Buck, Your 2 cents is worth 2 bucks, as you show the true spirit of a swap. No one's asking for award-winning flies, unless it's an Award-Winning Fly Swap. What I'm hearing from almost everyone is that they appreciate a just amount of effort being expended by anyone to be a part of a swap. What I hearing rom you is that you think it's fair to submit 2 easy patterns so that the effort evens out. Way to go. I second that motion. Quite a few did that in my rope-dub swap.
What I'm also hearing from some accomplished tiers is that they don't enter swaps that they don't feel qualified to enter. Is this not a sign of their maturity as tiers and their sense of fair play? It's up to the swapmeister if he wants to qualify flies and tying efforts, as Byard did for his caddis swap. Byard was not 'sticking his nose in the air' by not accepting super-simple flies. He was not excluding beginners. He was exibiting his sense of fair play and his desire for a variety of caddis patterns, not 100 twenty-second green larva patterns (even though they catch fish). Some adjusted to it, and others didn't. That's life. He didn't qualify tiers or rank them. He just qualified the effort and pattern-range. If any tier in any catagory didn't want to put out the effort to tie 100 nicer flies, they didn't need to join that swap. The result was a box full of 100 varied and fascinating patterns. If it's an Any Fly From Any Tier Swap, that's fine too. Everyone knows beforehand what they're getting into. As for the foam swap, I don't tie foam flies, either. Not my style-yet. But I am going to challenge myself to learn some good foam patterns - fish-catching patterns hopefully, work up a worthy pattern, and enter my best efforts into the swap. My practice flies and not-so-hot versions will go into my fly box because the fish eat cripples, too. I hope my submissions will be worthy of what the other tiers put forth. This is one advantage beginners (and all tiers) have today that I didn't have 40 years ago- access to tying and pattern information. I can just type in 'foam flies' in Google and everything I need is right there. DonO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Buck Hall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 2:52 AM Subject: [VFB] Foam Swap > I guess I should add my two cents worth here as this is the first swap I have entered. I must say that I have been tying flies since the middle 40s. Does that make me a good tyer? No...just an old tyer. When I saw the foam swap come up I thought of the fly that I had put together and found to be successful catching larger sized bluegills. Not that it is very hard to tie but it catches fish. Even the occassional bass. Soooooo I thought the members of this list would like a copy of my bluegill fly. I even had trouble coming up with a name for it. I thought that since it was so easy to tie I would send along another fly like the Lady Bug that I found will take an occassional bluegill. > I talked with my good friend Allan Fish and he thought that would be a good idea. > So, if you are looking for award winning flies from me forget it. About the only thing you can say for my flies is that they seem to catch flies but won't end up in the fly shops. > Perhaps this will be my first and last swap. > > > Buck..... > >
