Brian K. Shaffer

I have a pair of scissors marked for only this job... cutting of old material away. Good scissors make it really easy. (they are anvils..)

Midge rods are generally short... like 7ft'ers... I use a cheap Cortland 100% graphite 7ft 3wt for midgin.... I also use the glass... Cabelas 50th anniversary glass rod.. they were 99 then dropped to 59.. so I bought 3. 6'6 3wt, 7ft 4wt, 7'6 5wt... all splendid midge rods...

Quashnet from the Classic Fly Rod Forum wrote this about the brown : " Could possibly be a coloboma, in humans often appearing as a keyhole-shaped extension of the pupil. Zebrafish are used as a research model for eye studies, so for all I know (and I don't know) a coloboma (which can be of genetic origin) could naturally occur in a wild fish. Not my area of expertise though. " Looks like coloboma is the answer to the eye defect... terrible that it happens to humans but its really rare : The incidence of coloboma is estimated at around 0.5 to 0.7 per 10,000 births, making it a relatively rare condition - per Wikipedia

UPDATE : I have had the jacket on now for the last hour.. indoors... Great breath-ability.. but the hood is kinda hard to figure out.

Any ideas where the counts are being tallied ?

HMH vises are sweet.... I had one of the very early ones made pass thru my hands years ago... it was serial number 83. Early ones like that now fetch into 4 digit category. (by the way, HMH stands for Hunter Mad House... named after Bill Hunters mad house of fly tiers.) story and vise pics : http://www.eflytyer.com/tools/hmh_vises.html

Phil - can you email me a copy of that photo ??? Thanks!

I must admit.. this fly shop rocks. I drooled from the moment I walked in until I left.. a little lighter in the wallet! Jim and Rodney made everybody feel right at home.... and they do have just about everything anyone could ever want. Plus they hooked it up on a nice free t-shirt with a ton of company logos on it.. pretty cool. Oh, and its dog friendly too!

That's hilarious!

I do like those Peak vises... I am sure someday I will own one. Such a sexy design...

I am not a Renzetti fan and do not need rotary.... I've tied on everything from the Traveler to the Master and the Presentation Renzettis but just never did fall in love with them. To each his own... and like you said - look at the heavy duty tool steel behemoth...

I finally replaced my worn out Thompson I bought from Tim's Fly Shop in 1998 for $45 with this DynaKing Voyager, a used vise from the personal collection of Len Codella.. It cost me $100. The jaws and actual vise workings are the best I have used to date... and the DynaKing vise extension looks better on this setup than on the Thompson. Bottom line.. this is a great (out of production) vise that is going to do exactly what I need. Hold hooks without fail. If you are looking for a vise.. I suggest any DynaKing. I had tied on a buddies Barracuda before and never did figure out the dual hook placement jaw grooves until now.... I don't use them !! (unless you are using hooks designed to fit in the grooves by actual hook thickness and size, think bigger hooks for larger streamers and bass bugs and salt stuff) I think the Voyager II (2) is still a current model, as is the Kingfisher and maybe the Squire.. but they are all a $200 fixed head vise. I didn't want or need true rotary, and needed a C-CLAMP... so I am quite pleased with everything this vise has given me in the last 3 days of tying. tight lines, and better tying to all - Brian

I just now started using the micro swivels sold on eBay for next to nothing. They do make a difference. So does heavier tippet as mentioned before. If you are fishing sz 14 CB'ds.. you can get away with 4x, but a better presentation is made with 5x.... just realize 6x is really putting a lot of torque on the end of the cast... hence the massive spin effect.

I am not a fan of Danville anything to be honest, but there is a lot of it out there and is cheap. After using UNI for almost 10 years... I can tell when it counts. UNI is a bonded filament thread if I remember correctly. UNI has gone up too... Bass Pro just up'd it to $4.29 a spool (200yds) This is a neat article : http://globalflyfisher.com/tiebetter/thread_control/

wow.. the sale is over..

