Special Requests

“All good things- trout as well as eternal salvation- come by grace, grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”            Norman MacLean

Things being what they are, I think we could all use a little art, grace and probably a hefty dose of salvation at the moment. With current events as they are, it’s hard to focus on the words I wanted to accompany this post; words about artistry, learning, growing, creativity and free-thinking. Words about taking the opportunity to escape from the norm, an escape from the invisible boundaries of fly tying, as well as life. In a certain sense it seems frivolous to be making a post like this, at this particular moment in time, on the other hand it seems a shame not to.

It pains me to think about some of the things happening in America over the last few days, weeks and months. I wonder how it looks from the other side of the Atlantic, the Pacific and all points between. I wonder what the view is from over there, where ever there is, outside America. I wonder if we’re starting to look like one of those countries we would rush into so we could rescue the citizens by removing a dictator from office, ending the violence and bringing in aide for the health of the country? But that is NOT what this post is about, it’s about shutting out the noise and getting on with what makes us who we are as individuals and feeding our souls instead of our anger.

I have welcomed the distraction, something to challenge an artistic focus that has been blurred lately. In the words of Agent K, “There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Korilian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable planet. The only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they "do not know about it!" I hope this post provides at least a hint of escape an opportunity to silence the noise, find an artistic refuge, if only for a few minutes.

When Mike Noffsinger contacted me with a photo and the message, “A friend asked if this is a possibility.” I jumped on it. Resisting a challenge is next to impossible for me, especially if it offers the chance to explore blending a few tying techniques in a new way. I asked permission to share the original photo but haven’t heard from the poster.

I didn’t intend to do this tutorial post until a Facebook post got such a great response. So, here it is, recipe, and photos accompanied by a few words.

Recipe

Hook:                    Tiemco 8089, size 2 (3/0 equivalent)

Thread:                Red, 6/0 Uni-thread

Tail:                        Red bucktail

Binding:                Red CCT fiber

Body:                    Red Icelandic sheep

Wings:                  Red CCT Fibers

Head:                    Red Icelandic sheep

Mask:                    Black rabbit dubbing

Beak:                     Tying thread and UV resin

Eyes:                     Gold 3.5mm epoxy eyes

Tying Instructions

 

1- Start the thread near the eye and lay a single layer base back into the bend. Stop at the point even with the barb point and make 3-4 over-lapping wraps.

2- Cut the longest hair available from a red, dyed northern bucktail. Even the tips as much as possible. Remove the hairs of less than 2.5” from the bundle and re-even the tips. Other than grooming this is one of the most trying steps on this fly. Evening long bucktail can test the patience.

3- Once the tips are even, tie in the bucktail at the thread stopping point. Use as much of the hair length as possible. The length of this fly is approximately 3.75” from the tip of the hook eye to the tip of the tail. Lock the bucktail down securely. Bind and trim the hair butts to get as smooth a base as possible. Though the shank won’t show on the finished fly, any stray hair butts make the continuous grooming of the sheep hair more difficult than it needs to be.

4- Cut one bundle from a hank of CCT fibers. Tie it in about where the bucktail butts were trimmed, then bind it on top of the hook back to the tail tie-in point. Move the tying thread forward of the hook point to make room for binding the tail in place.

 

5- Wrap the CCT fibers, loosely onto the tail so the bucktail is bound in a neat bundle on the bend of the hook. Using the CCT fibers keeps the bucktail from flairing. Wrasp the CCT fiber bundle froward to where the tying thread is hanging and secure it there.

6- Trim the CCT fiber butts and bind them down completely. Then using a thick UV resin formula create a "collar" around the rear of the CCT fiber wrap, letting the resin run, ever so slightly, onto the bucktail. This will keep the bucktail from going crazy during the rest of the tying steps. You'll thank me later for this little trick.

