Beware of bamboo. Last summer, I traded a friend for a 6'6 3wt Schliske. It was my first bamboo rod, and I wasn't looking for cane as much as I was looking to trade a rod I won in a raffle (an Orvis fiberglass rod that I found to be too fast for my liking). It was a helluva deal, but I thought the S...

Swap fly package was waiting when I got home yesterday... Like Christmas AM... My thoughts exactly. (In fact, I was going to use the Christmas metaphor, which is why I quoted T2F). Many thanks to all who participated in this amazing swap, and extra thanks to Ray for moderating and for the biots, an...

Awesome. One of the reasons I love doing these swaps is because I rarely tie ten or a dozen of the same fly at one time -- and there is much to be learned from that kind of repetition, it seems to me. But the other thing is, as you note, Ray, all about the little choices (and decisions) that go into...

Howdy folks, I've been pretty quiet of late, and I also ran somewhat late on the swap flies... fortunately, they don't have far to go! I chose the Clyde style, since I had done some for a previous swap, and enjoy tying the style. As a plus, it seems to work quite well on our Western NY waters, espec...

I picked up a bunch of stuff on Clyde style flies for the last swap, so would be happy to revisit that material...

zen leecher wrote:I may be interested but this would require a lot of research.

I quite agree... And as someone who loves research, you can definitely count me in!

Great video. I've appreciated Bill's tying for quite some time, and it was wonderful to see it in action. As is typical when watching a master tying (as others have noted), I picked up a few things I had never thought of. Turned out my hackle pliers were too light for a good spin. I now have a heavi...

Thanks, Ray. Great photography, as always. I saw someone using one like this, and thought it was pretty clever, so I came up with a version with materials at hand -- copper and plastic tubing from steelhead flies, some old steel wire, and the spring from a ball point pen. It's a work-in-progress, so...

Craig Mathews, of Blue Ribbon Flies, has several videos over at youtube where he shows this technique (just look for anything with a soft hackle).

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Thanks, Ray -- But to give credit where credit is due, I first saw a tool like this being used by Nick Pionessa, who runs Oak Orchard Fly Shop. The nice thing about this tool -- and the advantage over popsicle sticks and the like -- is that it is relatively thin, and one can easily get between the s...