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Tim's Flies.... a few questions

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BassHunter

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I have a few questions. Your flies are awesome and I use them as a model when tying flies. I can't figure out a few things things and was hoping you would give me some pointers.

 

On your deceivers, your epoxy head is perfectly shaped, nice and rounded. When I epoxy my deceivers they come out pretty good, but I would like to get that nice head. How do you do that?!

 

On your silicone spearing, how do you make the head long and rounded so it covers most of the shank? How many coats do you usually use of epoxy? Also how you you color the epoxy so it is white in the silicone spearing

and yellow in the silicone mullet?

 

I assume you have a fly rotator for epoxied flies. When you apply your epoxy, do you spread it around the fly and then put it on the rotator,or do you just blob it on top of the head and put in on the rotator and let

that shape if for you?? Is that how the well rounded heads of yours are formed?

 

Thanks alot!!!

 

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Hey Ryan,

 

When applying the epoxy on the fly a full rotary vise makes life much easier. I'll take the epoxy and a bamboo shishkabob skewer, while rotating the vise I'll put the expoxy on the fly and work it all the way around the head and a little into the fly body, once the head is covered it goes on the wheel. This is key otherwise you would have to keep rotating the fly until the epoxy is dry. biggrin.gif

 

On silicone spearing, the silicone is done in one application, the trick is to use a good chemical like Photoflow, and work the silicone into the fly body. Apply enough silicone to form the shape desired, this is tricky and will take some time and paitence on your part. It took me a while before I could get my spearing to look right and I'm not the most paitent person in the world. smile.gif The silicone is not colored, the underlying material will show through the silicone giving the fly the correct apperrance.

 

If your looking to add a little to your expoxy flies, try mixing a little glitter dust with the epoxy, this will add a little sparkle to the fly. biggrin.gif

 

Hope this helps and we'll have those fly pages up soon, I promise. biggrin.gif

 

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Dubs a.k.a., Charlie

dubs@stripersonline.com

Dubs

AKA: Charlie

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Thanks Dubs. Where can I get photoflow? At a camera store?!

 

I gotta get a rotator my vise is difficult to use at times! I rotate them by hand! frown.gif How much do wheels cost? I'm afraid to go look at the fly shop near my house. (might be $20 more that they should be)

 

OH! DUH!!! For a silicone spearing I thought you used epoxy! You use regular silicone that comes in those tubes right?! Is photoflow a silicone or do you just mix that in regular silicone?

 

Thanks again! I can't wait for those pages to be up! I'll be tyin' like a mad man!!

 

[This message has been edited by BassHunter (edited 08-29-2000).]

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Ryan,

 

The wheel that we use for fly tying is simply a BBQ Rostisory motor, I think it was like 25$ in Home Depot, we took a piece of hard pine and wittled it down to fit the sqare fitting on the motor, then you put a piece of foam on that. The best foam you can use is the bouy's that wash up on the beach. biggrin.gif

 

Photoflow you can get in the camera shop, it's a developer and allows you to touch the silicone without having it stick to you. This will allow you to shape the silicone, some guys just use spit but I prefer the PhotoFlow. smile.gif

 

The best silicone for the job is the DAP, cheap stuff that you can get in Home Depot, the GE takes too long to dry and is harder to work with. The silicone that works the best is Cinch, you can get this in Greybar electric, comes in an aresol can but is very exspensive, like $18 for a little can but it goes a long way. biggrin.gif

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

 

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Dubs a.k.a., Charlie

dubs@stripersonline.com

Dubs

AKA: Charlie

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Awesome! Thanks Dubs!

 

I have but one more question! Sorry! I was looking at SOL's poppers (flyfishing poppers) and they are awesome. The detail is the best I've seen. Do you use an airbrush? Sorry for all the questions, but I'm thinking of Christmas alreay! I gotta know what I need to get all setup! Thanks again!

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Ryan,

 

The body material for the poppers is Livebody sold by Dale Clemens in Allentown, PA. Fun stuff, can be cut, sanded and heated and stretched to shape. I think they have a web page and if not, call information and like I said, they are located in Allentown, PA. Great place, has lots of good stuff! smile.gif

 

A note on the epoxy, use a coffee stirrer (the thing you use to stir your coffee from 7-Eleven or Wawa) instead of a wood stick. I used to use toothpicks and was told by a guy who is very knowledgeable (goes by the handle BobPop here) that the epoxy will leach out the pigments in the wood and give your epoxy a yellowish color. If you use a plastic stick, the epoxy will remain clear and not have that yellow hue.

