What to do in the nasty rain

I decided to take advantage of the rainy weekend. I bought a fly tying kit, and watched the instructional video, and then tried. it. here are the results. Attachment 8367

The black / yellow & green yellow are maribou feathers. The white ones are made with bucktail. Hopefully now, I can catch fish on my own homemade jigs. I'm no SKIPTOMYLOU, (www.thumpitjigs.com) but it will be real satisfying if I can catch fish on these homemade babies. I used wahoo fishhead jigs, cut the barb off the jig and painted them with model paint. I used superglue on the thread, so I hope they hold up to some hard thumpin' crappie.

Way to go there Ibet you will catch some fish on thoese jigs. I started tieing some this year too.

Good Luck
Sam

They look pretty good.:D But I'll stay with my Umbrella Tube baits.;)

Hey Randy, go ahead and give me a few...I'll let you know how they do...:D

LOL...Randy, yours turned out a little better than mine did. (Not even gonna post a pic.) Practice practice practice. I am oncall this weekend so maybe I will have some time for just that very thing...:)

Those look good Randy. I've been thinking about getting a kit and learning to tie, like you said it would give something to do on those sucky days.

Sorry guys for not posting in a while or even being in touch with any of you, but I have had my hands filled with a new baby and new job teaching at the local high school. The state is coming in for a visit next week and if you know anything about the state they don't care what you are doing; they care more about how it is done and if your posters are at eye level. I need to get the point though, I have been tying flies and jigs for over ten years, and if you guys want to get together some time for a tying get together, I think everyone would have a great time and maybe go home with a few jigs. Just PM me let me know; right now is the time to do those kind of things with high water and cold rainy, sleety, icy, snowy days. Might take a week because of the few opportunities I get to visit the site, but i do make it a habit to look at least once a week.

Hey Randy, looks like your on your way, watch out you will get addicted. I started tying last year myself. My first attempt was alright, hey they caught fish, just takes a while to get the rythm down. Like I said they caught, but it gets easier as you go along. One tip I might add is if your kit did not come with a whip finish tool (mine did not) then you really should get one. I tied my whip finish with my hands for a short while, but then when I got the whip finishing tool, the whole process got quicker.

I don't think mine came with that, and excuse my ignorance, but i don't know what a whip finish tool is.

Randy neither did I at first, just one of the things you learn as you go along. A whip finisher is a tool that aids you in tying your finishing knot when you complete a jig. Its hard to explain but I will try to find a link to send you, it really helped me alot.

I think a whip finish tool is a strap of leather that resembles a belt. Usually in the wife's hands while us men are finishing up the chores.. :D

I used to do a lot of fly-tying. Had to have 1 PE course in college as a freshman, and I decided to take a course called 'Angling'. Tough class:D The course consisted of watching fishing movies, spin-casting, bait-casting and fly-casting. Watching videos of fly-tying and popper-tying. Then we were tested on casting abilities, our flies we would tie and written tests on what we had learned. Then we had to field test our flies. We also had a final exam where we had to tie certain flies in a set amount of time. Remember one was the royal coachman. Back then I had an uncle who lived in Boulder, CO and they had a cabin in the mountains near Nederland. He used to tie his own flies for all of the fishing he did around there.
I never did like the whip finnisher, could do it quicker just using the fingers of my right hand. The tool you had to have was the little gripper to hold the feathers, hackle, yarn , line, etc. Used a lot of clear nail polish.
We have friends that have a place close to Mark Twain Lake. He has a pond stocked with bass and catfish. He feeds his catfish every evening in the summer. I tied a fly using yarn that resembles the floating food that he feeds them and they just nailed it. Fun to catch 5 and 6 pound catfish on the surface with light tackle! Match the hatch works sometimes!