Lack of posts…
But heavy on the tying…since its been cold here and I’ve had very little fishing so I’ve been tying a lot lately. Here are some of more recent pictures…
Mobile Fly Tying….
Mobile fly tying at its best…as I mentioned last week, I recently purchased a Windsor 8 drawer wooden tool chest, well this past weekend I got to fill it up with a good bit of my fly tying material. As I said this is no Gerstner in material or craftsmanship but for under $100 you can’t beat it. So here is a breakdown of how I set up from top to bottom…
Top Shelf – EP Fibers, vise base, Superglue, Ultrawire rack, Clear Cure Goo Syringes and other miscellaneous items, I’ve also got the painting Anna did for me and I’ve added a felt covered piece of foam for a drying spot for finished flies.
Top Left Drawer – 35 spools of thread and floss
Top Right Drawer – this is the drawer I added the dowel rods and I’ve got my vinyl d-rib, tinsel, lead wire, and extra ultra wire
2nd Left Drawer – since 90% of my tying is saltwater now, this drawer has a my rabbit strips, rubber legs and some chenille
2nd Right Drawer – Flash
3rd Left Drawer – hooks, beads, eyes
3rd Right Drawer – Tools, bobbins, scissors, whip finisher, hackle pliers
4th Row Large Drawer – Feathers
5th Row Large drawer – vise, rubber bead mat, bobbin cradle, 3 hook assortments, mono for weed guards, CCG Light, SHAN, Silly Putty, toothbrush
As you can tell, you can fit a good bit of material, this definitely something you could carry to the campsite or vacation if you needed or in my case to keep from taking up to much room.
A new beginning…
Life is funny and in the past year as you’ve seen on this blog I moved from my home state of Georgia to Charleston, SC, now with this move we downsized from our townhouse to an apartment. Now with this downsize I’ve gone from a basement where my fly tying area was a desk, book shelf and pretty much the entire basement to needing something that can be out of sight out of mind. So I searched the Internet for some ideas on what to do because I live by the creed of “happy wife happy life” and when the wife says she wants my fly tying gear to be neat and easy to put away that’s what she gets. The first thing I thought was to get a Rubbermaid but its not very organized but I liked the idea of a chest of sorts. I remember seeing on NGTO people using a Gerstner Machinist Chest for fly tying so I started looking at those. I must say they are gorgeous pieces of woodwork and the prices for them are very much right on, which is expensive. So I looked into restoring one which was still an expensive move so I started looking into imitation machinist chest and found this Windsor 8 drawer tool chest. The price was right so I got one ordered. Once it got in I started checking it out and planning how I was going to setup and the first thing I noticed the top two drawers had little dividers that will be perfect for thread, ultra wire, or even d rib spools. So the first thing I decided was to add some dowel rods to one of the dividers so I can just pull off what I need and cut it off.
After that was done, time to add some stickers for some flair. First you got to represent Southern Culture on the Fly, Simms and I’m waiting on Patagonia to hook me up. Next I’m going to have get some Fiberglass Manifesto stickers to add the box. The last and most important is on the next run back home I’ll have to get it stocked and ready to start tying. Especially since I made some new fly boxes ready to be filled for some redfish flies.
Not much fishing…
Haven’t been fishing lately but I’ve been hitting the vise a good bit. Since moving to Charleston I’ve had to learn a whole new style of tying. I’ve been practicing a lot with Enrico Puglisi style streamers and using the EP fibers for crabs. Also, I’ve been playing around with Silly Putty and CCG making some spoon flies. They are looking alright but I’m still not very happy with them…hopefully I’ll hit the water soon and find out how effective they are.
From Trout Bum to Salt Life
This weekend was a big weekend for me…first and foremost come Wednesday I’ll be moving to Charleston, SC! My wife recently moved up there to finish her bachelors degree and I’ve had to wait until I found a job to get up there and those prayers were answered last week. So I wanted to get as much trout fishing in this weekend as I could. Yesterday I hit Buford dam for most of the day and was covered by bait chuckers. With all the crowd though I still ended up with around 8 or 9 to hand and missed at least that many.
Most came on a soft hackle, so last night I made sure to tie up some more.
Today I hit settles bridge and it was a good thing I tied up those soft hackles last night…I picked up 8 today on a size 20 hares ear SH. All in all it was a great weekend, now to the lowcountry for some redfish.