 

On another note, you should contact Trout Unlimited and find out when they are having their free fly tieing sessions. You can learn a lot from those guys (like spnning deer hair, putting feather wings on a fly, etc....). If you can tie a small intricate fly, a big intricate fly is easy. Plus all the skills are the same; a muddler minnow is like a small Snake fly, the wings on a Grey Ghost are like the tail on a Lefty's Deciever.

 

Good luck and keep tieing! Remember, you don't need expensive stuff to start out, a good Thompson vice ($40 to $50 tops!)is more than adequate. I'm still uning my Gorilla vice which I paid $30 for 4 years ago and I think Charlie and Tim will attest that my tieing is not shabby.

 

rob

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Hi Ryan,

If you are considering buying or tying flyrod poppers for SW fishing I would strongly recommend that you look at the Bob's Banger. The design of this popper allow it to be fished in very weedy comditions, whereas the poppers with the hook located at or near the bottom of the body will collect weeds.

You can also impart great action to this popper. You can make it talk almost as loud as the spinfishers poppers!

This popper is easy to tie and very effective and just about indestructable. The ones I use have long since lost their eyes and body covering. They continue to produce just as well as the day I tied them.

However, its true that fancy paint jobs will ALWAYS catch more fishermen!! biggrin.gif

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Thanks rob! I'll have to make a few calls. Thanks! biggrin.gif

 

Mike, I'll look into those style of poppers they sound interesting. Thanks!

 

Funny how I'm tying flies with out a flypole!! I was in a fly store last week and asked about some flypoles and reels. He showed me some awesome stuff, St. Croix rod #9, and some kind of arbor reel which was very nice. Unfortunitly, when I asked if there was a cheaper setup he said no, not if you want good gear. It totaled about $475 including backing, some flies, casting lessons, and taxes. Then he suggested I buy $200 at a time if I can't afford that! Yeah right! I'll have to wait till I see one maybe at a garage sale or something.

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Howdy Mike...about them fancy paint jobs on my poppers wink.gif If I didn't know me, I'd swear they were painted all perty like that just to sell to folks...God's honest truth, they ain't! These are exact duplicates of the same poppers that are in my fly box. Yup, same ones...I make my own flies just like the ones in the pictures. It takes such little additional time for me to color them before epoxy, that I just prefer the pretty colors. Like everything else, sometimes certain things matter, sometimes they don't! biggrin.gif

 

I can certainly attest to the Bob's Banger as being a killer popper...I bet the first 50 poppers I fished were a version of Bob's fly. I caught my first popper bass on Bob's fly. Even with the bangers, I like the hook to hang low, tilting the fly back some. It helps with hook sets, it helps to lift it off the water, and it helps when you pop it. The foam poppers here are just shaped, painted, and epoxied versions of what I learned from tying/fishing Bob's bangers biggrin.gif The epoxy covered foam poppers allow me to add weight to the popper to keep them in the water floating at whatever level I tie them to float at. In the flat, lifeless, and still waters of NJ, I prefer my poppers to be a little more than 1/2 way sunk for mullet imitations. When the wind blows and the waves kick up, I like the fully floating Bangers...and you really can make those things talk!

 

Ryan, the Photoflo goes in a container that you can dip your forefinger into...then you rub your thumb and forefinger together to get this stuff on both fingers. The entire siliconing is done with just a thumb and forefinger. Too many fingers makes too big a mess! I'll dip my fingers once, put the silicone on the fly, work it into shape. By now, the Photoflo is mostly worn off...now I add the eyes....and then dip my fingers lightly in the photoflo and put a tiny bit of silicone over the eyes and spread it out to match the rest of the fly.

