Contest Update and Where I Have been

Well we got crushed with storms on Thursday.  They were so bad that I had to grab the family and send them into the bathroom.  We had a lot of tornado warnings due to storms that had rotations in them.  Thankfully nothing touched down.  My daughter was on the way to school and the school bus had to pull over and send all the children inside a house.  That's how bad it was.  However, it wasn't nearly as bad as what happened in the South.  Long story short, at some point my wireless router was zapped by lighting plus we don't have phone or internet service since it is out as well.  To make matters worse, the Direct TV dish only is getting some of the channels. 

So....given all that, I am going to extend the fly naming contest (click this link) for another week.  It will now officially end on May 7th.  This will allow new followers (welcome people) a chance to throw a name into the ring and me a chance to get some internet service back up and running rather than going somewhere that has WiFi. 

I went fishing this past Wednesday at a neighboring county and did really well.  The fruit cocktail popper and white Road Kill Nymphs were big hits.  Stay tuned and when I can I will get some photos up of the adventure.

New Patterns and Color Combos

I have been working on some new patterns and color combos as of late.  The first four photos are of some new patterns and color combos.  These are all tied on a Mustad 3366 size 10 hook.  At the request of a potential customer, I was trying to make some smaller flies in various color combos for panfish. 

Up first is a black foam fly with rust dubbing, black rubber legs and a rusty brown flash for the tail.

Next is a chartreuse foam and chartreuse dubbing fly with lime green flash for a tail and orange legs.  Sorry about the photo as it is hard to photograph this color.  Plus I drank a lot of coffee so I might have been shaking a bit.

The third fly has an insect green foam and hot yellow dubbing body.  It has yellow rubber legs and lime green flash for the tail.

Last for the foam flies has an orange foam and peacock black dubbing body.  I went with black rubber legs and rusty brown flash for the tail.

Next up are two Road Kill nymphs.  These are ties on a size 10 3X long hook.  I am heading to a pond hopefully tomorrow that I have fished before with Greg.  He always does well on a white curly tailed grub so I was trying to come up with something that would look like that.  This is what I went with.  Not wild about either of them but we will see how they do.

An Army of Clousers

Given the way my colon was feeling most of the week, I didnt have a chance to tie until yesterday.  That being said, I tied up 30 clousers in 6 different color combos with 5 of each.  Clearly I am starting to feel better.  Well I used to fish clousers but could never find them in the sizes I really wanted.  Once I discovered poppers, I lost all interest in subsurface flies for smallies.  I know, I know I am wrong.  I get it.  That is why I decided to try to tie some clousers.  I had never tied any before.  I hate wasting money of flies I could tie plus there is something to be said for catching fish on flies you yourself tie.  So I sat down yesterday and came up with 6 different color combos I wanted to try.  I went with the standard chartreuse over white, brown over orange, green over orange, green over yellow, gray over white with gray flash and gray over white with silver flash.  I made five of each thinking they would last for a while.  All of them are tied on a size 10 2X long nymph hook.  Again, I was looking for something smaller and light weight.  Here they are.  Let me know what you all think. 

Care Package for Dave over at A Matter of Life, Death and Fluffchucking

I am sending some foam frog bodies to Dave over at A Matter of Life, Death and Fluffchucking.  He ahs a great blog, is a great tier and chases pike.  I am sending numerous colors and sizes to see what works for the pike.  Hopefully they will work well.  Here they are:

There are a lot of sizes and colors for ya Dave!  Enjoy them!

Props!!

Two of the bloggers that I faithfully follow were kind enough to mention me this week.  Please check out Dustin's Fly Box and The African Fly Angler.  Each one of them commented on my poppers (Dustin made me his weekly shout-out and African Fly Angler made some of his own poppers) and I wanted to say thank you to both for the mention!

So.......

Monday night I started feeling bad.  I went to the docotor yesterday.  No big surprise....I am having an attack of diverticulitis.  Since 2009 I have now had four attacks of diverticulitis.  This one is particularly bad.  Dont know why but it is.  I cant work but I also havent been able to sit at the bench much either.  I have managed to tie around 7 clouser minnows which I hope to get photographed later tonight.  I am also sending a gift box to Dave over at A Matter of Life, Death adn Fluffchucking.  Stay tuned to see what it is and what he will do with it.

STP Frog

One last post for this evening.  Here is a frog pattern I have been working on.  I found this in Fly Fisherman magazine a while ago.  I just got around to tying it this past week.  I did fish it the other day.  The legs without the weedguard do foul the hook which is a problem.  It does look good though!  Still working on it...

August 5, 2007

This is the date on which I made and fished my first popper.  I, of course, did a sloppy, rush job in order to get it out on the water.  I used a cork body in size 10, black and yellow paint, the same sealer (didnt let it dry), as well as yellow and black hackle but no legs.  I used the yellow hackle for the tail.  I got away from this by using squirrel and calf for the tail but it is something I am thinking about going back to and trying.  I also used 3mm doll eyes for the eyes which are now next to impossible to find.   I managed to catch 9 sunfish and one smallie on it before it started to rain really hard.  Leaving the river, I realized that I was hooked with making my own poppers.  That was almost four years ago.  I think it is important to know where you have come from to see where you are headed.  With my first and second sales of poppers completed this weekend, I took some time to look at my first popper in my display case to see just how far I have come in the construction and painting (well at least in my mind).  I am excited and nervous about this new venture upon which the wife and I have started.  J&M Flies is now officially open for business. 

