Thanks Ron, appreciated! I've been fly fishing for about thirty years now (yikes, I should be good at it by now), but I'm an absolute novice over in this neck of the woods.

Wayne I'm in awe. Man do I need more time on the water

Curious, how often do you guys use the mono-rig versus the fly line? Do you switch from one to the other on the same rod, same day, or bring two different rods, or different days different rigs? Do you continue to use a traditional fly line, and when do you prefer that if so? I've read the trout itt...

Ah, yes, I didn't see the numbering. Must be hooks. On the side I'm thinking dubbing fur, and maybe in the middle it's folded up wax paper holding the feathers? I saw one labelled for guinea and thought maybe old crumply glassiness, but you're right they look thick for that.

Mr Bailey comes through! That's fantastic. What are the dark square-shaped parts at the top? The round topped parts at the side? I assume those are glassines in the middle? Could you elaborate on the show & tell? I'm over the moon

Sounds about right Hank. My wife and I moved to a new city and a small house (no garage, workshop, office, den..., not much extra space) close to five years ago, and I'm probably just going through a second wave of getting my stuff the way I want it. I'm no production tyer, for sure, but I do like m...

Hm. I was hoping to find at least a few people who do or have done some significant pre-plucking themselves, but apparently it's not much of a thing any more. Or maybe just an occasional or passing thing not worth mentioning. Or maybe the pre-pluckers are too busy pre-plucking.... I do pre-pluck etc...

I'm back home in New Orleans after a month fishing in cooler climes. Within the next few weeks or so, I'm going to try organizing my feathers better, and I'm seeing that pre-plucking may be in my future.... But before I go down that fowl hole, I'm hoping some of you veterans of the fluff might chime...

In the process of stealing these sunken beauties to add to my trico box, I came up with a variant of your brilliant! withered female, using clear midge larva lace filled with xs silver ultra wire for the abdomen. (Aunt Lydia's and mahogany Beaver dubbing for the rest.)

Doug, thanks for this (not to snub your other stuff, always great...). I'm posting on this terrific pupa fly because I've not (yet) ever had success with my own limited experiments with swiss straw, so I must be doing something wrong with it... Any tips for using swiss straw successfully, and maybe ...