 

Getting the epoxy head on the deceivers to be perfect isn't necessary at all...yes, I like mine to be perfectly tapered...all the ones I sell are tapered like that...all the ones I use are tapered like that. Do I think that adds anything to their fish catching ability? Nope. Why bother? Again, see above reason for bothering to make my poppers looks so nice! I enjoy tying, it's the only form of art I ever liked, it makes me smile to see a beautiful fly with attention to every detail, both important and not so important details. It took me a long time to feel comfortable with a snake fly. I tried to add eyes, I added colors, I couldn't get over it that a plain, clipped deer hair head would be better than a fancy one with eyes...but it was. All attempts to make that fly better made it worse, I have tied them all exactly as per Lou Tabory's book since then. Making the epoxy heads on your deceivers to look like mine is something you will get around to after you tie a few hundred...or a few thousand. It won't likely add one extra fish, but if you take pride and joy in your tying the way I do, you'll do it anyway, it's just natural. Charlie has often offered to tie some fly orders for me...Charlie's flies catch as many fish as mine do. I've always declined though, as I tied differently than him, even though his flies work, they just don't look like mine do. They don't look bad, just different. That's the great thing about fly tying, it's a personal thing, you will do it your way as your talent develops, it won't be right or wrong, it'll be your way. Don't let anyone tell you it's right or wrong. Flies are like opinions, you add what's important to you...you experiment by adding others opinions to yours...you keep what makes you smile, you put the rest aside. In the end, you'll make flies that only Ryan can make.

 

Oh yea, the pretty colors on the poppers is nothing more than magic marker over a silver Testers paint. Pretty neat, huh? wink.gif I paint all my foam poppers silver first. Then I'll use permanent markers over that, smearing it with my fingers to blend the colors. The flies look great when I'm done...my fingers don't look so hot biggrin.gif

 

TimS

Show someone how to catch striped bass and they'll be ready to fish anywhere.
Show someone where to go striped bass fishing and you'll have a desperate report chaser with loose lips.

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Ryan,

If you want to try tying a few silicone type flies without spending $8 - $10 for a bottle of Photoflow, you can use plain water with a little bit of clear dishwashing detergent mixed in. It works almost as well as Photoflow.

Photoflow, by the way, is not a dangerous chemical. It is water mixed with an extrememly fine grade of soap. It is used in photo processing to wash the developing chemicals off of the film.

 

I like many fly tiers keep improving on existing patterns to the point that they don't work anymore!

 

I also have noticed that finding the fish is more important than the fly tied on the end of my leader.

 

You don't need a ton of patterns, just a few that work for you. It took me a while to discover that it was a waste of time to carry 20 different patterns that imitated sand eels. One or 2 in a variety of sizes and colors cut down on the amount of junk you have to carry and simplify your choice of fly. You don't want to be be changing flies just when a pod of fish swim by.

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The Silicone Spearing is the BEST new addition to my fly box in recent memory. It is well worth learning to tie!

 

Tim - Words well spoken on tying, "they don't look bad, just different" & "don't let anyone tell you (your tying) is right or wrong"! My flies are MY FLIES, and I like them that way. They are a reflection on me. Shoot I'll even go one farther, I live vicariously through my flies! I gave my freind a dozen assorted flies just yesterday, and he is likely fishing them somewhere in Raritan bay right at this moment. Every once in awhile my right arm twitches, and I think I know why!

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Hey Ryan, don't let the price of photoflo scare you...I bought an $8 bottle of it when I tied my first silicone fly! Guess what? That was probably 10 years ago. I've tied thousands of silicone flies since then, easily. I still got what I figure to be about 4 years worth left wink.gif It's a pretty sound investment of $8. I'm not knocking soapy water, I've never tried it, I know the photoflo, it evaporates slowly, leaves no residue, doesn't affect the silicone negatively, I know what to expect from it. Having never used soapy water, I can only guess that it does the same. Only thing, I don't think the soap evaporates, I'm not sure how that would affect the silicone. Also, photoflo is completely odorless, no smells to get embedded in the silicone. Having not tried soapy water, I can only guess to these things, they may all be wrong, soapy water may even be better than photoflo for one reason or another.

 

Gilbey, yes, the silicone spearing is my one contribution to the world of fly fishing. There have been others sort of like it, some were made before I ever showed mine to anyone in public, some after the pictures were here on the site. It's a natural progression, others were bound to look at a spearing and say "Damn, that thing looks like it's made of silicone!" and then hit the bench and work through the changes to get it right.

 

Technically, it's really a modified BobPop's Silicone Mullet wink.gif All I know about silicone I learned suffering through those beautiful silicone mullet! (which, by the way, you ought to start tying, the mullet run is just around the corner!)

 

TimS

Show someone how to catch striped bass and they'll be ready to fish anywhere.
Show someone where to go striped bass fishing and you'll have a desperate report chaser with loose lips.

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