squirrelz

I recently scored on a bunch of squirrel pelts off of ebay. Five for $12, plus free priority mail shipping to boot. To add to the awesomeness, there were two extra hides thrown in the box. Price per pelt was down to $2.18, the cheapest I've been able to find, even cheaper than Coffin Creek Furs when you factor in shipping and handling costs. The hides were in great condition, all fleshed out, salted, and dried. I didn't find any bugs, but I'm taking no chances. The hides have already been quarantined and sent to the deep freeze chamber for a week's sentence. Between the freeze, a dye bath, and some borax for the non-dyed skins, that should take care of all the critters. Besides, there's nothing a little trip into the microwave can't take care of.


You may wonder what in the hell I'm gonna do with 22 squirrel pelts. No, I'm not gonna make myself a toupée or a squirrel suit. And I'm not gonna use them for Zonkers, though that is a great idea but better suited for a tanned skin. I'm gonna dye up a bunch of them skins and chop them furs for dubbin'. I've got a few big batches I need to make for use down the road. Squirrel is the ultimate fur for a buggy nymph blend.

For Your Eyes Only

When Singlebarbed told me that he literally had risked life and limb to smuggle some Classified materials into the Roughfisher Command Post, I thought he was putting me on until I saw proof. He warned me of the inclement danger inherent when handling this stuff and told me to survey my surroundings before opening. He was right, this stuff should be locked in a vault in Fort Knox.


Regarding the classified contents of the container:

You all are on a need to know basis, and right now you don't need to know.

All I can divulge is that this stuff rocks the shit and will blow your mind. It will change the face of fly tying forever.


End Transmission.

friends in low places

Much can be said about your coworkers. Everyone has a few horror stories to share, and there always seems to be a Milton Waddams, Tom Smykowski, or Bill Lumbergh in the crowd. Love 'em or leave 'em, every once in a while one of them will come through and hook you up.




The beauty of working in a co-located office are the perks with working alongside other sections and divisions. One of my wildlife cohorts surprised me the other day by bringing two boxes of feathers into my office. When I opened them up, I discovered a bounty of pheasant, grouse, turkey, and mallard feathers. Now this was the mother lode. Now I've got more hackle than I could ever use in 20 years. Once I sorted, treated, and packed all of the feathers, I managed to fill up an entire grocery bag, to the top. That's over 7 gallons of feathers.



Speaking of sweet ass hackle, I couldn't pass up a chance at picking up a starling skin when I was over at the Fly Angler last week. Thanks to Justin over at WFF for piquing my interest earlier this winter. One major bonus at the shop: they had pheasant rump in golden yellow! Hot damn! Been looking for this stuff for a couple years now, and this is the first shop I've come across that actually had some in stock. I was just about ready to mail order some from a company in the PNW, but luckily I was able to procure some "locally". That is if you consider a 200 mile distance local. Unfortunately for me, that's the closest fly shop around. Now I can finally get started tying up a patch of carp carrots, but that's for another story.

Has anyone seen my red Swingline stapler?

stash for the cache

I love finding deals. I lucked into a whole lot of them last week, starting with a few trips to the World's Foremost Outfitter. At two different store locations, I benefited from a little inventory downsizing on their Ultra Wire. $2.29 a spool retail, marked down to $0.88 a spool. I cleaned out every last clearance spool they had on the shelves. Can't figure out why they discounted some of the colors, as they had the exact same stuff sitting on the shelf. The only difference I could find was that on some of the current spools, they were marked chartreuse, whereas the discount spools were marked as fluorescent chartreuse. They were the exact same color; figured that UTC changed the name only just to clear out retail inventory and move more product. Their loss is my gain.


I hit the craft store circuit while I was in the metro the other week for the F3T show in Minneapolis. I scored on more clearance items, including some craft trim. I love it when the only colors that are marked down are colors that I want. Pretty tough to beat a quarter for a 10 yard card of yarn. I also scored some cheap hackle and foam for making bass, pike, and muskie poppers. They were in a clearance store for a buck, and the day I was there, everything was marked down another %20. Total score.




