All joking about Secret/Favorite Lake aside,,, I wanted to open up a thread about "can't miss" and "should miss" fly tying gadgets and books. I have been pretty disappointed with my last two book purchases - Spring Creeks and Midge Magic. While both have some nice pictures, I felt that I could summarize the latter in about a paragraph and if their is a hidden gem in Mike's book (aka a trick or technique that has not previously made the rounds - twice,) it has so far escaped my eye. Of the two, I do not regret buying Mike's book, as I bought it at Avid while he was there for the book signing and that conversation and signing is worth something in and of itself as a collection piece, but Midge Magic is another story.
What RECENT books are rated as "must have's" by the serious tiers our there and which are a total waste of time? As, no offense to Preston, I can't say that I find the book reviews in the industry rags any more useful than the lodge reviews (it is important to realize who butters the bread after all, so I do not expect a negative book review anymore than I expect to read about what crappy service, meals and guides were at "break the bank lodge" on the "you cant get there from here" river.) This would be a fantastic forum to exchange real opinions of books and tackle and I would love to see more of those sort of discussions (especially since it looks like most of us have ceased to post fishing reports.) On a similar vein - I also purchased the "Magic Tool" and if you routinely play with dubbing loops or spinning dubbing brushes with your Nor Vise the tools certainly beat the oversize paper clips that I have been using to serve a similar purpose. I am happy with the $30 purchase. (And for those of you that do not use dubbing loops - you should and this will help you get started, with less of a learning curve.) I also purchased the DVD and it is not worth the $30, but maybe would have been worth $15 just to see some new CDC tricks - I would be happy to put it in circulation for anyone in the North King/South Sno. area. I will also reiterate my comment from Christmas that the new jaws for the Nor Vise, with the cam lever instead of the screw arrangement, are a must have upgrade. And finally - speaking of new CDC tricks - can anyone recommend a great source for CDC (cheap - high quality, lots of colors)? The Magic Tool DVD did make me want to play more with CDC (with CDC callibaetis being the fly of the evening tonight -which should pretty much exhaust my dun and black CDC stock using four feathers at a time and not being able to use the "puffs/oilers" with this method...) Tight lines, Andy
