Hay, watch it Tony,
I remember when I bought my first fly tying kit in about 68. Got it at
the Firestone store in Monahans. It was a Herters and had about 2" of dust
on it, paid a whopping .50 cents for it I think. Had to sell a lot of papers
to get that kind of cash back then. Caught my first trout a fly I tied from
what was in that little box.
Fond Memories,
Jimi
I missed Joyce's message about tying in the old days. How would a young
lady like Joyce know about that. !!!!!!!
I do remember the days before waxed thread on plastic bobbins, vises
that turned, bobbins, Zelon, Rayon, packaged dubbing, necks with long
hackles, saddles with hackles that can be used for dry flies, hooks
smaller than sz 14 and the list goes on.
I could go on about how we tied flies back then but I don't want to bore
anyone.
Tony
DonO wrote:
>Joyce is sooooooo right on. New tiers can't remember what it was like
>trying to get decent feathers to tie small dries 3 or 4 decades ago. A
size
>range on a neck was pickled clean in no time, as many times it took two
>feathers to tie a decent dry. They were harder to tie with, had short
sweet
>spots, and the finished product didn't look anywhere near what you see
>today. Tying was more of a challenge-turned-frustration than anything else
>when it came to small dry flies. If you had the money back then, you could
>wait your turn and maybe get a quality Metz, or at least what we though was
>quality, at the time. Most tiers had shoe-boxes full of necks with the
>middles striped out and the rest going to waste, unless they stooped to
>trimming hackles when all else failed. This trimming wasn't ever accepted
>commercially because of how webby the larger feathers were, and trimming
put
>the webs at the tips- not good unless you wanted wet flies. This was the
>motivation for Henry Hoffman and others to start working on the saddles for
>dry fly use.
>
>When I got my first 'new generation' Whiting super saddles about 7 or 8
>years ago, I was so engrossed in tying with them that I didn't stop tying
>dry flies until I had run out of hooks, about 6 or 700 flies later. I
>ignored everything else as I was having so much fun tying with the new
>stuff. Interestingly, I didn't even put a noticeable dent in the saddles I
>had after that many flies. Then I got my first cree. Wow! I tied more
dry
>flies in 6 months (with pleasure) than I had in my entire life (40 years of
>tying).
>
>So I for one don't take these new feathers for granted, and Joyce and other
>long-time tiers will all agree. I can tie 8-10 flies with one hackle before
>I need the hackle-pliers to tie the tip portion. Even the old tying
>instructions for dry fly hackling needed to be revised.
>
>You're right Joyce.
>Counting flytying blessings.
>
>DonO
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Joyce Westphal
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 8:03 AM
>Subject: Re: [VFB] Finally!!!
>
>
> What a great thing to live and tie today. Don't you just love it? Counting
>my blessings. Joyce
>
>
>
>
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