 

7- Cut a bundle of the Icelandic sheep fur, as close as possible to the hide for maximum length. Then separate out the course, extremely long hair from the shorter, more delicate underfur. We won’t use the long hair but don’t throw it out! This stuff is great for brushes and dubbing loops for collars and spiky bodies on patterns like leeches. You can use it to tie extra long flies but be forewarned, it tangles badly when it's wet. Separate the underfur into sparse bundles.

 

8- Starting at the point where the CCT fibers and bucktail butts are bound, tie in a bundle of underfur by making a single, very loose wrap of thread around the hook and fur. As the thread comes around on the second turn pull it upward, which will spin the hair around the hook shank. You’re looking for something similar to spinning deer hair.

Make about 6 very tight thread wraps locking the underfur in place.

Using a small comb (I use an eyebrow comb) and bodkin, tease out the fur behind the thread wraps. This will remove any loose hair fur and start getting it aligned.

 

9- Work the thread through the underfur on the front side of the thread wraps, then fold the underfur back. Make a series of thread wraps in front of the folded underfur to build a small thread dam. Using your comb tease and groom the second layer of underfur back around the tail. The underfur will be excessively long at this point, we’ll address that later.

 

10- Move the thread forward about 1/4" and repeat steps 8 and 9. Tie-in, groom, fold and groom with successive bundles.

11- Add 2 more underfur bundles. This should bring the body to a point 1/4” behind the hook eye. This is where the serious body grooming takes place. Whip finish and cut the thread so the fly can be removed from the vise.

**The tricky part of building the body is to get it thick and dense enough without going too far overboard. There are techniques that can be used to trim it down but they are very time consuming and can take the whole project right down the tubes with one wrong cut.**

 

12- Using a bodkin, comb and/or stiff nylon brush groom all the underfur straight out from the hook shank. Make sure all loose fur is removed and all the fibers are radiating straight out from the hook shank. This aligns all the underfur so it will lay properly for trimming.

13- Starting at the back of the underfur groom the fibers straight back along the hook shank, while keeping them in alignment with the hook shank. This is a slow and tedious process.

14- Groom and slick the fur until all the fibers are in place forming the body which should be bullet shaped. Once the proper shape is attained trim the fur to length by pinching the ends from the fur. Doing this instead of using scissors makes a more natural looking silhouette giving the soft appearance of feathers.

15- Once the desired body shape is achieved, cut 2 bundles from a the hank of CCT fiber.

16- Using a stiff toothbrush groom the CCT fibers until they are in a thin, wide ribbon of individual fibers.

17- Cut the CCT fibers, roughly in half and tie them in as separate bundles on either side of the top of the hook shank at the 10 and 2 o'clock positions.

18- Groom the wings up and back along either side of the top of the body. The wings are long at this point but will be trimmed later in the tying process.

19- Cut a sparse bundle of underfur in half along its length, then tie it in with the cut end toward the back of the fly, using the process described in step 8 & 9.

20- Groom this bundle of underfur back to cover the wing tie-in point and mimic the feathers on the shoulder of a live cardinal in a sitting position.

21- Tie in another bundle of underfur on top of the hook. groom out the fur behind the tie-in point and groom the fibers in front of the tie-in point straight up but DO NOT blend them with the fur to the rear.

22- Take a few wraps of tying thread just in front of the lifted fur, without building a large thread bump.

23- Tie in another sparse bundle of underfur on the bottom side of the hook. Groom the rear fibers into the breast of breast area.

24- Lift the fur forward of the last tie-in point, up and around the hook eye, blending it into the first bundle forming the crown of the cardinal's head. This is finally starting to look a bit like the finished product.

25- Tease the crown back onto the back of the fly without blending it into the body, then build a slight thread bump to hold the crown back.

26- Using your fingertips groom out a small bundle of black dyed rabbit fur, with guard hairs, so that the individual hairs are aligned perpendicular to one another. This takes a bit of time and can by slowly pulling on the tips, stacking the separated hairs and repeating a few times. It's a tricky technique but comes easily with a bit of practice.

