Tom L

Thanks Rob. My success on water is mostly art, very little on science. Now let me clarify what I mean by that. Anything that I cannot quantify or explain, I lump them all into the art part. That includes luck/chances and beautifly flies. Most of the time, I cannot explain why I catch those fish; but I can explain how I catch them. I know that if I fish a certain way in certain situations with a certain fly, I'll more likely to succeed. There are too many variables in the environment to be accounted for and with our limited knowledge of the universe, we just cannot explain everything in science terms. As soon as we think that we had things figured out and we try to repeat it on the next outing, it is totally a bust. Totally agreed with you on that we're constantly being bombarded with marketing gimmicks, and that is not just in fishing but also in everything else in life. Sometime we can and sometime we cannot prove/diprove their claims. As fishmen, the greatest assess we have is observation; and I learned over the years that all good fishmen are also good observers. You can have all the knowledge, read all the books, have all data, and got the greatest fly/lure, but if you're not a good observer on the water, then you're less likely to be consistently successful. As for my take on the new claims or the new marketing gimmicks is that if it costs only a few bucks, go ahead and try it. .A joy of fishing is to experiment and to discover

We do know that bass do feed at night. They cannot realize on only sound and scent to help them chase down and capture prey, they also realize on sight in doing. Trout can sip and pick off spent (dead) Hex in total darkness. These are the evidences that their eyes are more sentitive to light than ours. As for the Daredevil spoon example, their eyes maybe more sensitive to light and they maybe not be as focus and sharp. So the whole thing maybe a blurr to them, they may see only flashes and vibration of the lure, that's why they strike sometime but not all the time. Fishing is part science and part art to most of us. Most of the times we don't have scientific explanations to why fish behave the way they do anyway. True we do not have scientific data to support the UV claim; and I don't know we'll ever be. And maybe you are right about fish can careless about UV. But if having some UV enhanced materials in your fly/lure, and if it boosts your confidence in that fly/lure, we'll catch more fish with that fly/lure. That is the bottomline question here isn't it. Will UV enhanced material help us catch more fish?

That is also true, but the fact that certain colors glow in the pictures is telling us something. Those able to decipher and use the information presented will leap the benefits. Look beyond the cool images! Some of us do catch more and bigger fish than other.

True, but don't forget the fact that fish eyes are much more sensitive than human eyes. Little light that able to penetrate into the water, sure they will see better than us. Another fact is that fish don't see in UV light only, therefore their food don't have to be only in the UV spectrum. I've been using UV enhanced materials for several years now on my trout and steelhead flies. Under certain conditions, the UV enhanced materials definately out perform the non UV enhanced.

Fortgot to mention that I'll have all the materials necessary to tye the fly; but tyers, please bring an Ultra Thread 140 (White preffered), a G.S.P. Thread 100 (any colors), and a hair packer (not hair stacker) along. Hope to see you here.

Rich, the fly you're referring to has white and chart craft fur & deer hair as the belly and head with a small amount of purple on top. All the flies and materials shown are not UV products, at least they were not advertised as such when I bought them. The materials that glow under the UV light have these colors: white, chart, hot orange, hot pink, and fl yellow. Red, yellow, purple, black, brown, blue didn't glow. I don't know if we can draw any concludes from this. After reading your article in the latest Bulletin, just got me thinking. But maybe the saying "Bright day, bright flies" has some truth to it.

Thanks John. Both fly tiers and non-tiers are welcome to join us for this event. If you're not a tier, just come out to chit-chat and hang with us. We'll be tying the Craft Fur Muddler Minnow or CF Muddler for short. This fly has been very productive for me. It's a lot of fun to tie. It involves deer hair stacking and spinning. We'll have complementary coffee, sodas, and snacks. For those that would like to have some Thai dinner, come a little bit early. We'll start tying around 7:00pm. Here is the address: Thai Garden 225 W. Golf Rd. Schaumburg, IL 60195 (847) 519-1770 ThaiGardenUSA.com

Just want to put up these pictures first and let everyone digests. Explanations will come later. Added 1/12/2014 First of all, let me explain really quick how I came up with these pictures. The pictures on the left were taken under regular fluorescent light, then I turned of the light in the room and used my UV flashlight shined on the objects and took the second pictures. As you can see, some materials and colors glow under the UV light. Some of the materials in the pictures are flies that were tied with craft furs, hackles, barred rubber legs, zonker strips, threads, etc. These materials were not advertised as UV materials when I bought them, but they still glow under UV light. The materials that glow have these colors - white, chart, hot pink, hot orange, fl yellow. The materials that didn't glow have these colors - red, yellow, brown, black, blue. As some of you already know that some colors are natural UV reactive and some are not. A few nights ago, I did a little experiment. I turned off all the lights inside the house and walk around with my UV flashlight. There were a lot of stuffs around the house that glowed, some were surprising some were not. Did you know that soap scums and molded bananas are UV reactive also?

