The Loon UV Fly Paint egg

And here it is, the first pattern I am posting here.  Just to be clear, this is a great fly to illustrate that there will be no "fly fishing only" stance taken here.  I love to catch fish, period.  I don't care what they will eat, I'll use it (if it is under legal regulations, that is).  Chunk of meat, Live minnow, frog, grasshopper, worm, Panther Martin spinner, or home made fly - It doesn't matter to me - fooling the fish is fooling the fish.  To quote the old saying, fly fishermen are actually the liars of the bunch - it's the bait fishermen that are giving them what is advertised... heh, heh. :)  So here it is, an Egg fly.  That perfect combination of bait and artificial that catches fish like a... well, you know.

To begin, for this fly you must have a rotary vise.  If you don't have one of these, this isn't going to be very easy (or even possible, really) for you...I then start with a Tiemco size 12 caddis pupa/shrimp hook, and a brass bead, 3/32 size.  You will also need the Loon brand UV Fly Paint (in this case, orange), some thread of your color choice, and a UV curing light.  The light I use is the Clear Cure Goo light.  My online fly-tying shops of choice were both out of stock at the time, so Cabela's got the nod, and I got the power to create 'flies' that fish think are candy.

These things are KILLER...if you don't mind using a fly that is 'bait', then you are going to want to make them.  A LOT of them.  They are super easy and fast, and work well.  What more can you want?...A challenge?...if so, then these might not fit the bill - for creating them, or for getting fish to eat them... :)

Anyhow, get the hook on the bead, opposite the normal direction.  By that I mean, run the hook point through the large hole first, which is 'backwards' from the usual way.  This helps any runs of paint to go back toward the shank rather than the hook eye.  Get this stuff in the hook eye and cure it and good luck ever threading your leader through it.

I like it about even with or just in front of the hook point:


Tie in the bead with some thread in front of and behind, to lock it in, (here I used my closest match in color, which was some Veevus 6/0 in florescent orange):


Once you whip finish, it's time to start applying the paint.  It is important to constantly spin your vise while doing so.  The paint will come out kind of gel-like, so you'll have some ability to control where it goes.  A slight side to side distribution seems to work best for me until there is enough accumulated to form the egg size I am after.  If you pause, the blob you have accumulated will immediately start to pull downward with gravity.  This can either hurt you, or be used to help you form a nice sphere, depending if you plan your slight pauses as needed, or fumble with the vise handle, etc.  As long as you aren't too slow in recovering a slip, this stuff is thick enough to hold on long enough for you to get it spinning again.   


Keep spinning as long and as fast as you need to to get things nice and round.  This pic would be better as a video (maybe sometime soon, who knows).  Then, with your free hand, grab your light and begin curing by shining it on the egg.  Don't stop spinning or change speeds here!!


Let the curing begin.  15-20 seconds here (while Still Spinning!!!) will turn the egg mostly solid, if a bit tacky.


After that....Voila!!!  Fake egg ala fish catcher.


And here's a lineup of sizes for everything from the Lakers to the Grayling to the Whitefish here in the lake.  They all LOVE eggs almost as much as I love these 'flies'...There are going to be LOTS of pics of these this summer and fall once the Sockeye get here, along with their newfound friends...you heard it here first...  *Disclaimer - this is NOT my original creation - I found them on the FlyTying123 site - he calls them the "Tungsten Embryo"


More patterns to come!  A little something to while away the winters when there isn't enough snow around to trap...sheesh, maybe we should just go fishin'....

Another label emerges... :)

Well, I guess it was just a matter of time, but..I have decided to finally get around to posting some Fly Tying stuff on the blog. So there is a new Fly Tying label here (on the list below at right).  I had dabbled in it long ago when I was literally a fish bum, living on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington in the college years, and then again got back to it briefly after moving back home to PA, but it never stuck.  Guess I kinda spent too much time fishing back then to have any left over for fly tying...

At any rate, I now have long Alaskan winters to fill.  Long story short, I set out last summer (about 40 weeks ago, now) to get back into fly tying.  But this time, I really meant it. I was not only going to 'dabble' in it, I was going to LEARN it.  The 'new first' fly, a green rockworm-dubbing-nymph-creature-thingy, emerged after a flurry of Longboard Lagers (see pic) as I tried out my Anvil Atlas vise back in June. The Atlas was the first tool I selected to accompany me on this journey:

And since then I have been poring over books, videos, websites, blogs, and opinions on, "Which dubbing for this?", "What type of feather will do that?"...and on and on.  Since then I have (at times, quite unsuccessfully) tried to tie everything from size 20 midges to huge bulky pike flies - "streamers full of junk", if you are up on the recent lingo that fly fishing and tying has adopted. :)  Having some base knowledge (of the flies and the bugs both) and some vague memories has helped a bit, but mostly I think it has been the addiction that has advanced my learning curve the most of all.  That, and, of course, living at Ground Zero for trout and salmon Shangri-la helps too :) - you get to try out all your creations and experiments on real fish...immediately...and fish are the best teachers, when you are a fly-tyer.

So though I am still nothing close to a Jedi, my flies have come along enough now, (and caught enough fish for me) that I am ready to start posting them here.  Should be another fun element to add to the blog...and of course, the fishing itself will be found on the species list blog, found by the link at the top of the pages.  And away we go...