I received a really nice order about a week ago and wanted to give a shout-out for it. It was for three 5×7 Framed Flies and was shipped to a customer in the State of New York. This was one of the larger orders I’ve had and definitely the largest one in the recent past.
As I mentioned, the order was for these three frames and they all looked very nice with the gold parchment and the black frame color.
5×7 Classic Wet Fly Collection #1 (black-gold)
5×7 Old Favorite Bass Fly Collection #1 (black-gold)
5×7 Old Favorite Trout Fly Collection #1 (black-gold)
I really like the Pink Lady in the lower right corner of the Classic Wet Fly Collection but all of them look good. I also like Hardy’s Favorite in the lower left corner. It’s one of my favorites too. The Ozark Mottled Oak primary turkey wing feathers make for nearly perfect wings on wet flies. Those feathers are just a little stiffer and thus easier to tie in than other feathers used for wings.
In Bass Fly Collection I really like No. 255 Jungle Cock fly – the wings are made of two flank feathers from a jungle cock bird and the white stem line really looks unique to me,
In the Trout Fly Collection it’s hard not to like the No. 143 Grizzly King in the upper right corner. That one turned out really nice on this frame.
I’ve recently made some updates to my Framed Fly Gallery page. It now shows all 24 of my 5×7 Framed Fly Collections and both of my 8×10 Collections. There is still one glaring absence in the 5×7 gallery and a few less obvious issues but for the most part it is pretty representative of my product line. Here are some of my latest collection photos and I think they look pretty good.
Recently Added Gallery Photos
One reason for the noticeable improvement in photo quality is a light box studio that I recently acquired. It helps me get nearly perfect lighting on the flies and minimizes the shadows due to the setback of the parchment. The other reason for the improved photos is that I now have a set of frames with the glass removed so the reflections are nearly eliminated.
Light Box Studio
My gallery has one obvious issue and a few not-so-obvious ones so to correct the issues I have created a to-do list with the following items on it:
Missing photo of the Old Favorite Lake Fly Collection #1 – White [UPDATED!]
Poor lighting of the Old Favorite Bass Fly Collection #1 – Gray [UPDATED!]
Poor lighting of the Classic Wet Fly Collection #1 – Gray [UPDATED!]
Poor alignment/cropping of the Old Favorite Lake Fly Collection #1 – Gray [UPDATED!]
Change to Gold Parchment in the Black Frame for the Classic Wet Fly Collection #1 [UPDATED!]
Change to Gold Parchment in the Black Frame for the Old Favorite Bass Fly Collection #1 [UPDATED!]
Change to Gold Parchment in the Black Frame for the Old Favorite Trout Fly Collection #1 [UPDATED!]
Change to Gold Parchment in the Black Frame for the Halford Dry Fly Collection #1
Change to Gold Parchment in the Black Frame for the Classic Nymph Collection #1
The 8×10 collection photos were taken before the Light Box Studio and have irritating shadows in them.
If you’re familiar with my website you will know that I post quite a bit of information on fly tying. However, another part of my website is an online store where I have flies that have been tied and mounted in a shadow boxes available for purchase. I have at least 8 different themed collections of flies in a couple of different frame sizes.
I’ve been tying them for a little while now and have finally come to my senses and began updating the watermarks that appear on the background of the framed flies. Initially, I just had some fancy feathers in the backgrounds, and they looked okay, but my daughter demanded that I do something better.
Here are the first few watermarks I have updated. These are the 5×7’s. The one on the left is pretty obvious – two bass. The one on the right is an old picture of Ray Bergman tying a fly. If you can read the fine print, the flies in this collection are from his 1938 book titled Trout. It seemed fitting to me.
A while ago I wrote a blog post called “Nymphs Too!”. The reason for the post was that I had just won the “Nymph” division at the 2021 MTFA Fly Tying Contest and I wanted to publish my fly tying method for that fly. Since then, I pulled together some additional classic fly patterns and created a product variation for a set of these Classic Nymphs.
One of the classic nymphs, my award-winning Polish Nymph, has been a great fly for me. It’s a caddisfly larva imitation and the colors can be varied as much as there is embroidery floss – hundreds of colors and shades. A skein of cotton floss is under a buck and will make a great many flies. I do like polyester floss for the underside because it comes in brighter colors that don’t fade when wet. The weaving is what gives the fly the realistic texture and the link on the Fly Tying Card shows you how it’s done.
