I’m pretty bad when it comes to procrastination. For the last couple of closed seasons I’ve always had great plans of tying up hundreds of flies to last all season: nymphs, streamers, loads of dries. I always end up getting distracted by things like winter hillwalking and grayling fishing. This means my season’s fly supply has to be replenished on the fly (pun intended), which generally leads to panic tying and missed fishing time.
This evening I finally got myself in gear and started preparing industrial quanities of hare’s mask dubbing. All that was needed was a pair of scissors and a home made dubbing rake, made from part of an old hacksaw blade. I find I use hare’s mask, in one form or another, in most of the flies I end up tying. In past, darker days I’ve been a user of packet bought dubbings. These days I’ve grown to be in awe of the range of fantastic, buggy dubbing to be found by harvesting a mask yourself.
So I’ve now got one of those small sewing boxes full of different mixes of dubbing, all neatly compartmentalised and ready for some turbo-flytying. Tomorrow I will do the same for a couple of dyed hare’s ears I’ve got. It won’t be long before there’ll be enough dubbing combinations to take over the frigging planet.
If you’ve never tried this approach to getting your dubbing, it’s well worth a go. Half the fun is comming up with your own dubbing combinations to suit the kind of fly you’re going to tie. It’s also a lot cheaper and makes you feel like you’re a *real man*, which I find rather nice.
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Excellent idea Mike. I read your post and got offline to make some hare’s ear dubbing. I’m in constant search of mindless activities that can speed up my fly tying process. This method works, thank you.
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Another comment: I found out that it is possible (for me) to make those hundreds of flies per winter. In my case it required Tuesday evenings at local fly fishing club. And to there I prefer to take only what I need to do specific flies (yesterday it was Superpupas with green and orange bodies – half dozen each toke 45 minutes). If I take only materials I need to do it keeps me focused. Others were tying Golden Shiner streamer and if I had had all my materials with me I would have done that.
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Thanks again opax. I think your idea is a good one. I tend to get a bit bored with tying too many of one fly, but this usually means I end up wandering around tying different flies in small numbers. But I will make an effort to get plenty of my best flies tied this winter.
With the dubbing box, well I always used to go one fly at a time, but I reckon now it’ll be impossible to stop me once I get tying..!
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Great idea. If you don’t kill the rabbit you can use it over and over again!
Wyatt -
Hi Wyatt, thanks for stopping by
Have enjoyed your blog on many an occasion!
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