HillTop

"......I did not mention tying, as my team would have a fit. ...." What more is there to say ? It's now a good time to Youtube all the fly related Videos you can find, tying, casting, etc, etc and do what they tell you. Best of luck !! HT

Top, The best blends i've seen are from the Squimpish folks. I bought one piece to see how they package them up. My photo above was done at night with a flash and it's not a true color. Now done during the day makes them show in a more realistic photo. I'm happy with the results (2 new greens, 1 black), blended better than my sample last year. Will now attempt to copy Squimpish as close to what it should look like , (in Blue color), to see how close I come to it and then calculate how long it takes me to blend them up. Just curious more than anything I guess. This is last nights blend but now done in a natural light. ...... Also surprised that Squimpish Hair doesn't sell a color that includes a Green related color ? You would think that green would be popular. Sample of Squimpish Blend HT

Over a year ago I was playing around with synthetic hair and coloring blending. Had only done small amounts and have just started making a new batch of blends. Curious if anyone has a better and easier way to make blending to be as quick as possible ? I know the Squimpish hair is blended with 3 to 4 different colors and they mention that it is all done by hand and that makes the cost of Squimpish expensive. Just curious to improve my techniques, any thoughts ? Recent sample with 3 new colors to experment. To get a nice color overall you have to blend over and over many times. Found it to be easy enought but a lot of work. HT Latest samples:

A year+ I got myself a Stonfo Transformer Vise. ( 3 vises in one ) Great to have the option for Tubes, (an 2 other vises) and glad I did it back then as the price is now more than $200 more than what I paid for them !

" And I’m already burned out on “albie” stuff. " You didn't say why..... Natural or synthetics? Use superglue? What thread do you use?

Thanks Capt. Appreciated. From your Instagram post you sure make a ton one of these Albie xxxx. Is it pretty much all you use/make or do you also use Surf Candys as well? I've only caught one Albie, (by chance from the beach in Chatham), with a Surf Candy. It was a good sized one and a real hoot. My son lives in Seattle right now and I'd love to get him to get back to MA before the Albies leave. I assume you charter licenses in south MA ? If so can you give me a PM of the particulars and maybe I can get my son here long enough before the end of this summer to give it a shot. thx, HT

As is typical they look about the best i've ever seen ! Curious, On average, how many Albies do get of of a fly, (on average), before they fall apart With just a couple of feathers in place I would think of them being a bit on the fragile side ? no? HT

Bait T, Once you get used to it I think you'll find it easy. Just have to continue to play along with it and don't worry about having to through your material away until youi get it the way you want it. Of course it's easy for me to say because I use almost primarily Wig Hair, which is cheap, compared to all of the Commercial Fly Tying Synthetics. Their pricing is just unreal. Just for ucks I bought a piece of Squimpish hair just yesterday from the Bear's Den. (they live just down the road) Squimpish now costs $11 for a piece that gets next to nothing for their "blended" material. I have some colors of wig material that is close and try to make my own to compare what it costs me in comparison to Squimpish. Below is an older forum on blending something similar to give it a chance with just three colors. If I get a chance I'll do some blended material and also do some dubbing material ,(over +3" wide), to put up on the forum. My issues is between still working and now having to sleep close to 10 hours a night I don't have much time to work on all the projects I've started and left undone HT Blended material just prior to dubbing

Bait Tailer, Just want to clarify if your post above made the assumption that I did it.... I only noted that it's one I found and I think from SeaDogg, who makes fantastic flies. My issue is that I havent' done many large flies yet as I just haven't had the desire to do so. My largest was a synthetic Pole Dancer fly that I gave to a local Cape guy that came out great, about 8+", and he immediately hooked up with a large seal and almost lost his line. He quit after that. I have a ton experiments where I save bits and pieces of new flies to keep as examples. This is only a little part of a 5/0 to try to understand how the synthetic works well. Yes, not close to the way Buck Tail is done. Not sure this photo will help you much but for what it is worth my start. I use dubbing as the most consistent body build up and I use synthetic wig hair mostly (cheap ), to make them taller by making dubs with making short thicker material to start and the slightly longer dub sections and then thinner material as the longest wig hair. The biggest issue comes when you just make the synthetic too thick and it's tough to build decent dubbing that will hold in the wire wig from slipping out even when wrapped fairly tight. I have another option for that but it gets rather involved. Hope my screwy aphasia being above my post is okay. Some days I just shouldn't talk/write . Anyway a photo sample of synthetic material from a partial attempt of a 5/0 I was playing around with. Height of the body is about 2.5" and could easily be made heigher. The built dubbing inside is the shortest material and a material best used like "Super Hair" or another stiff material. The softer materials ends up being the longest synthetic material. After the dubbing is complete you can snip down the width of the hair of the body to get a fly that is very thin over the body yet still allows the fly to be long to make an interesting fly thats is not a Bulk Head pattern like Gunnar. HT Wig Hair, Dubbing

Actually Bait T. I think that when flies are used properly the results with synthetics material can provide you with equal to, or better than, Buck Tail material, and they stand up much longer as well. Only my opinion obviously. Once you know how to take advantage of the different materials, for me especially using dubbing, then the size of flies can be amazing. Advantage is that the synthetic material for large flies unlike buck tail doesn't add extra water. when wet Just one sample found previusly, from SeaDogg I think. HT

Thanks Suave, Great idea. I'll take the details I'm going to work on and I'll add them to the CaryGreene's Crease Fly documentation. Great information to keep in the same spot. HT

"Changers" Dang it, I should have remembered your comment on adding lead to the hook previously ! I guess my old age really is affected Thanks. Speaking of this forum, just this weekend I continued working on the Crease flies, ( see above, around April 16th - 17th for Crease flies ), where I wrote about Crease design flies and how to make them more durable. Finally got around to it on my Crease design and now I'm still using Crin material over the foam but not on "Flex Seal Liquid", as too long and messy to set up Flex Seal on our fly rotator jig spinner. I have a new UV Soft / Fexible Resin Material that works extremely well, probably better than Solarez Soft UV , and it is ~80% less expensive than Solarez, so using the entire foam material is not very costly. I was surprised how strong this resin really stands up. My next Crease flies with this new material will be build using Crin tubing, UV soft resin, and will create our Creases with hypodermic/silicone tubing instead of tying our hook directly to the foam flies like they are typically constructed. Used as a hook on tubing should alow popping off the hook and float up from the tippet/line and help keep the Crease flies lasting longer. Also can use different types of hooks available, at least that's the plan. Photo: original Flex Seal foam samples with Crin to protect from cutting. Next UV Soft Resin to be done soon...... PS: Another thing I've noticed is the way you can create tube and sitting in the hook. Different positions can be significant by how you tie the snell hook to the line, ie: tie mono line coming out of the eye towards the top of the eye or tie the eye with the line coming out the bottom. Look significanly different when the hook is attached to the silicone fly tube. Will try showing photos of both if interested. HT

Maybe a stupid question (I've done many), but a large Changer with only a size 1 hook, and what appears to be glued on eyes that are higher up, ie: above the body hook shank, how well do these fly in water. Do they turn in water the way they should, ie: hook down, or do they turn sideways or even upside down? Seeing now that I have a The Flymen Fly Testing device it's interesting that many built flies you thought turned well actually don't fly as nice as you thought. Now before I build multiple flies of the same design I test them first. Just curious...... HT