Lovely flies Karsten-good to see you back and posting again!
What is that red-ish brown body fly? It look like a piece of condor Quill......

Dana

The packaging changed too, first small cardboard boxes of several different types, then plastic covered boxes. Plastic tubes were used for a while also in the 1990's. This is a terrific thread--and it's about time I started sharing some stuff with everyone here. John's right, the packaging changed-...

Geez, Ray: I think you’ve just made the “post of the year”........ it certainly answered a lot of questions for me. Thank you !

I don’t know if this is the correct place to post this:
Over the last year or two, I’ve spoken with Ivan at great length regarding silk and soft hackles. So he sent me this bobbin he came across- it is a work of art! Has anyone else ever seen one of these?

Dana

Dana ~ Please describe (and maybe illustrate with a photo or two?) how you go about processing a mallard quill. Specifically, where does it come from on the bird and how do you "strip" it? John ~ Your flies look really good to me. Nice tying. Bill - there’s no easy way to strip quills...... usually...

Excellent references, many thanks to John. But I want to add one more place to the list: the Catskill Flyfishing Center & Museum, which has been of one of my best resources for finding old materials. Many people leave items to the museum, and some of them are put up for sale in the store. Recently, ...

Ah, Belding Corticelli....great stuff. As are Champion, Gudebrod, etc. And Reed Tackle - I don’t know who he bought his cell chrome, but I liked it the whole lot better than herders. I still have a couple of dozen spools in sizes 2/0, 3/0, 4/0, 5/0, 6/0 and 8/0. And yes, the white 8/0 is very fragil...

The “sounds of silence “

You don’t miss it, until you don’t have it....

Mike-post up some pictures of those old vices !
Dana

Ollie Edward’s has an excellent dvd on fishing the upstream wet fly - I haven’t seen it in quite a while, but I believe it’s one of his “essential skills” series.....One hi light I do remember is that he uses the hand twist retrieve.

Theroe