly tier, drummer, singer, audiophile, etc., etc., etc. I went with a good...
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Classic Fly Tier Turns to Salt
That would be me, not turning to salt, but tying some saltwater flies, specifically a palolo worm pattern for tarpon in the Florida Keys. Going back twenty years, and off and on since then, I have tied...
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Two Quickies
I want to post these two tidbits on landing fish, or not landing them. Here are two examples of what not to do. On May 12th I was at the Wayne Harpster property on Spruce Creek for the annual...
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Spring Creek – First Trip 2014
Yesterday afternoon a friend, his son, and me went to Pennsylvania’s Spring Creek with hopes of catching some sulfur mayfly activity. We did. This article is a brief report on that trip. The day was...
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Spring Creek – Again
I paid a short visit to Spring Creek last evening. After all I was in the area for something else, and figured while nearby, why not? Turns out my friend Bill Shuck, a regular www.flymphforum.com tier,...
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“Dale, We’ve Got to Get Out!”
It has been a while since I have last written here. I’ve done some fishing, but as usual, not enough. Lots of factors are contributing to that: weather – lots of rain, high water, heat and humidity,...
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Barramundi
I have been very busy tying – still – playing in the band, enjoying summer despite very little fishing. And I am still backed up on my fly orders. Just about when I seem to close in on getting caught...
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Carrie Stevens and Rangeley Style Streamers
Don Bastian:I have received several requests for information on the hackle / throat method on Carrie Stevens Rangeley Style streamer patterns that I have been using for over two years. While I have...
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Classic Wet Fly Display – 483 Flies
Last Saturday I returned to Clyde’s Tower Oaks Lodge Restaurant in Rockville, Maryland, with my girlfriend, Mary Fortin. I wanted to show her the ten-frame set of classic wet flies that the owners...
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Black Prince
The Black Prince wet fly is an old pattern. It is shown on the Lake Flies in Favorite Flies and Their Histories, 1892, by Mary Orvis Marbury. It is also in Trout, 1938, by Ray Bergman. It was a popular...
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Gem – A New and Unknown Carrie Stevens Pattern
Two different people sent me this photo over the weekend of an unknown (as far as I know), carded Carrie Stevens bucktail pattern. Obviously, it is her card, her handwriting, and her fly. And very...
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The Black Prince Rides Again
A few posts back, I wrote about a customer who had bought four dozen Black Prince wet flies from me. Well, her success with that old classic pattern continues, and has spilled over to another angler...
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24th Annual International Fly Tying Symposium
By way of announcement, the International Fly Tying Symposium will take place next weekend, November 22 and 23 at Somerset, New Jersey. I will be present, tying and demonstrating. The event is at the...
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Rangeley Lake Flies
Earlier this fall, I tied an order for a customer going to Upper Dam in the Rangeley Region of Maine to fish for brook trout and land-locked salmon. He told me to select the patterns, so I thought it...
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