Salmon Fly Tying Materials Sale

SOLD!!

In life good things come and go. A few years ago I found myself in need of an all consuming hobby to occupy me while I was recuperating from a series of Knee surgeries. Being a fly fishing and tying fanatic I immersed myself in tying classic salmon flies. Now that I am not confined to a chair most of the time and can get around I just don't seem to be as interested in the art of Classic Full-dress Salmon flies. My pursuits at the bench these days are geared toward flies to be used in the field. To that end I want to get these materials into the hands of someone who will put them to use and allow me to finance other tying projects.

I will only sell this as a lot, no piece by piece sales. The price for the entire lot is either $225 or $250 depending on whether you want the book "Building Classic Salmon Flies" included. This price includes USPS Priority shipping within the US ONLY!!

The included "blind eye" hooks are as follows:

9- Gaelic Supreme Blind Eye in size 4/0

4- Mustad 3401-A in size 7/0

4- Mustad 3401-A in size 6/0

6- modified loop-eye hooks assorted

3- Gaelic Supreme Harrison Bartleet in size 6/0

There are several Alec Jackson style 2501 Spey Hooks as follows:

6- in size 3/0

7- in size 1 1/2

9- in size 3

4- in size 5

There are 6 pieces of 2 and 3 strand silk gut used for making the eye on blind hooks. I also came up with a way to make gut substitute using nylon monofilament fishing line.

One pair of hyacinth macaw tail pieces for making "Horns"

One pair of blue and gold macaw tail pieces also for "Horns"

10 Bustard feathers (very hard to come by at this price)

An assortment of dyed turkey tail feathers from Feathers MC. There are 11 pairs in 9 colors, most a B grade but all have excellent usable pieces suitable for building married wings. Most have a few barbs removed. Canary Yellow x 2, Highlaner Green x 2, Scarlet, Red, Brilliant Blue, Royal Blue, White, Black and Orange

2 pairs of peacock secondary feathers

A pair of faux Bustard feathers (dyed Turkey) and a pair of tail pieces from an Argus Pehasant

Prime turkey tail sections

14 pairs of grade A goose shoulder feathers and assorted grade B

Assorted natural and dyed guinea body and wing feathers

Assorted ringneck pheasant "ring" feathers dyed and natural

Amherst tippets some sorted and graded.

Golden pheasant crest feathers that have been sorted and graded by size up to 6/0

Golden pheasant tippet feathers sorted by size

Jungle cock nails sorted by size. There are only a few grade A most are grade 2 or lower.

Building Classic Salmon Flies by: Ron Alcott. This is an excellent book for anyone wanting to learn how to tie classic full-dress salmon flies. I was able to make it through the entire book tying every one of the flies listed. The book is in great condition!

This i not everything needed to tie classic full-dress salmon flies but it is pretty close. Off the top of my head a new tyer will still need to add: tinsels, floss, dyed neck hackle (I can supply some colors for a few more bucks) ostrich hurl, assorted dubbings. Yes it is an expensive hobby but very rewarding. Below are a fe more of the flies I have tied.

Cut Out the Guesswork

As a seasoned fly angler, writer and angling journalist I find social media to provide a plethora of material, the latest being the question of matching a hatch. Social media can also be an endless source of misinformation and as a result irritation! The specific question that brought this particular subject to mind I’ve seen several times over the last few weeks and goes something like this; “I saw fish rising on my local stream but they wouldn’t hit fly X, Y or Z, what should I use?”. Now remember we’re talking about trout actively feeding on the surface of a river. It’s great that budding anglers are asking questions but I feel as a seasoned (maybe a bit too seasoned) fly angler I should be helping to steer those eager to learn toward the correct questions.

Justin Fleming shows off one of many fine trout taken on the South Platte during
our September outing. This one fell to a #24 BWO quill body parachute.

The conundrum that such posts present is “how the heck can I, or any other random angler possibly know what was/is hatching on a river at any given time without being there?”. I’m not sure what it is beyond the desire to help but the “what fly to use?” posts always elicit specific responses that are nothing short of conjecture when flay patterns start being listed one after another. I’m not trying to step on toes but I sure hope these anglers don’t fish like that!!

There is a basic question that any angler of any ilk should ask when they step out to pursue any species of fish in any water type, fresh or salt, moving or still; what does my target species feed on? From that basic question, in most cases, myriad other questions arise. The only way to answer those questions is through study, preparation and observation. In the case of surface feeding trout the observation is far easier than most emerging anglers might suspect. In fact, of all the situations presented to the fly angler this is arguably the simplest to decipher.

When trout are feeding on top simply drop downstream, preferably within the same current seam they are feeding and skim the river surface with an insect seine. Look at what comes up in the net and match it as closely as possible from your fly boxes. That’s the observation part of the equation and at any particular moment the most important aspect of successful angling to surface feeding trout during an active hatch.