Thanks for the head up Ryan. Got this film on the queue. I visited the YNP with my wife and her father in Sept of 2005. It was a very memorable trip as it was our last trip together with him before he passed away 2 yrs later. I remember I did a lot of driving as we tried to complete the figure 8 loops within the park and the Grand Teton. It is definately a special place on earth. On a couple of evenings, I fished the Fire Hole with no success. There were some kind of hatch or hatches, and there were risers making dipples everywhere on the surface, but I couldn't match them. Those were PhD trout, not easy to fool. But I did landed a beautiful 14" brown right below a fast run on the Yellowston inside the park with a black wooly bugger. The old wooly bugger came to rescure. I think it made a good representation of stonefly nymph and the food floated by so fast in the rapid water that the trout had no time to inspect, but just react to the fly. 5 evening of fishing and only 1 trout to hand. It is one of my most memorable fish. The YNP should be on everybody to see list.

Can't wait to see what have you come up with, Mike.

Wonder, what made her went gaga like that?

Very creative! What was the body made of? Will it float of sink?

Terry, that is a good way of reusing the tubes. I thought of another way if you are willing to try: 1. wrap a lead wire onto the hook shank. 2. wrap thread onto the hook shank and over the wraped lead wire. 3. coat the hook shank and the wraped lead wire with glue or head cement. 4. insert an ear plug onto the hook shank. 5. coat the ear plug with glue. 6. insert the used tube over the hook and the ear plug. This fly will look exactly like your regular tube lure, but can be casted with a fly rod.

Happy New Year to all.

Happy New Year everyone. 2013 is the year of craft fur for me. The 2 new winners are the iBait and the CF Muddler. Both of these are deadly baitfish imitations. In stillwaters (lake & harbor), I often fished them in tandem using sink tip or full sinking line to get them down, the iBait as the lead fly and the CF Muddler as the trailer. In rivers however, I usaully fished the Foxy Crawdad and CF Muddler in tandem. The iBait has not been as effective in moving waters.

Just came back from the Hoffman Estates Cabela's. Saw some nice glass rods on sales. Thought some of you might be interested. 1 x Cabela's CGT 7' 3wt, was $149.99, now $74.99. 2 x Cabela's CGT 7'6" 4wt, was $149.99, now $74.99. I think you can order online too. Here is the link. http://www.cabelas.com/product/Fishing/Fly-Fishing/Fly-Fishing-Rods|/pc/104793480/c/104721480/sc/105573780/Cabelas-CGT-Fiberglass-Fly-Rods/1409646.uts?destination=%2Fcatalog%2Fbrowse%2Ffly-fishing-rods%2F_%2FN-1102568%2B4294727080%2FNe-4294727080%2FNs-CATEGORY_SEQ_105573780%3FWTz_l%3DSBC%253BMMcat104793480%253Bcat104721480%26WTz_st%3DGuidedNav%26WTz_stype%3DGNU&WTz_l=SBC%3BMMcat104793480%3Bcat104721480%3Bcat105573780

Ryan, congrats on a good deal of the new line. Didn't know SA has a Sharkskin version of the Streamer Express taper. I also have been using SA Sharkskin lines on several setups, and have always been using stripping guards with them. I one had an SA line cut my finger from stripping all day. Would love to see a review after you have a chance to fish it. I've been looking for a sink tip line for lake/harbor smallie, steelhead and brown fishing. I'm currently leaning toward Rio OutBound Short. btw, over the holidays I just added a Rio InTouch Deep 3 into my lake/harbor fishing arsenal. Will report back in the future.

Thanks Terry for the tips. Maybe I'll try coating the fly with something so it won't get waterlogged.

A few members took a stab @ earplug flies last winter. I decided to take a shot also. Thanks Jim S for those NASCAR earplugs.

Stock it up Ryan.

Thanks Rich, Rob, and John. The fly (w/o the added tail) was very productive on the Fox. I've been using it on the line up with other CF Muddlers. But, I have no idea how the added tail would affect the fly. It may cause more movement of the tail or may cause the fly to spin. I'll report back when I have a chance to fish it.

Rich Mc was quite kind and generous to send me some of his new eyelash shad flies which were featured in the last issue of the Bulletin and also some sample yarns. I had good success with Rich's new shad flies on the Fox. I also had been playing with the eyelash samples that he sent me by adding deer hair head to the fly. Last night, I thought of an idea to spice up the fly by adding different colors of egg yarns for the tail. Please let me know what you all think.

Played around with the fly some more. Added some arctic fox for the belly. That gives the fly a more traditional Clouser look.

Poke the hook point thru the strip, coat the shank with head cement glue, and tie down the strip with thread to form the head. Yep! Barred rabbit strips. Mike is right. The strip take marker well and can be easily spike up with scent markers. Yes, Jonn. Only one rabbit strip on top. Well ties Rob. The double bunny and the palmer bunny techniques have been around, but they are difficult to add flashes. This is the underbody was done. If want to, you can add artic fox tail on top of the red Krystal flash for belly/beard.

Nice work, Bart.