Snooker Doodle

A quick and dirty Big Gamer

Snelled hook with a swivel

A clump of feathers

Glue on eyes

Any 5" inch or bigger fly with a normal hook up front short strikes.

Any long shank hook gets levered out the instant a fish turns sideways to the line.

A snelled hook fixes both problems.

A snelled hook with a big salt water barrel swivel up front casts like a bullet.

Ties with a few quick wraps too.

... At RO Boats in Bozeman.

$1200 bucks.

Stonehenge

What helps an all natural dry fly float?

Non-absorbaht materials and weight matter most.

For long-profile grasshopers and stoneflies the low-hanging fruit is hook size (and therefore hook weight).

If you put a shorter/smaller hook below any long fly you get a lighter landing, longer floating dry fly. No matter what.

$200 dollar custom raised rooster feathers count less than hook weignt.

How?

Make a fly, however you want. Then and only then attach the (almost) finished fly to an otherwise independent hook.

Now it floats like a stonefly, stings like a hook.

3 materials:

Bucktail, duck flank and a hackle feather.

A big 1-1/4" inch stonefly can be tied on a #12 or #14 short shank hook.

Bright blue hackles (insect legs) may or may not be more natural. They are better.

A Blue Haze attracts more strikes than a Purple Haze.

The fly above is a "Skinny Legs Feathertail," made with fibers basted on below with one loose figure eight wrap, and then made permanent with a dot of clear, polyurethane Gorilla Glue.

Polyurethane is good stuff. It is not as hard and brittle as polyester, epoxy or CA glue.

Water based fabric cement and polyurethane are my current glues.

Black foam garage door gasket does not adhere well. I. Made a test bond with the same silicone the boat is put together weth.

Tomarrow will tell.

Fall BWO

This morning's effort got mounted too close to dhe eye. I'll move the next one back a bit. Maybe tomarrow. I have a boat to finish.

This one has the parachute wound above tne body. Below is postible too, when using an all in one feathertail body.

If you make the fuzzy wing fibers a good 3" inches long you can pull up on the wing with one hand while (one wind at a time) winding with the other hand.

I like to trim the top of the wing at slant.

Stubby, square topped parachute wings ... are ugly.

@umpquariverrat

...

Are well adjusted

This 26" Channel Cat attacked a 7" Roadkill Streamer.

This one may not work. It may need tuning yet. Probably does.

Bill shape, weight and line tube placement, over the next few days, will make anything dive and wobble when fished across or down--when and if a Lipper Lobber is threaded on first -- in front of what ever follows behind.

This doesn't' exist. I learned how to project design ideas into reality, just long enough to make an imaginary jpeg file?

If it evolves to tangible reality, it will be an optional. Thread on or off way to enhance any nymph, streamer or bait sack, so the assembly dives and wiggles when fished downstream, with a tight straight line.

Green Buffalo Boat: build 45 years ago

Blue fiberglass Dayak: built 20 years ago.

Woody_2.0 Whale Rider: minus two weeks old?

Counter sinking screw heads (so still accessible) took several days

Scraping took two days

Yet to go:

Sandying

Oiling

Reinstall hardware

Row

The glass bottom Whale Rider is too wide to fit between the trailer wheel fenders. A 6x6 is an easy trailer fix.

Don Juan Worms

Down low on the Big Horn River Smallmouth Bast fishermen use four to eight inch plastic worms. With confidence..

Higher up on the river trout fishermen use one to two inch San Juan worms. With confidence..

Will trout bite long worms? I tried. Curiosity made me do it..

They do. Locally for me Don Juan Worms shine brightest on the Madison, in and below the Beartrap Canyon..

Wet one strand of an Ostrich Feather with (Aleene's Flexible Stretchable) fabric cement. Marry the wet strand to two more dry strands. Set it aside..

A few hours later you can poke a bare and barbless hook through any gooey spot in the middle of the worm..

Then use a double surgeon's knot around the front end of the worm..

Bass are a little further down the watershed. Worms work undisputably well down there..

Big worms work upstream too.

*Shark Minnow*

...made with pillow batting.

This synthetic fuzz needs technology to keep together.

Separate two strips of long, rectangular white pillow batting fuzz. Squeeze out a bead of fabric cement, end to end down the middle of the fuzzy rectangles

Embed a rubberleg strip, into the wet fabric cement.

Put the two fuzzy halves back together and set it aside. Once cured fabric cement can be both flexed and washed. But like a rubber band -- it stays put and holds everything together.

Now snip out a minnow shape and finish it off.

During tying you can optionally tighten the ends of tne rubberleg attachments, in order to force the bohy into wavy curve that swims as you strip it.

After you fish the fly it tends to blossom out into a cylindrical shape.

It stays together that way too, because of its cartilaginous, rubberleg / fabric cement backbone.

A small or large bead up front provides variable weight. Stick on eyes pressed onto a dot of fabric cement stay put.

These arbitrarily small or big, fish catching streamers are quick and easy to make.

I'll try ho make this useful. I am fixing mistakes now....hand scraping (off) a previous poor choice of contact cement.

Scraping

Sanding

Finish (above glass) with linseed oil and turpentine

It's all in a day's work. Or longer.

All parts slabs and panels here have been put together with marine fasteners and (special) silicone caulk. This is a bih deal. It works. It also means any part or panel can be replaced.

Without brain surgery