FLYMPH FORUM

Otter wrote:

Mike Connor wrote: Ah what a tangled web we weave, when first we struggle to achieve!

TL
MC

Otter:
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

MikeC:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Otter,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Otter:
Jam jar, jam jar, wherefore art thou !!!!

MikeC:

Should the jar, the silk not blend
to a nunnery, should go my Otter friend

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take jars and fill them up with knotted tangles, and by vigorous shaking, blend them.

( My apologies to Billy Rattleshaft).

A nunnery might be nice, but you are likely to have even more difficulty removing ladies from stockings there! Although I have heard they do use a lot of silk for various things!

TL
MC

Now whether it be
untangled silk, or some silken crumble
Of thinking too precisely on th' event—
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward—I do not know
Why yet I live to say this thing's to do,
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do't.
from the jar ere coffe grinder
silken dubbing shalt emerge
upon the twist of hook and measure
when presented thus a trout shalt see
the livelyness of the silken, sunken flea

Another masterpiece takes shape, as sitting in his lonely room,
surrounded by arcane delights, the angler plots another fishes' doom,
Hair of rat, and tail of crow, much reminiscent of a witches brew,
fastened with much care and skill, of natures wares a pattern true.

But poor artifice you say, compared to all the beauteous flies,
knowing this, the angler, quite undaunted, to copy them still tries,
even more surprising, than the failure of a perfect copy, still,
the fish will take imperfect ones, even poor copies, fish will kill.

Just as well, for centuries, the fish have fallen to such cunning,
no good reason though to cease, in past successes sunning,
the search goes on, as generations more of anglers still try,
with skill and care and articifice, to fashion yet the perfect fly.

Yet another deadly pattern, is praised and lauded, a sensation,
but even this avails one nought, is one remiss in presentation.
amazing really, such single-mindedness, as struck by Cupid,
which drives a host of men to hunt things basically quite stupid.

Were this not so, then scarce an angler would have caught a fish,
barely a minnow, would have landed dead on some Epicurean dish.
Be not insulted then, when questioned, as to your state of mind,
be grateful that the fish are not too clever, mayhap somewhat blind.

By this same token then, laud not your skill above its worth,
lest this be greeted with derision, and much unseemly mirth,
you caught a trout, and your skills and knowledge are most firm,
but small boys do the same, knowing naught, and with a worm.

TL
MC

Yet to perfect in some small measure
the twisted silk shall be made uncoil
and in the failures for this to this achieve
for this old greybeard it gives some pleasure

If my silk be thin and pure
when touched to thread it will endeavour
To a fly of my own art
a sense of life to the trout impart

Why such extremes , our quest, the perfect fly
for presentation to a great trouts lie
Though our searching be greeted with much laughter
we cannot search when in the hereafter.

As I grow old, I often see
that others are, even madder than me.
And whatever hours for me , do remain
above all else this quest has never caused me pain.

This guide is only for those that consider themselves as suffering from OCD or are regularly called anallly retentive by their partners , family and friends.

How to make silk dubbing when the grinder don't grind and you are at work.

1pm: Lunchtime, everyone else has gone out to lunch ( this bit is important as going any further with others around will only reaffirm your loooney status)

1. Locate a Jam Jar. Many workplaces have coffee jars and this will do the job.

2. If you work in an office and are not inclined to hop in the car and drive around to find a building site then you need to come up with an alternative to sand and gravel. I have a small stash of silica gel granules that were collected from various computer component boxes are were intended for use in dry CDC. Word of warning, if the little package only contains chinese writing then check that its silica granules and not fullers earth dessicant my first package contained this.

3. Fill coffee jar with a few inches of water and dump in some silica crystals. The make a nice popping sound that sets the tone for the experiment

4. Cut silk into desired lengths and place in jar.

5. Cover jar with lid and shake vigorously until the silk strands have separated. NOTE: Coffee jars hold coffee granules and are not watertight, do not shake any where near your keyboard as it can get rather damp

6. Get toilet paper from toilet and fork from canteen.

7. Take fork that you have used to eat a curry and rice, wash and use to remove dubbing from jar.

8. Leave to dry .

9. Remove all evidence of lunchtime operation and dry keyboard before typing up instructions on internet for others.

10. A watched kettle never boils and silk dubbing will not dry any faster no matter how often you check it.

11. Fluff out dubbing when dry - this step is surmise and will be qualified in second edition of this manual.

(C) Anal Otter 2011

forgot the vital tool




Thank you Mike, not only did I save on electricity I also had a rigorous workout and suspected tennis elbow as a result

Hmmm.....yes, I suppose you can do it like that as well!

Flavouring or scenting flies with coffee or curry and rice might be frowned upon in some circles ( If you use a jam-jar remove the jam first, much the same as ladies and stockings really). Obviously the silica gel granules worked, and although the picture of the result is a bit fuzzy, ( or is that just the fuzzy dubbing confusing matters again?), you seem to have obtained what you wanted. Sharp sand or fine gravel will actually fray the fibres.

For larger amounts, or difficult cases, and to prevent tennis elbow, get one of these;

http://www.manchesterminerals.co.uk/aca ... hines.html

You can also use one of these;+

http://www.comet.co.uk/c/Laundry-Dishwa ... ryers/1725

which also collect the dry dubbing for you on the sieve. ( But I would leave the gravel out in this case).

If you want some really good synthetic dubbing for "touch dubbing" or even natural dubbing;

http://globalflyfisher.com/tiebetter/wa ... /index.php ( Wont save any electricity though! )

Also, don't try to "fluff out" the dubbing, Use it as a "pad" or in small "lumps" pulled off the pad. If you try to fluff it out you will end up with some sort of disaster!

TL
MC

I don't suppose everybody will be able ( or willing!) to do this, but some of the best dubbing I ever produced was by putting various full skins in the tumble dryer. Works great on hare and various other animals. ( You should remove the hare from the skin first! Basically the same procedure as with ladies and stockings again! ). Works best if you soak the skins for a while in water after cleaning them. This causes a lot of hair to loosen and it will fall out later (This phenomenon is known as "slip" in the fur trade). If you let it "drip dry" for a while, and then bung it into the dryer while wet, you can collect a large "Pad" of perfect dubbing from the sieve. This dubbing is suitable for a lot of things, but not "touch" dubbing because all the guard hairs etc are blended in, and the fibre length is not of course affected.

If you do this, vacuum the dryer after use. Apart from guaranteeing "pure" blends, this might prevent the wrath of SWMBO from descending on you. ( No guarantees there though!).

Various dubbing blends are not suitable for all dubbing methods. Bear this in mind before you use some of these techniques. Unless of course you actually want to produce ten thousand "touch-dubbed" spiders of a particular colour!

Even an apparently very small amount of dubbing will suffice to dress many flies. One old Scottish guy I knew told me had been using a pair of hare's ears for a number of years, and he had not yet started on the second one!

TL
MC

Confirmation of the fact that there is no need to tell a scottishman to dub sparingly, masters of waste not want not.

The idea of mrs O opening the tumble drier to find a hare, a rabbit, a rat, a mouse and other such critters seems like a sure fire recipie for freedom to fish everyday of the season, just need to figure out where I would live.

letumgo wrote:I'm hoping that Ruard will chime in on this too. He once made a range of silk dubbing for some of his flies. I'd guess that the fibers should be cut in the 3/8" to 1/2" range.

I remember I did but I don't remember exactly the length of the fibers. Mostly i cut fibers in 1 cm to 1,5 cm and that is about 3/8" to 1/2"

Greeting