Any seasoned and successful trout angler can tell you that what worked yesterday may not work today and what the trout are focused on at any given moment during an active hatch IS going to change in a matter of minutes or at most hours. What is happening now may or may not cycle back around tomorrow. That is not conjecture that is a fact. Hatches cycle daily, with multiple hatches occurring throughout the day and at times multiple hatches will occur simultaneously. The ONLY way for you to know what is happening at a given moment is through observation. The use of a seine is the quickest and easiest way to hone your observation. The one caveat I will ad here is that there are a small number of anglers on a given river that can somehow mysteriously pick the bug and stage by what seems like osmosis. But if you spend a little time around them you realize they just know the water and can decipher what is happening through extensive experience on the water.

It doesn't get much better than a payoff like this one for James Dionizio as Nick Haxhijaj looks on. Together they unlocked the hatch and alternated landing nice trout on the South Platte in Central Colorado. These are hard won trout that require a cerebral approach in addition to surgeon like presentation skills. 

Now if this is a discussion in a bar with a crowd of fly anglers this is the point where someone speaks up and says the fly doesn’t matter and it’s all about presentation or tippet size. This is an argument as old as fly fishing to which I say hogwash….kind of. There are times when there are few active hatches throughout the day and the best approach if you want to fish dry is to throw on an attractor and get to it. A good angler with a good sense of the river can catch quite a few fish. Where I cry “HOGWASH!!” is when there is an active hatch and the trout are focused on a particular stage of a particular insect. True there are usually a few trout in a pod of active, focused feeders that will take a well-presented attractor. But my question to the attractor guy is “Why would I settle for one or a few fish when I can take multiple fish by matching the hatch.

Then there are also times when ONLY the correct fly will do. This past June my friend Nick and I spent 4 days fishing the South Platte River in Colorado. We arrived early one morning to fish a favorite stretch of mine that always provides good dry fly action. Upon arrival there were clouds of tricos in the air and a good number on the water. Trout were feeding steadily on the female duns as they drifted on the surface. I had left my trico dun box back in the room where we were staying. Throughout the hatch I presented BWO patterns of the correct size and stage to them with only minimal takers. Later as the spinner fall started I began to focus on a reliable current seam that always holds the biggest trout in this section of the river.

I knew from experience that the three fish I really wanted were gorging on the spinners. Unable to get into the seam and seine because of the location I started presenting fly after fly opening with size 18 and working my way downward. With each fly change I stepped away from the feeding lane, retied, returned to my casting position and made multiple drifts over the feeding trout without a single look. I even watched in frustration as the size 22 spinner pattern slipped over the downstream trout so perfectly that it pushed the fly upward while taking a natural, not just once but three times!

My last fly change was down to a size 24, the smallest I had on me. I got back into casting position and on the very first drift into the trailing trout’s feeding lane it tipped up a took my fly!! It was a cutthroat of approximately 24”, full of fight that immediately dropped into the heavy current downstream. I followed, and in an attempt to get the trout to move out of the current applied increasing pressure until the hook pulled lose. Slightly downtrodden but exhilarated I stepped back into casting position. It only took two drifts to get the fly over the next trout in line. When it raised its head and took I knew the fly was right. Just a few minutes later I slid a cutthroat identical to first one hooked into my net.

 

Trout like this over-size cutthroat can be extremely selective feeders.
After many fly changes this one finally took a #24 Trico spinner.

After a few quick photos and an enthusiastic high-five I gave Nick a duplicate of the fly I was using. He made his way back upstream to a large cutthroat that he had made acceptable presentations to with multiple flies. On the first drift into the trout’s feeding lane or rose and took. Unfortunately we did not land that fish but the take proved that the right fly was the only fly that morning while fishing to those particular trout.

A similar experience happened to us the last week in September. Back on the South Platte, Nick and I, as part of a party of four spent hours of both frustration and exhilaration while matching hatches on some of the most technical water in the state. Time and again the correct fly proved to be the difference between cooperative and non-cooperative trout. The key to success and multiple trout landed was three-fold. We had prepared by knowing what insects to expect and tied, purchased the correct patterns. We knew the patterns to have on-hand through previous study. But the most important thing of all was that we observed what was happening by seining the water column and selected the flies that the trout were focused on.

Ever since I was a youngster wanting to be a top-notch fly angler I’ve heard and read about how complicated it is to be successful. In a way, being a successful fly angler is difficult but only if you make it so. Stop guessing what the trout are feeding on. Do yourself a favor and get some type of net to seine the water with and learn the basic bugs you need to have in your fly boxes. And don’t forget the most important aspect to becoming a successful, seasoned angler. There is NO substitute for time on the water.