pink-n-purple poppers are a huge hit with cfr groups. they look great and actually catch fish.

Kelkay:

Make sure you tie 14 of everything for CFR. They'll have that many participants in each class. Next one is in Glen Rose in November.

Boy am I glad you said that. I thought 12 would be enough for sure. So 14 it is.
Ken, thanks for the idea. I know that the fly should be light for beginners. I also thought it might be nice for them to have a cool one for later on, but something they could not cast right now. I made a few more flies today.

Kelly:

FYI, I usually tie 15 of each CFR pattern. That way they have a "master set" for display or can replace a fly for someone if I happen to miscount or one gets lost in transit.

My philosophy for CFR flies is that they should be fishable, colorful, and easy to tie, in case the ladies want to try to tie one themselves. To assist with that, I'll include a page with a recipe for each pattern I send them.

Well the ones I just made were not colorful, but I know they should catch fish. The gold bead should catch the fishes eye, and the marabou movement should too. I have pink and purple bucktail, and I can make some nice lady colors for them as well. Thanks for more hints. I was busy with the boat, and now I am stuck on that...so I am fly tying again. I have to go to my nephew's wedding so that will delay a little bit of work on these flies too. Knowing my nephew is getting married sure can make one feel old...rotfl. He is the first from my brother's bunch to get married.

Okay I made the grand total of one fly today...a Thunder Creek in white with chartreuse over that. It doesn't look bad at all. To top it off I had bought various "eyes" from a guy who was selling out of his tying stuff. Most of the eyes weren't great, but okay...but I thought these were regular white stick on. Come to find out these white eyes glow in the dark. Now that is cool. I didn't realize it until I turned off my tying light, and bam, there the eyes were glowing in the dark. It kind of freaked me out for a second, then I was thrilled. They are 4.5mm sized eyes, perfect for my Thunder Creeks...gonna tie some more up probably Sunday.

Glow in the dark eyes = sweetness.

I think the fish will agree.

I have jus been making different variations of rubber legged nymphs using the color orange.

Sounds good, I think they would be a great producer!!

And I have been doing the same, except my color scheme is varied around rust and/or peacock with red legs. Because apparently the carp at this spot like red.

However I have also been playing with making my own dubbing, using the inspiration of this article Here posted by someone at some previous time... perhaps it was Cole? Anyway, I saw all the fluff coming off one of my mom's corgi dogs while she was brushing it while I was visiting the parents and I realized that it was practically begging to be ground up with a bit of flash and get wound onto a hook. I plan on starting redfish trials this coming week, but first we try for carp.

BTW, this is some of the best dubbing material I have ever played with. The dog's natural coat has thick guard hairs and a superfine undercoat that is easy to chop with scissors. No worries, the dang dog sheds enough to supply Wapsi without ever getting the clippers out. Nothing like finding another free fly material source!

yeah, the only reason I am doing orange right now is I am trying to get my "own" fly out there that makes fun of the way I say "arnj"(orange). I will prolly call it the Arnj Crush

HA! I like it.

Keep these posts coming, I am enjoying them immensely. My nephew's wedding was yesterday, so I didn't get to tie. I will be tying later today though. I like the sounds of the bugs y'all have been working on though!

Oh my gosh, I am making Thunder Creeks, playing disco music, and I just poured me a Kick A$$ Mudslide drink. Things are either gonna get better or worse. I plan to attempt to epoxy these heads, cross your fingers now. :-)

hehe, sounds like a party Kelly

yes I think it is more of party remembering than it is a fly tying session...LOL...bad thing is I am running out of the drink...only a tiny bit left...that music sure brings back some good memories...hehehe...I have some great songs from the old days on Napster...and I am playing all of them now from the disco era...I know some may laugh at that...but I love that music...not as much as my Texas bluesy rock stuff...but still it is good for now and then...hehehe

Well I tried out the epoxy this evening for the first time in a long time. Still not having good luck with it. I have ruined some good looking flies. I am getting bubbles, and some of the flies are not clear, they are cloudy. I know it requires practice, but this is ticking me off. I got a rod builders epoxy this time. I thought it would be thin, but it is pretty thick, worse than Devcon 5 minute stuff. I almost didn't get one of the lids off too. I wonder if this stuff was old that they sent me.

Kelly: I have always been what I call epoxy challanged, but I have had best luck getting the 30 minute deals of Devcon at Walmart so that it is fresh...it is only about 2 or 3 bucks. I find that I have less problems with the yellowing of the epoxy with the 30 minute kind.

For bubbles, I usualy cause them by stirring the epoxy a bit too vigeriously (sp). The fix for me is to blow on the epoxy after it is applied to the head of the fly. A hair drier may be a better tool. Seems like I have read that heat thins epoxy, so mixing it in a little plastic cup as comes on Nyquil and holding it in your hands as you mix the epoxy may work for that. Hopefully one of our rod builders will chime in to let us know how they handle these problems will help us all.

You might consider going back to using the Loon's Hard Head, I find it much easier to work with than epoxy. If this stuff were not out there, perhaps I would have learned to be better at epoxy work.

