The Branson Fly Tying Expo is an annual event but now the sponsoring organization has a new name – the White River Fly Fishers. They have basically spun off a previous chapter into their own organization. The WRFF currently uses Facebook (which I don’t) for their communications so this PDF is the only information I have on the event.
This year’s event will be held again at the Branson-Hollister Lions Club. It’s a really nice venue with updated lighting and WiFi.
The Expo will be held on Friday October 11th and Saturday October 12th. Yes, it’s approaching quickly so there’s not much time to prepare!
I will be a fly tying demonstrator at the expo during both sessions on both days so please stop and see me if you are in the area. I plan on tying several of my favorite and more successful dry fly patterns. These are the flies I love to use on the streams!
Sowbug Roundup is a three day fly tying and fly fishing show that is held in Mountain Home, Arkansas. The next event will be held Mar 21st, 22nd, and 23rd of 2024.
I will be a fly tying demonstrator at this year’s Roundup. Part of the duties of a demonstrator is to donate three flies for the auction. The flies will be put into a framed collage and sold at the Fly Tyer’s Dinner on March 22nd.
For my auction flies, I have chosen three flies from Mary Orvis Marbury’s magnificent 1892 book Favorite Flies and Their Histories. It’s a revolutionary book for its time and one I refer to often.
One of my flies is from the Lake Fly section, one is from the Trout Fly section, and one is from the Bass Fly section. Here are my flies as well as the images from the book where they came from.
No. 63 Cunningham (Lake Fly)
No. 63. Cunningham
63 Cunningham – Created by G. V. Cunningham of Cohoes New York
No. 179 Original Montreal (Trout Fly)
No. 179 Original Montreal
179 Original Montreal – Created by Peter Cowan of Cowansville Quebec in 1840
No. 255 Jungle Cock (Bass Fly)
No. 255. Jungle Cock
255 Jungle Cock – Named for the wing feathers taken from the jungle fowl
If you’re into wild turkey hunting then this is something you won’t want to miss. The NWTF Convention & Sport Show is sponsored by the National Wild Turkey Federation and will be held in Nashville, TN this week – February 14-18, 2024.
I’m not too much of a turkey hunter but I have gotten involved with this in a different way. I was contacted by the SD & ND Regional Director of the NWTF to donate some flies for their Black Hills Cast & Blast package. The package is a fully supplied trip to South Dakota’s Black Hills for both trout fishing and turkey hunting. You can bid on the package at the convention this week during the auction.
There are many items included in the package, such as lodging, guide service, fly rods, coolers … and of course … my tiny part: TROUT FLIES. The photo below is what I donated to the package:
2023-24 National Wild Turkey Federation Fly Donation
So if you are the successful bidder on the package, four dozen of my flies will be included with the trip. I have fished the Black Hills area a few times before so my fly collection includes several patterns that have been successful for me. The nymphs range in size from 14 to 18. These are the sizes I commonly fish with. The dry flies range from sizes 12 to 22, with each successive pattern being one hook size smaller. The first three patterns are mainly attractors and the last three target specific mayflies or midges.
Nymphs
French Style Tactical Nymph
Mohawk Pheasant Tail Nymph
Sexy Walt’s Worm
Gordon’s Fire-Starter Nymph
Prince Nymph
Skinny Nelson
Dry Flies
Patriot
Adams
Purple Haze Parachute
Blue-Winged Olive
Herter’s Midge
RS2
I think the lucky winner(s) of this package will have great success with these flies!
Sowbug Roundup is a three day fly tying and fly fishing show that is held in Mountain Home, Arkansas. The next event will be held Mar 23rd, 24th, and 25th, 2023.
As I have mentioned earlier, I will be a fly tying demonstrator at this year’s Roundup. The difference between this year and earlier years though, is that I have a plan! I prepared some presentation boards that show the topics and the flies I will be demonstrating. It really helps me when I plan ahead.
Day 1 – Tying Materials: Natural vs. Synthetic
On Day 1, I will be tying very similar flies, side-by-side, with one version containing mainly natural materials and one with mainly synthetic materials. There are no right or wrong tying materials but I will be highlighting the differences. The board below highlights those differences.
2023 Sowbug Expo Day 1
Day 2 – Winging Dry Flies
I commonly use five different methods of tying wings on dry flies. On Day 2, I will be demonstrating those methods. Some are old and some are new, some are easier than others, but they all produce a different look. The board below highlights the five methods I use.
2023 Sowbug Expo Day 2
Day 3 – Body Styles
I will only be demonstrating fly tying in the afternoon on the third day so the plan is pretty limited. Also, if you’ve been at Sowbug on Saturday afternoon the crowd clears out pretty quickly. I think everyone is just anxious to get their traveling underway.
Because of the limited time, I don’t have a presentation board prepared for Day 3 but I will be tying flies with two different body styles: Trimmed and Woven.
Trimmed
For the trimmed body style, I will be tying flies that are mainly constructed with deer hair that is trimmed to a shape that really makes the fly.
Muddler Minnow
Dahlberg Diver
Woven
My “go to” woven fly is called a Polish Nymph. This fly is tied by weaving two different colors of floss, one on the top and one on the bottom, and creates a really realistic-looking caddis larva. The technique used is called a Shuttle Weave (I think!). One strand of floss is held in each hand and they are crossed over without ever letting go of them. It’s really amazing to watch.