Once you have the hairs aligned, tie them in by the middle, on the backside of the hook, immediately in front of the red fur. Use only 1 or 2 thread wraps to avoid building bulk.

27- Repeat the previous step on the front side of the hook.

28- Stroke the rabbit fur to the rear of the fly so all the hairs are pointed back ward along what will be the cheeks, then build a slight thread dam to hold the hair back.

29- groom the rabbit fur back to form the "mask" that is so prominent on the male cardinal. Then build the beak to a slightly smaller size than you want the finished beak to be. The beak will be finished with UV resin later on.

30- After the thread layer of the beak is complete whip-finish and cut the tying thread. Then separate out all the components that make this fly a bird; wings, body, crown. Groom the wings out from the body and trim them to length at an angle.

***Cut the wings long to avoid cutting them too short on the first clip. You can easily trim them as many times as needed but replacing them requires some serious disassembly at this point.

31- Groom the wings into place and tease the crown upward.

32- With the crown tease and groomed up and back, very carefully build and cure the beak with UV resin, starting at the beak/head junction. This will bind the fur back away from the beak somewhat. Keep rotating the fly and adding small amounts of UV resin, adding and curing the resin until the desired size and shape is achieved.

33- I'm using 3.5mm, gold epoxy eyes on this fly. My preferred method of attachment is with Gorilla Super Glue Gel. It binds securely to the fur with enough bulk to hold them in place under pressure. Tweezers with rounded and grooved ends are a big help in this process.

34- Eye placement is critical to the overall look of the finished fly. For this reason use the least amount of super glue necessary to hold the eyes in place. If you do need to move the eye after it's affixed lift it off from front to back to avoid displacing the black mask.

35- Groom, then trim the crown in stages to avoid getting it too short. View the fly from several angles through the trimming process.

Once the crown is trimmed to length, tease it out to soften the edges, groom it out and voila!

There you have it!

Enjoy.

If you have any special requests or would just like to see some J Wood patterns for fishing, check out my website at jwoodflyfish.com

Peace, Love & Fly Fishing!!

Character

If you read Thursday's post you may be wondering what it has to do with fly fishing, the answer is everything. If you haven't read it, please do, this post will make a lot more sense if you do.

May 24, 2020

This is a post that was supposed to go live 2 days ago. It's been an intense struggle to make it happen and it's taken a bit of a turn. The struggle between trying to get people to open their minds and not pull any punches is real, it's difficult, especially with where we are as a country, in this speck of time within eternity.

Years ago I sat with Don Davis, the preacher at Western Hills Church of Christ at the time, discussing leadership and the feeling of community, love and support within that congregation. Though we talked for hours the thought I remember most is, "no matter the organization, when a group of people come together, that organization always reflects the character of the leader." Don was an excellent leader, with boundless love and understanding in his heart, smart, organized, intelligent and an excellent speaker who could convey a message like few people can.

In contrast, in America greed and deception have become the order of the day from the top down. The person, the office we have historically looked to for guidance is now occupied by the most disrespectful, dishonest, self-absorbed individual to ever sit as president of this great country. We have reached the sad point in our history when it's "us against them", when even a new and deadly virus is used as a political weapon, in misguided efforts to save the all-mighty economy, weak and old Americans be damned. We have reached a deplorable time in our history when the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick suggested that seniors would sacrifice themselves for the economy. Sorry Mr Patrick, there is no heroism in that statement, just self-serving political posturing.

I hope you can see how complicated this is, maybe you can, maybe you can't, Here it is.

As the country "reopens" people are wanting to travel, to get away and break the cabin fever. Legally that's okay, remember it's legally okay to ask older Americans to die for the economy, to fall on the golden sword so commerce can keep barreling down the highway. But is is right, is it in the spirit of American patriotism? Hell NO!! Not even in the abstract. How many Americans are willing to sacrifice their grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter, aunt, uncle, cousin or best friend to save the economy? Apparently more than you would think because that's exactly what is happening, right here, today, in the Good Old USA.

