Tom L

Good suggestion Tim. My wife also suggested "Mousse Head" as in hairstyling Mousse. Thanks Mark. Also, looking forward to a fun tying session next week. Thanks Mike. I thought after the next one, I'll take a break and let other members have opportunities to post (Tim is starting out great). I still have a few flies in reserve, so I'll post from time to time.

Oops! I thought I messed it up. In my attempt to creat a pan fish pattern which has a flat body profile, I toyed around with a reversed tied technique to creat that effect. I thought I goofed up at first, but after applying some adheresive at the base of the head that rooster-tail head stayed. So, it was an oops bluegill, "lOops Gill". That was #11 and one more to go.

Cool flies Tim. The mono+epoxy eyes really made the fly alive.

Love those heads. These aren't just pretty faces.

Mark - I'll help you out. We'll do step-by-step tying together.

First of all, I'd like to say that there were a lot of good advices previously posted and I agreed with most of them. We fly fishmen probably had read the same flyfishing books/magazines and listen to the same experts. We all were told that the fly should immitate the natural foods of the fish as close as possible; especially in terms of profiles (shapes), colors, and movements. Then I walked in a Cabela's today and saw rows of cranks baits, spinner baits, stick baits and etc. It occured to me that a lot of these lures donot resemble any natural foods of fish at all. For example: a crank bait painted into a crayfish pattern, a spinner bait/swim jig that suppose to imitate a bluegill, or a senko stickbait that supposely be a shad. And they all would catch fish at certain time and place and quite affective. And then, there were also many lures that really trying hard to immitate the natural foods such as crank bait that molded/painted into many different baitfish shapes/colors or soft plastic baits that shaped into baitfish, crayfish, worms, mouse and so on. Some even in corporated sound (rattle) and scents into the lures. Which bring up another point that I'd like to point out is that the sounds and scents aspects of the natural foods had not have much emphasize in fly fishing, especially the scents part. Now back to the question of a fly with a neck of no neck. Does it really matter? To me, it is such a minor difference. As I had said, a fish would take a crankbait that painted into a crayfish or a spinner bait/swim jig in bluegill colors; and you alreadly knew that these lures donot resemble the shapes of what they were suppose to imitate . In flyfishing, we have super flies like the Woolly Bugger, the Muddler, the Clouser, the Adam and so on. They are super, because they are so effective in catching fish. A part of their effectiveness is that they look like many different natural foods to the fish, not just one thing. So my answer to that question is "No". It does not matter if the fly has a neck or not. The fly doesn't have to be exact imitation, near enough is good enough. And there are a lot of flies out there that are in this "near enough is good enough" category. But, it doesn't mean that I'll not try my best to imitate and make it as pretty as possible. Final point, an ugly fly will also catch fish.

Rich - That would be a cool fly almost like a double bunny leech. I tried stretching the strip and it gave a different tecture on the fly. Another really nice way of doing thing. I'll use that on the next fly. Thanks for the heads up. Tim - A good advice is a good advice. Thanks again.

John - Please save me a seat for the Sat 29th tying. Thanks.

I got some helps from Tim A on this one. Tim suggested that I cut up the craft fur patches into zonker strips and tied some zonker patterns. That open up a lot new possibilties. The first one I tried was a leech pattern and this is what I ended up "Crafty Leech". Then I tried cross cutting a craft fur patch into crosscut zonker strip and just palmered it onto a hook; and it naturally formed a minnow profile. Since I had done many minnows already, I decided not to count this one. #10 down and 2 more to go.......

Great idea Tim. Mike, I just sink tested in the tub today. It would sink once water logged. Coated the head with epoxy, as Tim had suggested, made it easier to sink.

I've been using Canon D10 for 3 years now. Love it! Very simple to use. And great pictures. I could operate it with one hand while the other hand kept the fish in the water at all time.

Thanks Carl. A quick google search yielded couple variations of the Thunder Creek Minnows. http://spiritriver.c...er-creek-minnow https://www.akflysho...?productID=6366 http://www.flytyingf...attern5973.html The closest one to what I have here is the one done with Marabous. A Mega Thunder Creek Minnow it is. Rob, the bullet head was tied reversed style and folded back. Here is a video on another variation of the Thunder Creek Minnow. In the video, the fellow was making it harder then it should be. http://globalflyfish...-creek-streamer

This style of tying has been around a long time. It has been done with other materials like deerhairs and bucktails. It is very simple but effective. It reminds me a lot of a Senko plastic stickbait, so I called it "Stick Minnow".

Wonderful idea Mike. I'm in. Hope to see more participate.

Thank you everyone. Positive feedbacks are always encouraging. Another one coming soon.....

One mean looking worm, Mike.

Nice looking fly Jim. A fish killer for sure. That was how a lot of things were discovered. The more your messed around the more ideas will pop up.

This is fly #8 of my self-challege to create 12 flies using the free samples of craft furs by Christmas. This one is called "Crafty Dad". Any smallmouth flybox would not be completed without a crawfish pattern. This is my attempt to creat a crawfish pattern using the materials I had at hands. Since I didn't have any brown and olive craft furs, I used magic markers to add more colors and made it more interesting crawdad.

Test casted the worm yesterday. It was a little stiff, because I used a 16lbs mono inbeded inside the tail. Next time I'll try a flyline backing that I have leftover or fireline as you'd suggested. I'm playing with samples of Bohemian chenilles that Rich sent also.

Funny video, Tim...

Tim, it was tyed on a Mustad C67S Size 8 Egg, Caddis hook. It is the same hook I usde for my steelhead egg flies. Mike, I'd like to accept your challege, but I'll have to get a new and bigger coffee grinder first; plus my wife wouldn't be happied if she find out that I've been using her grinder to blend furs and chenille.

I'd heard that some streams have big hatches of damselflies and the fish really gorge on them. I took Mike G's suggestion about blending the craft furs in a coffee grinder, but since I needed only a small amount I chopped and blended by hands. This one is very simple tail = craft furs body = dubbing of blended craft furs rib = gold fine wire eyes = plastic eyes This is #7 and 5 more to go......

Smile every night dreaming about the warn of the summer sun, the breeze of cool air, the rush of the river between my legs, and the reel is creaming...... screek... screek....screek....

Rich - I got the package yesterday. Thanks for the flies and materials. I see you used the same techn on both the worm and the shannon streamer. Cool flies. What kind of fur is the small black patch? Using it in dubbing loops would make really buggy legs.....

Rob & Mike - Will this do the trick? Some of the worms, if I found them to be too limpy, I imbeded mono line inside the tails.