So I broke down and bought this item from the Clymb web page: my 1st purchase from them, http://www.theclymb.com/brand-event/2824/Thanksgiving-Weekend-Sale-Fishing-Gear Every review says the hood is hard to get along with --- way too big. Every web page I've found also sells it for 189 or more. But the Clymb had it for $119 instead of list price of 300.. and its got sonic welded seams.. so for me it was too good of a deal to pass up. Bottom line - if you need a wading jacket.. wait til I get this one and read the review I give for it. Might be the bees knees... maybe the huge hood situation will be the deal breaker. (probably not)

It depends on the body of water you are fishing. Taneycomo is very productive with soft hackle fishing because the trout are likely to chase the fly thinking it is a side swimming scud or a midge in the film trying to escape or a midge above the film trying to dry its wings so it can fly away. Better put - it just looks like food to them and it is escaping - so they tend to chase it down and swipe at it, sometimes once twice or three times before they commit to it fully and hook themselves. Also, the swing technique is best when thrown at a 45 degree angle / using quartering casts downstream. Here is a good sparsely tied SH and a tying tutorial : http://dharmaofthedrift.blogspot.com/2009/11/fly-tying-tutorial-partridge-olive-soft.html Truthfully I tie my feather in different, but you can decide how you like to do it and improve upon it. best part is - you can almost just sparsely dub on a creamy gray mixture and brush it out and fish it like a soft hackle and forget the hackle altogether ....

Great story and what a pig!!!! Nicely done. Sometimes the fly / lure / bait is fishing even when you aren't.

I know where I am going for dinner, Phil's house! His microwaved trout recipe blew my mind apart... easy and excellent snacking!

excellent gear at deep discount here guys.. thanks for the heads up post

Thanks Don.. for letting me know the pictures didnt work. iPhone photos have to be uploaded to make them live.. I did not know that. Lets see if this works... the helmet and gloves and all the stuff goes with it. gun on the table with all the stuff : https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Mk9R7kngqC8/UKvSjKnrVcI/AAAAAAAABYY/bERrN7SYKeU/s720/IMG_2969.JPG tippman gun : https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HkKKvyYYETU/UKvSpVLjMqI/AAAAAAAABYk/i1nBkRKD5NI/s720/IMG_2972.JPG heck - here all the all the pics: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-n2e0lVdWlAc/UKvUTQb7mkI/AAAAAAAABZI/2JdE2_yPx9o/s720/IMG_2974.JPG https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-qXqiXIKLcQU/UKvUHhDwU7I/AAAAAAAABYw/LcI-vdg23Go/s775/IMG_2970.JPG https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ULu99mz1JLI/UKvULYY9yAI/AAAAAAAABY4/eZIw_RU66tU/s775/IMG_2971.JPG https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-84rleF8UwC8/UKvUQlxi8VI/AAAAAAAABZA/FsyOT5dhwpI/s626/IMG_2973.JPG

This one includes the fly line.. matched to the rod... ugh!! I have never been so tempted by your work Chris.. what a gem!

First off - I know nothing about this whole getup. It came into the Taney Co. Humane Society Thrift Store where my mom volunteers. I thought maybe someone here could make some use of this stuff on the cheap. It does appear to be some hardly used good quality gear.. you be the judge : Tippmann gun : Tippmann gun with everything included in the sale : Asking $100 .. pickup only. -- 100% of the money will be used to buy food for the dogs and cats at the Taney Co. Humane Society adoption center on Shep. Hills Exp. They need food and medicine all the time... and sometimes this food gets donated, but not enough... so I thought I would try a go at this here forum. (sans ebay) You can buy it all- $100. The baffler muzzler on the end of this thing cost $60 by itself.. the gun was something like $150+ new and there is a boat load of extra stuff. Please tell me how much you saved off retail... 'cause I would love to listen but would have no idea. Email me for the close-ups ..... I have 9 extra pics of this stuff that I know nothing about. It's all on the table. 100% of the money will be going to help animals. Let me know if you are interested. Thanks for looking - Brian

Rolan - I agree with you.. but once I started red thread for my weighted scuds and same color thread as scud/sowbug on my unweighted bugs... red just kinda took over, probably 'cause I am color blind and cannot match bug color to thread color.. so red is easy. 8/0 Uni is the bees knees for me.

I hardly ever see them dead in the upper end... I do see them dried out in big groups .. like after heavy flooding and then they draw it down and those colonies just don't get the memo and get moved down to the new low water mark. They sure do fish them out west in orange... and pink and red and even yellow - to match the dead scud.