Changes in the Size 10 Poppers

I changed the design a little on the size 10 poppers.  This was done to increase buoyancy.  The body painting did not change at all.  I changed the calf tail for squirrel tail, eliminated the flash, and changed the sili legs for round rubber legs.  Just trying to get a better pop out of them.  Here they are in all their glory:

Orvis Order

I finished the order for Orvis and dropped them off yesterday.  Here is a photo of the what they looked like in the box.  They hit the shelves yesterday and I am now waiting to hear how they do.  I hope they sell like hot cakes so I can make more thus making more money!

Been a Crazy Week

but I have managed to get out some.  Twice as a matter of fact.  I am posting my first adventure here now.  Sorry for the late post though.  I had to finish several orders for poppers and work has been crazy.  I managed to get out with Greg last Sunday 04/10/11.  The fishing was tough.  The weather was warmer than it had been but the wind was a problem at times.  We hit the same pond we have been going to.  No need to fix something if it isn't broken right?  I did alright.  Good not great I guess.  I managed to land 12 bluegill and 1 largemouth in two hours.  Like I said, the fishing was tough.  The weather has been so up and down that it is hard to get several nice days in a row.  Well here are some photos of what I managed to land....

Contest!!!

I'm having some trouble naming my newer flies, so I thought I'd enlist your help.  In the comments section, please give me your name ideas for each of the following flies.  Please indicate which of the flies you are naming (orange, yellow or purple).  If you come up with the name I choose to use, I'll send you the fly!  That's better than a cash prize, right?  Ha ha!

Rules:
You must be or become a follower of my blog to enter.
You can enter as many names as you want.
Deadline to enter is April 30th- I'll announce the winners soon after that.
Please remember this is totally subjective and only for fun...

Thanks!

Here they are:

While the Boss is Away....

the slave will take a short break from the sweat shop to give everyone a quick update.   The boss went for food so I have some time to type.  First, I am still alive.  Second I am down to my last 6 poppers.  I will then only have 12 Monocacy Bumble Bees to tie up tonight and the Orvis order will be done. I can't wait.  I am tied of tying!!!  I made a bunch of balsa popper bodies yesterday.  We also had to run out for hackle as I needed some black hackle for my purple popper.  All the purple hackle I had was too small. I started tying poppers at 8 at night.  I finished at 2 in the morning.  I had 36 done.  I figured out that I average around 6 minutes a popper.  Not bad but not great.  I am and have never been a fast tyer.  I got up this morning and aside from eating I have been tying all day.  I am glad to be almost finished!  I should probably run now and get bench at work before the boss finds me "relaxing" and on a break!  Here is how the bench looked when I left it at 2 in the morning.....

Well I was going to post a photo but it would not load right and Blogger doesnt allow you an way to turn them.  So no photo.  Sorry.

My Wife and Fly Tying

For what it is worth, my wife is very supportive of my tying.  She is the one who pushed me to sell my poppers to the two fly shops.  Anyways, she also ties flies at times.  I have asked her to tie more.  She was going to enter the Fly Tyer of the Year contest over on the flytyingforum but she didnt.  Well she started tying again and the other night she tied this guy up.  She wanted to work with epoxy so I had her give a go with the Megans Minnow.  Its not bad.  Actually for her first time, I think it is pretty good.  Here it is:

I Escaped the Sweat Shop for an Afternoon

I took today off in order to finish my popper order for the Orvis shop.  However, it was almost 80 degrees here in Maryland today.  The weather here has been crazy.  A few times last week we had snow on the ground over night.  It has been raining off and on plus it looks like it might rain for the next 10 or so days.  I spent all of last week and literally all weekend painting poppers.  I managed to paint all 96 poppers for the Orvis order!!!  I got all but 36 of them sealed.  So, given the nice weather I decided to make a break from the sweat shop and run like crazy to the local pond with a friend. 

Here is the pond:

As you can see, it isnt very large but is does hold some nice fish.  We managed to see quite a few largemouth in the 18-20 inch range swimming around but they wont touch a thing.  Here are some photos of what we did mange to land though:

I was amazed to see that some of them hit on the top water flies but hey who am I to argue or say it is to early to do so? 

I would also like to take this chance to point out that my takeon Dave Whitlock's Fruit Cocktail worked like a charm.  I managed to land two largemouth and a few gills on it.  Here they are:

Last but not least, I managed to land two largemouth on the Monocacy Bumble Bee.  Here they are:

All in all it wasnt a bad day of fishing.  I managed to land 4 largemouth and 15 bluegill.  Nice for this time of year in Maryland.  My friend also landed a few gills but no bass.