Fly Fish New England

One of the flies that I was using, (a hand tied fly) was causing my leader to twist up on each cast, almost like an old style telephone cord, which would then lead to a poor presentation of the fly, with curls of leader sitting on the water.  I was baffled, because I had other flies that I tied at the same time, with all the same supplies, and the same technique, but just one had this issue.

After reading some items online I realized that I had made a mistake while tying the fly.  This mistake however didn’t cause this issue in all the flies, most likely due to how compressed the hackle was, but just one in particular.

The mistake that I made was using one longer section of hackle, rather than two smaller ones.  Since I wrapped the hackle only in one direction (clockwise) and didn’t add a second to counteract, it sent the fly spinning with each cast forward and back, twisting up the leader.

So remember to always tie two hackles on, each one going in the opposite direction for stable fly flight.

Blue Winged Olive in Size 18

Well, I’ve broken out my gear for fly tying, and am going over it to see what I need, in preparation for this weekends trip.  Its been years since I tied a fly, and i’m sure it will be a bit of a challenge at first.  Luckily within my supplies, I do have plenty of material to tie up a number of Blue Winged Olive. This is one of the flies that they appear to be hitting on this time of year, in both Connecticut and Massachusetts.

I think that it is time to invest in a new fly tying vise.  My current Fly Vise is the basic version that came with a starter kit, and while it works most of the time, the hold on the fly is not very tight, and takes alot of fiddling to get it somewhat tight.  Look for a post on my new vise, when I purchase it.

I anticipate a winter with many opportunities to tie flies, and prepare for the spring!