The Artistic flies of Mark Romero

[willowhead]

Vicki as i told you before. When the time comes, i will teach you all about how to twist and attache your gut. But there's simply no need for me to go into that until i KNOW you've made a real committment to tying on blind eye hooks. In fact, i won't even send the ones i have here for you, UNTIl you've bought some yourself.....because then i'll know your serious about it. The switch over to tying on blind eye hooks is a very serious committment.....it'll take you and your tying to the next level. And since i've given away so many hooks eyed and blind, in the last 6/7 years, i simply have to know someone is TRUELY committed to tying on blind eyes before i can give any more away. i hope you understand.

[kanutripr]

Gee and I was just thinkin' of gettin' me some hooks and a good sharp set of wire cutters and... well you know



Vicki

[willowhead]

VERY good.....step in the right direction. i just finally got a pair of way serious wire cutters a couple weeks ago.....Home Depot. i've spent a small fortune on blind eye hooks in the last....maybe 8 years. And along the way.....i also bought a pretty good stash of hooks that if you remove their eyes, make a pretty nice hook for using with gut. So now that my none dedicated stash (blind eyes that have not yet been "Matched" with a bead), is gettin a bit low.....i decided to finally chop the eyes off some of my eyed hooks and use them.....mostly for when i'm not using beads in the dressings.....and that's mainly because the nice eyed hooks i have that can be chopped and used with gut.....are not that large, so i don't need to use a bead with them or don't have beads of the appropriate size...........actually i do.....but dang.....i've already matched close to 3 thousand hooks and beads.....ENOUGH already. i may never even get them all tyed before i croak. So i'll proly just do beadless flies on the hooks i chopped the eyes off of. Keep it simple.....use 'em for giveways, donations, swaps, raffles, etc.
GREAT thing bout a plan.............is it doesn't always have to pan out.....but you GOTTA have one.............you dig?

Boy am i lovin' this current home stay.....been back since Nov. 15th.....and got nowhere to go til time for the Fly Fishing Show in Denver next month.....that's gonna be almost 2 months at home in one stretch............YES!!!!! i litterally cannot remember the last time that happened.....i think it was before we bought this house in '07. This is FUN!

[kanutripr]

I was trying to figure out how I was gonna get some beads on some of these hooks (I've got ideas and my brains hurtin').


Vicki

[willowhead]

Here's the sequence most of the time when using a bead on a blind eye hook. i begin the fly just behind the point of the hook.....up front.....just in back of the blind or missing eye. When the fly is finished i only want to be able to see that point, and NO more.....if i can see it, THAT's ENOUGH, NO more. Then i take the thread all the way down to where i will start my tip and or tag, stopping right before directly above the point of the barb, UNLESS i have made a conscious decision to go beyond there (the point of the barb), with the tip and or tag, for a reason. Normally i start my tip or tag, with the first turn (occassionally two turns) on bare hook shank. That gets just a little bit of a taper goin'.....looks cool. Then i finish my tip and tag or just tag, depending....then i do my tail if there's goin' to be a tail.....then the butt (same thing), IF there's going to be one.....and then depending on the design of the fly.....any and everything else until it's time for the bead. It all depends on where the bead is goin' to go. Then the bead.....then the eye.....then finish the fly. Point is, you cannot do the eye until "AFTER" the bead is on.....and you can only put the bead on when it's time for the bead.
Now here's one tip i'll give you now.....write it down.....i hate havin' to repeat myself unessessarily. When you DO attache your eye, and i'll have a tutorial for you later on/bout that.....make SURE that when your sucking on it to soften the gut before you ever form your loop.....that you nibble on both ends a little.....chew them frayed.....just use your teeth to slightly seperate the twist. So after you have your gut bout half way or so attached, you can take your bodkin, and seperate the strands.....of the twisted gut. Then you want to take you scissors and stagger cut the tag ends at different lengths, to maintain the taper of the hook. So suck on it for 2/3/4 minutes until you feel it's become soft enough.....(BUT NOT to soft.....remember, it's protein), to form your loop. Form your loop by putting a bobbin or equivalent in the center of the strand and pinching it tight on both sides of the loop your forming. Those pinch spots are approximately exactly where you will make you initial first wrap to tye it in/lash it down. You'll have to pratice this quite a few times until you become happy with the results your getting. And you'll have to find what you like best. It's very personal as to the style of eye you want to be known for. This is not craft.....it is ART. You have to know your craft to be a good artist.....but do NOT do it like every or any one else has 500K times before you, simply because that's the way they did it. Find your own voice. So, and this leads me to the most important part, in the sense that it's actually the end of the turorial.....guess you got it before i was planning on giving it to you. Best laid plans.....ah ah ah...ah......ah, i'm sorry officer, i just couldn't help myself.
You BETTER be writing this down or printing it.....but don't get me wrong.....this is just the last time i will do this here. Next time, it's private.
Now here's the decision you have to come to terms with.....and i reccommend you try it both ways to be able to find not only what you like best.....but what works for you the best. Many Salmon fly tyers, tye their gut in on the bottom of the hook. Maybe even "most" do. i tye in on the sides of the hook. Those who tye in on the bottom, usually do so because it has everything to do with keeping a certain taper goin' when workin with floss. But when you do that.....the eye always ends up below the hook shank and it looks like crap imho. The point of the hook up above an eye that hangs down below.....a VERY lame look. Not symetrical at all.....not to mention that when you tye in on the sides, your giving yourself a MUCH wider and better (more stable) platform to mount your wing on. Also, the point of the hook will now be comming right dead center out of the head, and down the center of the eye, not lookin' stupid up above the eye. When workin' with a floss body, you might want to do it the other way.....but i always do it (mount the gut) on the sides. You'll have to try it both ways.....or invent a way of your own. Hey, stranger things have happened.
Be aware of course, that when i've been refering to "the point" of the hook just lately here.....i mean the blind eye point, not the part that would stick into a fishes mouth.
So remember, pre-twisted gut has to be soaked.....we all suck on it til it's soft.....usually takin' bout 2/3/4 minutes.....and chew on the ends to roughen 'em up a bit. Don't nibble on much more than the fIrst quarter of an inch up from both tags ends. The entire piece of gut you need for an eye is usually no longer than an inch.....no matter what hook size.....you match the diameter of the gut as best you can to the diameter of the hook shank. So length has nothin' to do with it. You will need two strand gut, three strand, and four strand.....at least to get started with a good variety of hook sizes. Some of the gut i use has maybe 20 strands.....but that' the antique violin string gut for example.
We'll save that for another episode.
OH! One more thing.....when attachng your gut, be sure not to pull straight down or up at least in the beginning.....take your thread and as you tighten, pull directly away from your self and directly to yourself. Don't put the pressure on the up and down aspects of the turns.....put it on the away from you, and towards you aspects of the turns. That will help trememdously in not rolling your gut and getting it all messed up, and also insure you keep a nice flat surface for your wing mount and help you begin a great foundation for a beautiful head.
p.s. don't forget what i already told you all about forgetting everything you ever learned about not crowding the eye.....you DO want to crowd the eye.....if you need more help understanding what that's all about, just ask.

