I really like my new teaching gig, although the Thursday's are a bitch, leave at 445 am to get top Clara Maass in Belleville, for a 630 start, work the floor all day till 730 pm, then home around 930. I'm old. Breathing through two masks and talking all day wears you out. I enjoyed today just having one patient virtually.
In the morning I ran down to wet test the above fly. Now, we all know I suck at fly tying, and I am hoping to get better very soon, or else I will just quit. But the fly swam good, it'll get eaten which is the goal, but I have a few things to tweak in tying a herring pattern with the Steve's SF Blend.
The other day the gauge was below a foot, and today it was up over five feet between the warm up and snow melt and the rain. I was surprised that with
all that melt the temperatures rose, but I guess the ice makes the river colder, duh. So after that I went home and fiddled with some SF Blend. You would think that for as much time as I have been in Steve's company I would have paid attention just a little better. The below fly looks good, if you were trying to tie a sturgeon like fly, it looks like it's missing the bottom half. If I had any more material on
the hook it would cast like a wet mop. That's one thing about the SF Blends, they shed water easily if you don't overload the tie. I finished up a few, tried to incorporate some hackle, which I wound up
cutting out on a few, the one to the left remind me of Godzilla fort some reason and not a herring. So when I came back to the voice all motivated and what not I tried a fly with a mono extension.... and
that came out really nice, I was just waiting for it to right itself after a warm water bath. In the end I cut it down and apart and re-tied. The below fly looks a tad better, maybe a tad less in the ass, and a little thicker at the head, and maybe one more tie in the body. It comes in at 7 inches which is the length I am shooting for.