Big Dale

Big Dale

Dale, I am going to look at the epoxied flies in a few minutes. I haven't the nerve to inspect them up close now. This epoxy was Ultimate Gel 15 minute. Grashpr recommended it a long time ago, and I bookmarked the info for when I was brave enough to tackle the epoxy again. I had read that if you stir the epoxy too fast, it will bubble, and so when I did this, I stirred very slow, and still got bubbles...I just wanted something for fishing flies that didn't take so many steps, so I could push flies out faster. My turner only takes 11 flies at a time. This stuff was so thick it never evenly coated on the turner, now that really ticks me off. It was about the consistency of vaseline. I read somewhere that you could thin exoxy with rubbing alcohol...I may try that. Anyone heard of that? Some flies just require epoxy that I want to work on. (sort of like surf candy) I don't like having a handicap when it comes to tying, but it looks like I have one. I am already knot challenged, and now it seems as if I am epoxy challenged too. Knots I can deal with being challenged on, but epoxy isn't rocket science, I should be able to master this. Thanks for your opinion Dale, if I can't "get it" soon, I will go back to strictly using the Hard Head...

Well I looked at the poor flies a while ago, and was disappointed to say the least. There was some bubbles in the epoxy. Most of the heads were not clear, some very cloudy. A couple of the flies felt very faintly tacky. (hardly noticeable...so I coated a thin coat of Sally's on them) The resin was about like vaseline, but the hardener was very very thick. When I mixed the two...the mixture was more thick than the 5 min epoxy. I think I may play with this some more today, and epoxy some dang tooth pics to see what happens...don't want to ruin any more flies. Another mistake is I probably should of waited until the humidity wasn't so high...I wonder if that effected the epoxy at all.

I decided to email the place I bought the epoxy from. Come to find out I did not get the right kind of epoxy, thus the stuff is not as clear as it should be...What I got is intended to glue the reel seat and cork handles on a rod blank.

In this case, the way the epoxy looks is not a consideration because it is hidden.

So, I tried the stuff previous to this message another time today. I used toothpicks and tied red thread on it, and whip finished. I then put the epoxy on, and I added a bit of rubbing alcohol to thin it, it came out much better. The only problem is I am not really sure how much of the alcohol to use. I am trying to decide whether to scrap this epoxy and give it to a friend, or if I should just reorder getting a proper type of rod builder's epoxy this time. Or I may just play with it a little more on flies that aren't perfect, then try to epoxy the heads and see what happens, while playing with how much alcohol to thin it with.

Kelly: why do you hate your friend so much? Perhaps it could be better used to attach some very custom things you think of for your boat.

In the early 90's I built a couple of fly rods with the guidance of Dennis Freeman of Rodbuilders in Austin. He had the guys with Flexcoat develop a lighter epoxy formulae and it has now been marketed as Flex-Coat Lite for the past 15 or so years. Seems like I have seen it a Barlows and it think it is available from Feathercraft. I suspect it is available from most places that carry rod building supplies.

I still think that now that you have determined that alcohol can be used to thin the epoxy, you might try using it with the Devcon 30 minute from Walmart. I would just add a few drops to a small amount of epoxy till it is as thin as you want. The only reason that I keep mentioning the stuff from Walmart is that I think they sell it so much that you probably get the freshest epoxy from them.

I hate using epoxy so much I just about always let it get too old and then it always seems sticky to me. So for me, the best way I have found is to simply pay the three bucks and tie as many flies that need epoxy the next month or so and then just toss the epoxy and buy fresh stuff the next time I decide to tie a bunch of epoxy flies again.

I also find that when I color the epoxy by mixing a few drops of black lacquer in the epoxy,I get not only beautiful black heads on the fly, but it thins the mix for easy heads on my treamers.
I find this takes less time than doing three coats of Loons Hard Head.

Sometimes when I tie Irish Blondes (the ones with chartreuse and white) I pick up a 2 oz jar of apple color acrylic from a hobby store when it is on sale and use it to mix with the epoxy to make chartreuse heads on the flies. I must admit that the lacquer is better at thinning the epoxy than the acrylic. You have given me the idea to try mixing alcohol with the acrylic in the epoxy to see how it thins the mix. Thanks for the idea.

As always,
Have fun with this stuff.

Big Dale

I recently read that the way to color epoxy is with artist's acrylic paints (the kind in a tube) the paint being water based sounds like it wouldnt mix with epoxy but according to what I read (and I read too much 'cause I can't remember the source) it works wonderfully...well maybe not wonderfully...I mean in my world very little works wonderfully, in fact wonderfully should be word reserved for children & possibly sex but I am regressing...anyway thats my tip for the day.

Well I don't hate my friend. I did try to put a yellow paint color in the epoxy just to see what it did, and it worked good. You can mix in a color just fine. The heads I was going to cover were Thunder Creeks. I wanted applied the eyes, and then wanted a clear color to cover all. I guess I could epoxy, then put the stick on eye, THEN cover with Sally's a couple of times. Decisions decisions...sigh. I tried to find a 30 min-1hr epoxy here, and all I found was the five min variety. Last time I looked I found thirty minute, now none. I guess people aren't using it around here, and they quit stocking it. I have heard also that the 30 min epoxy will still yellow after time. That was disheartening. I did use the epoxy last night on a cutting board that had a major crack in the side of it, it worked good for that, but that area is shiny as all get out..so it kind of stands out. At least it won't crack anymore.