A war that we should be fighting together with a single plan of attack, has instead been used as a political tool to divide Americans into factions to be used as political tools while trying to secure reelections. We as Americans, have truly, in every sense, become pawns in the chess game that is American politics. And it is glaringly apparent that our lives are little more than bargaining chips to keep a system of commerce afloat, a system of commerce that is not built around average citizens, it's built to support the wealthy and in their eyes we as the worker bees of society are expendable.

The latest, and quite successful political ploy is to divide us on the subject of our own protection and the protection of our friends and families through the wearing or not wearing of face masks in public. An act that according to the CDC is one of the most important and effective ways of stopping the spread of Covid-19. Our President has chosen this, as another in a long line of defiant acts against advisors, to divide Americans against ourselves. And once again, despite his so-called "stable genius", he has  chosen discord over common sense. He has done so in the name of the economy, but as usual bass-ackwards.

The simple truth is that if every American would simply put the health of the country above political faction the entire country could go back to work today, with some changes that will, in the long term have little affect on how we live, and here it is, once we get used to the changes. This is not the end of the world it's just a new normal, not necessarily bad, just new.

If we are going to put the all-mighty economy back in full swing then it should be done as cautiously as possible rather than amidst the chaos we're experiencing now.

My plea is this, As you start traveling around the country this summer do it as safely as possible. Travel and mingle safely for the family and friends of all those you come in contact with. Follow the CDC guidelines. Be especially careful when traveling. Above all stop whining and wear the cloth face covering, which should be our first line of defense against this invisible threat. Just keep in mind that the covering isn't just for your own protection it is for those around you, it's for the protection of their families, their friends, their co-workers, it's for the protection of their granny.

I'll keep working on the post this one was supposed to be, but in the meantime here's the message. Be careful as you start to travel around the country. Covid-19 spreads so easily and invisibly that you or the people you encounter along the way could be carriers and not even know it.

Please for the safety of our country and all its citizens be as cautious as humanly possible. No one is going to think ill of you for it, in fact we will all be very grateful to see that Americans are thinking about the health and well-being of Americans.

Oh I Understand

Part 1 of 2

I understand many things.

There are many I can't even begin to understand, and only God knows how many levels there are in between.

Here's one I'm struggling to understand.

I'm pretty sure that to a person, everyone reading this would do anything possible to protect their grandmother.
When my grandmothers were alive, I would have taken a fatal beating, a bullet, a burning or any other consequence imaginable to protect either of them. It's instinctual. It's what we do, even the most hardened soul would risk all manner of harm to protect their granny!

I venture to say that this same protective instinct likely includes a number of family members, friends and even co-workers, for most of us. As a species we are rarely inclined to endanger others for no reason, instead we’re wired to protect those who have done us no harm. I venture to say, the majority of Americans would rush to the aid of a person in distress, whether we know that person or not. We’ve all heard or witnessed a story of the stranger who risked their life to save another. I venture the majority of us have considered what we would do in a given situation. Would we risk ourselves to save a child, someone’s granny, or any other human for that matter, from a burning building? I like to think that I would but only in the actual moment will I know how selfless I truly am.

Today, one of the big debates dominating the news (if we can even still call it news), social media and private conversations nationwide, revolves around the wearing of face masks and social distancing in an effort to protect ourselves from an invisible virus that has already taken a huge number of lives within our country. As of this writing (May 21, 2020), the CDC estimates 93,806 Americans have died from Covid-19. Some will dispute the actual number of Covid-19 mortality in America, but the specific number isn’t the point. The point, and what cannot be disputed is that a huge number of Americans have lost their lives to a virus that has no known cure or vaccination, a virus to which we have no herd immunity. This is a threat of enormous proportion. Many families have lost a number of members to Covid-19 or complications of underlying conditions due to Covid-19. That’s a fact! A close friend has lost 12 family members and friend to this invisible enemy.