Polish Nymph created by Vladi Trzebunia, the 1989 Polish Gold Medalist
Sowbug Roundup is a three day fly tying and fly fishing show that is held in Mountain Home, Arkansas. The next event will be held Mar 23rd, 24th, and 25th, 2023.
I will be a fly tying demonstrator at this year’s Roundup. Part of the duties of a demonstrator is to donate three flies for the auction. The flies will be put into a framed collage and sold at the Fly Tyer’s Dinner on March 24th.
For my auction flies, I have chosen three flies from Mary Orvis Marbury’s magnificent 1892 book Favorite Flies and Their Histories. It’s a revolutionary book for its time and one I refer to often.
One of my flies is from the Lake Fly section, one is from the Trout Fly section, and one is from the Bass Fly section. Here are my flies as well as the images from the book where they came from.
No. 40 Royal Coachman (Lake Fly)
No. 40 Royal Coachman
40 Royal Coachman – Created by John Haily of New York City, a professional fly-dresser, in 1878
No. 143 Grizzly King (Trout Fly)
No. 143 Grizzly King
143 Grizzly King – A variation of John & James Wilson’s “Professor” wet fly
No. 273 Mather (Bass Fly)
No. 273 Mather
273 Mather – Created by C. F. Orvis; named by A. N. Cheney in compliment to his friend, Mr. Fred Mather
An English old-timer named Frederic Halford literally wrote the book on tying dry flies back in 1886 – yeah, published 136 years ago – in his book titled Floating Flies and How To Dress Them.
I often thumb through the electronic archive copy over at archive.org. Recently, however, I discovered that there have been some modern re-publications of his books and I now have a copy on order. Little did I know, the seller is shipping it from Australia. Talk about a slow boat from China …
A while ago I created a webpage based solely on the chapter in his book that depicts fly-dressing, Halford-style, in great detail. Recently, I added another section that shows a technique he developed called the Improved Method of Winging Upright Duns. Notice how the wings are tied on with the tips pointing rearward. You can read the rest over at my Fly Dressing page
What I really like about the technique is that it allows you to tie on the wings fairly close to the hook eye (necessary on small hooks) without the difficulty of trimming the wing feather stubs so close to the eye itself. It’s really an ingenious improvement to his original “ordinary” method.
One of the finest fly-dresser in the world today, Davey McPhail of Scotland, demonstrates this exact technique in one of his 700+ YouTube videos and it’s definitely worth a look. Saying that the guy is a master is actually an understatement. Here he spends the first few minutes talking about using hen hackle on a dry fly so you can skip to the 2:05 mark to get right to the fly-dressing.
Tying a Hen-Hackled Dry Fly (Greenwell’s Glory) with Davie McPhail
What a beautiful dry fly. Between the two of them, we fly-dressers can learn A LOT from their work. They are truly two of the best.
From my last several posts you might conclude that I’ve been working on tying some different fly patterns for fly tying contests. If you did, you’d be right. And by ‘different’, I mean fly patterns that I’ve never tied before. Tying new flies is very rewarding but … time-consuming. What I have done is taken the time and ventured into a category of flies I don’t fish very often called Streamers. If you don’t know what a streamer is then here’s a nice definition I found on the web:
Streamers are big flies used to imitate small bait fish and other moving aquatic invertebrates and creatures. The majority of the time these active flies will be given additional movement by different retrieves; also known as strips.
Going clockwise from the upper left, here are the streamers I have learned how to tie and will be submitting to a few fly tying contests that are coming up:
Fly Pattern Name
Contest Category
Creature Imitated
Barr’s Meat Whistle
Traditional Streamer
Sculpin minnow
Dahlberg’s Diver
Traditional Streamer
Baitfish
Muddler Minnow
Traditional Streamer
Sculpin minnow
Big Eyed Sempermouse
Articulating Streamer
Swimming mouse
Streamer Fly Patterns
For the complete details of how these flies are tied, please scroll through the following stack of Fly Tying Cards or optionally download the PDF.
If you’re interested in tying some of these ”different” flies, hopefully these Fly Tying Cards will save you some time so you can get right to it.
Here’s another fly I’m going to enter into that fly tying contest I have mentioned. It is called Thunder and Lightning and it appears as fly #29 in the Salmon section of Mary Orvis Marbury’s 1892 book Favorite Flies and Their Histories. Thus I will enter it in the Salmon category of the contest. Apparently, it got its name in the early days because it was used when the water was rising after a storm.
thunder and lightning photo
I must say that this is one of the more difficult flies I’ve ever tied. There are many details involved and I even had to source some additional materials just to tie it (#4 Salmon Hooks, Golden Pheasant Crest, Orange Saddle Hackle, Blue Guinea Feathers, Artificial Jungle Cock Eyes). Oh well, it doesn’t look too bad for a first attempt – which is always the toughest by the way. Does anyone else struggle with tying a new fly for the first time?
Here is the fly tying card for the Thunder and Lightning:
Fly Tying Card – Thunder and Lightning
I created a new collection called the Old Favorite Salmon Flies Collection and inserted this card into it. You can find the new collection in PDF format in the Wet Flies section on my Fly Tying Cards page. However, it’s the only card in the collection (so far).