[willowhead]

http://www.misako.myphotoalbum.com New pics up.....

[lykos33]

Mark, I know you have been collecting and tying over 35+ years,but I am still amazed at the mount and variety of material in your collection. I have offered this to a few other tiers over the last few years (since I got bit by the "bug")and have had no takers....
"FOR ADOPTION": 1 large,white ,male man/child (47 yrs old).Can live on leftovers,fast learner, easily amused, comes with own wife...

[willowhead]

actually i never tyed a fly in my life til i was almost 43.....a week or so before my 43rd birthday in '93..........i'm 60 now. Fished all my life, but never fly fished til '89. Tyin' goin' on 18 yrs.....
i wasn't able to really find my own voice in fly tying for the first 7 years or so because i was still working full time, travelling with musicians all over the planet.....so i just took that time to learn as much as i could bout fundemental tying techniques and allllllllll the different patterns. Along the way, i was actually becomming more and more bored with that approach, in terms of "patterns".......Ed Van Put comes to mind..... he fished with an Adams (PERIOD), for 40+ years and out fished EVERYONE. Told me all i needed to know bout patterns. Don't get me wrong...........i LOVE patterns for their beauty and all the diversification and wonder and alllll the rest.....but you only have so much time to spend behind the vise.....even if your obsessed like me. i collect flies like KArazy.........i still have hundreds in N.Y. i haven't even brought down here yet......
Anyway.....after 9/11 went down, life in Manhattan just became a drag.........they turned it into a police state.....simply sucked. So i went fishin'.....litterally, figutively, and permanately.....went up to our place in the Catskills and just hung out with all my animals, and only went to the city on Fri. to pick up my wife and bring her up for the weekend and then take her back down on Sun. eve. .....spent the weekdays upstate all alone...........nice and quite.....fishin' & tyin'. In '06 she left her job. In '07 we bought our place in Arkansas. In '08 we sold our place in Manhattan.....now our place in the Catskills is for sale. Simple

[willowhead]

Like Ruard said on his latest post.....i was just playin' around. i painted the stems of the feathers (Peacock crests), in that wing, with a Sharpie, "After" they had been tyed in. The whole thing was just a wacked idea.....i like it in hand much better than in these pics. A friend, Mary K Janco, gave me the bead......actually she gave me a bunch of beads.....and like this one, a few of them have faces on them.....weird abstract faces.....kinna cool. So i tried to make the fly as weird as the bead.....with my bead flies.....it's ALL about the bead. i think of them like this.....
i'm the hook.....the foundation for everything.....
the bead is life, IN YOUR FACE.....you can't chage that.....it's there every day.........do i get outta bed or what................?.....................
and the rest of the dressing.....is how you deal with it.....what you make out of the opprotunity to deal.....you dig?
keep scrollin'.....i been up bout 22 hrs. again.....better catch a few winks.....later gators.

[letumgo]

Hugely stylish and imaginative fly Mark. I've sat here and simply admired this fly for a long time, much like a painting. Definitely a work of art.