Regarding the remainder of the classic nymphs in the collection, I’m sure you’re familiar with some (Copper John, Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear, Prince Nymph) and perhaps not familiar with the rest. The namesake Classic Nymph is an amazing looking mayfly nymph imitation and is one I need to try out in the water. It’s beautiful! The red quill abdomen, the curved wood duck fiber tails, and the red dot on top of the head seem very realistic to me. The Tellico Nymph also caught my eye and made its way into the collection. The shell-like back gives it the appearance of a scud. This one needs to get wet for me as well.
The following Classic Nymphs are included in this collection. You can find a detailed photo and description of each fly in the Classic Nymphs Collection on my Nymphs webpage.
Classic Nymph
Copper John
Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear
Governor Alvord
Montana Nymph
Polish Nymph
Sawyer’s Pheasant Tail Prince Nymph
Tellico Nymph
A Framed Fly Collection for the eight classic nymphs is available under the Framed Flies (5×7) product in my online store.
5×7 Classic Nymph Collection #1 (black)
5×7 Classic Nymph Collection #1 (gray)
5×7 Classic Nymph Collection #1 (white)
A set of fly tying cards for the Classic Nymph collection has also been created. These are (a) viewable at the bottom of my Fly Tying Cards webpage, or (b) available in printed form (for a small fee) under the Fly Tying Cards (Printed) product in my online store.
I’ve been away too long (again!) but now I’ll try to catch up.
Deep down in my website is a page called Custom Fly Tying but it is still under construction. I’m now in the process of constructing it. Some time ago, I met with some friends and showed them several of my Framed Fly Collections. They really liked several of the 5×7 frames and also the 8×10 but they just couldn’t decide which one to go with. After some pondering, we came up with the idea of a combination. I would take 3 flies from each of 6 collections and merge them into one large frame. And here is what I came up with:
2021 Branson Award Winning Fly Collection
There are rows of nymphs, wet flies, lake flies, trout flies, bass flies, and even a row of realistic dry flies. The blue ribbon icons mark my three award winning flies from the 2021 Branson Fly Fishing Expo. Another custom feature is background image – a birthday cake. The sky is the limit!
This fly collection contains 8 dry flies tied as they appear in Frederic M. Halford’s 1886 book “Floating Flies and How To Dress Them”. You can read more about Frederic Halford and his book in the References section on our Dry Flies page.
The following Halford Dry Flies are included in this collection. You can find a detailed photo and description of each fly in the Halford Dry Fly Collection on our Dry Flies page.
No. 10. #1 Whitchurch
No. 11. Flight’s Fancy
No. 18. Blue Quill
No. 24. Saltoun
No. 36. Blue-Winged Olive
No. 63. Alder
No. 66. Red Ant
No. 75. Dark Sedge
5×7 Halford Dry Fly Collection #1 (black)
5×7 Halford Dry Fly Collection #1 (gray)
5×7 Halford Dry Fly Collection #1 (white)
You can shop for this collection in the Framed Flies (5×7) section of my online store!
This fly collection contains 8 dry flies tied in the style inspired by Theodore Gordon, the father of American dry fly fishing. You can read more about Theodore Gordon in the References section on our Dry Flies page.
The following Catskills Dry Flies are included in this collection. You can find a detailed photo and description of each fly in the Catskills Dry Fly Collection on our Dry Flies page.
Adams
Blue-Winged Olive
Hendrickson
Light Cahill
March Brown
Pink Lady
Quill Gordon
Red Quill
5×7 Catskills Dry Fly Collection #1 (black)
5×7 Catskills Dry Fly Collection #1 (gray)
5×7 Catskills Dry Fly Collection #1 (white)
You can shop for this collection in the Framed Flies (5×7) section of my online store!
A new Framed Flies collection is now available! Frames are now available in Gray and White as well as Black!
This collection contains 8 bass flies from Mary Orvis Marbury’s 1892 book “Favorite Flies And Their Histories”. You can read more about Mary Orvis Marbury and her book in the References section on our Wet Flies page.
The following Old Favorite Bass Flies are included in this collection. You can find a detailed photo and description of each fly in the Old Favorite Bass Fly Collection on our Wet Flies page.
No. 254 Knight Templar
No. 255 Jungle Cock
No. 259. Ondawa
No. 273. Mather
No. 279. Toodle-bug
No. 280. Read
No. 285. Triumph
No. 286. Tipperlinn
5×7 Old Favorite Bass Fly Collection #1 (black-gold)
5×7 Old Favorite Bass Fly Collection #1 (gray)
5×7 Old Favorite Bass Fly Collection #1 (white)
You can shop for this collection in the Framed Flies (5×7) section of my online store!