If our current enemy was bombing Perl Harbor, marching across Canada or Mexico with plans to invade American borders, pointing nuclear missiles at New York or San Francisco or threatening to release biological weapons against us as a country, every able-bodied American would be up in arms willing to don armor in the defense of our nation. Instead, a large portion of our population won’t even don a mask and maintain distance to protect the vulnerable among us, the grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, brothers, sister, cousins, nephews, nieces, sons and daughters from the invisible invader within our borders, an invader that knows no political, religious or cultural bounds. Instead of taking the simple act of safe practices many are standing on political grounds to defend a theoretical loss of liberty. Would those grounds be as stable if we could see the bullet that is hurtling through the country claiming the lives of people we would otherwise run into a burning building to save?

People are basically decent and that's how we would like to think we behave, in a decent, civil manner. I for one would still like to believe that the number of Americans who set out in the morning to "do harm" is miniscule among the population. Yet we have come a point in time when political views have, for many, now outweigh decency and civility in our decision making and behavior. I would like to say I have not fallen into the trap of loosing my temper over this debate, but sadly it has taken its toll on us all and in one of the most brazen displays of disrespect in our history we’re arguing over whether or not we should take simple steps to protect ourselves.

A few days ago it was suggested I don’t understand the idea behind a Facebook post which encouraged those who are opposed to wearing face masks to help control the spread of Civid-19, while in a back-handed way, degrading those who do feel it’s prudent for everyone to wear them in public.

My reply? Oh, I do understand, I completely understand.

I understand that we live in a time of swiftly diminishing civil responsibility. We live in a time when, as often as not, the wants and needs of individuals are valued above the needs of our society as a whole.

I understand that we live in a time when facts and truth are constantly being over-shadowed by hyperbole, bias and all too often outright lies, in order to create a narrative which obscures facts with a cloud of rhetoric. A few internet personalities, entertainers posing as news reporters and politicians have done all they can to dispute the severity of the invisible threat we face, most often in the name of capitalism.

I understand that a growing number of people are clinging to the false hope they’re being offered because it’s easier to face than the reality of the destruction this threat may eventually cause in loss of life. They cling to the false hope that it will all go away given time, and it will, but not before taking more of us with it.

I understand that individuals are choosing the narrative of least inconvenience, the narrative that suits their personal wants and needs with little to no consideration for other members of society. I understand a growing number of people are resisting simple acts of civic responsibility, out of convenience, but under the flag of personal freedom. What of the personal freedoms of others?

I understand that many would rather forego the safety and well-being of others to suit their personal comforts, desires while promoting personal gain, others be damned. They choose their own comfort at the sacrifice of those they deem expendable solely to accommodate themselves. Yet many of these people would run into a burning building, dive from a tall bridge into unknown waters or any number of other scenarios to save a human life but refuse to experience a minor inconvenience to possible save another human life.

I understand that these people have either, not responsibly educated themselves, or choose to ignore the millions of scenarios that could lead to escorting the invisible threat into the lives of the vulnerable among us. I have seen the comments of politicians that assign far greater value to our economy than human life. I have also watched as citizens have blindly followed their lead without regard to consequences, with utter disregard for citizens some have deemed expendable. I understand the prevailing American culture has revolved around money and possessions over people for some decades now. I believe we have reached a point where we as a country should and must, finally recognize the folly of a “commerce above all else” culture.

I understand we now live in a time when information and misinformation are being hurled at us in such a rapid succession that the facts are difficult to discern from fiction. It’s difficult to discern the narrative of truth from fantasy.

I understand that the attitude of any organization is based on its leaders. I understand that the person who we should be looking to for guidance, the current President of the United States of America, is a master at confusing facts with fictitious narratives. I understand that he would have us believe there is no invisible threat, that commerce is the most important aspect of our society. I understand that he has a hard time putting together coherent sentences, he would gladly sacrifice the safety of our country to bolster the economy in order to secure reelection. I understand that this, along with myriad other reasons, exactly why he shouldn’t be reelected, but that’s a subject for another time and another plea for sensibility.