While browsing the shelves, I found a few interesting items at regular retail price. Copper bead chain. I normally only come across the nickel, aluminium, or steel varieties. For glamor, there are even coated and plastic chain, but this is the first time I've come across copper in a store. I have a few sources online that sell copper, black, and other anodized colors, but shipping is always expensive, and it's hard to discern through a monitor whether or not an online store is legit or a fly by night cloud operation just scamming to get your money. You know what I'm talking about; some of those online store fronts are so ghetto and generic looking.


I also picked up some elastic for use as scud backing. Much like the material used for those clear bra straps, this stuff is a little thick; I'll have to see how it ties. Heavy duty fo' sho.

I grabbed some glitter glue sticks for making heads on some nymph/streamer patterns. Epoxy is used on heads for many fly patterns, and I've seen hot glue used for egg patterns. I'm gonna experiment by using the glue to encase some bead chain. If it's a bust, at least the kids have some new crafts to play with.




These teeny ass pompons should make for some nice egg patterns. Everyone always fishes eggs for salmonids; I'm gonna turn the table on this one. I'm gonna try my hand at fishing eggs to suckers. I've heard of people catching suckers on egg patterns intended for trout. Where this gets fun is that I'll be sticking one to the man. Those little yellow numbers are just about the same size and color as a walleye egg. All those one dimensional meatheads can eat their hearts out as I fish the roe of their beloved State Fish to other lowly bottom feeders.

Nooch.

Glittallica

Anytime I get a shipment from Singlebarbed, I never know what I'm gonna find in the bottom of the box. Keith's always good for throwing in a few extra goodies and you don't know whether or not he's letting you in on the next best thing, or he's just pawning off some crap from one of his many failed experiments. Or maybe it's a super secret front for spreading some new super disease akin to H1N1 amongst brownliners, in hopes that we'll become "immunized" when the apocalypse comes and rids the earth of blueliners, gear tossers, and faggot bowfisherman. Either way, I've got a pile of yarn that I need to find a use for.

Patons Glittallic. True to Barton's romantic style, this yarn has been discontinued by the manufacturer and my sense is that the hording has begun. Glittallic is a bulky weight eyelash and ribbon yarn, made of 95% polyester and 5% lurex (metallic). It is suitable for palmering directly on the hook for larger nymph patterns, or its ultimate destiny with the grinder for that bug crazed dub look. Mighty fine to me.

People may call Singlebarbed many things, but they'll never call him stingy. Looks like I've plenty of work to keep me busy for a while.

Angelina

I went into cahoots with Singlebarbed and ended up with one pound of Angelina, direct from the manufacturer. No, we're not on crack. Though a pound will last many a lifetime, Keith purchased an undisclosed amount in his quest for world domination of the fly tying universe. I have it on good authority that he is up to his usual alchemist shenanigans, concocting unworldly creations in his laboratory and getting high off the fumes.


I don't have any grandiose plans for my cut of the booty, other than cutting it straight into my dubbing blends. No conjuring up voodoo and whatnot for me, I'll leave that for Master until his demise, whereupon I'll follow in his craft.



The Aurora is the typical color used in most of the Ice Dub blends by Hareline and other manufacturers. It gives off a holographic effect, and can also mimic trapped gases when dubbed on nymph bodies. It's a major component in the roughfisher's custom dubbing blends. It is fished well during low light conditions where a little extra flash may be needed to get a fish's attention.

For those of you who like tying with the UV Ice Dub, The Violette is what you seek. This material gives off an iridescent like sheen for that little extra sparkle on your nymph patterns. It's a favorite of mine and I like to cut it into some killer dubbing blends. This material is a little more subdued than the Aurora and is perfect when you need your flash to go incognito, especially when fishing in bright sunlight.

Get your UV Dub at the Roughfisher Fly Fishing online store.