No Tell Motel Fly Tying

On the road. Near good waters, but no time to fish. All the gear is with me. Trout, Steelhead…I have it all save my pontoon boat. Sitting on a beaten down mattress. No high end here. Those nights in $130.+ rooms are gone. Lower rates. Lower expectations. Not even a muffin in the morning. Near the railroad tracks. Near the ebb and flow of vacationing transients. 

Year ’round, I have some form of  fly tying materials with me. I usually forecast ahead what I would need to have with me for Spring, Summer or Fall tying. I load up my little containers with materials for whatever I have not tied enough of earlier (usually after that long Winter tying binge).

Now I know this is really only applicable to the guy primarily confined to a vehicle or checking luggage on a flight. I drive the I-5 Corridor between Portland and Medford. I stay in motels, not hotels. More often than not, my outdoor experience is having the room window open to better hear the sirens.

I rarely wet a line. But regardless, I do keep tying, imagining and planning. If you can tie in a No Tell Motel, with all the noise, door slamming, yelling and trains rumbling by, you can certainly tie just about anywhere else, except maybe in an upriver, afternoon wind.

When the economy turns, if ever, I will be able to stay at a place with that skinny bacon, instant scrambled eggs and biscuits and gravy. Geeze, those were the days.  

Fly Tying: Tippet Spool Tenders (Hair Ties)

Hair Ties Used for Tippet Tenders (SwittersB)

If you have ladies in your life with longer hair, you no doubt come across these little gems everywhere. On the floor, in beds, counter tops…they seem to be everywhere except in their hair. Well, as they inadvertently discard them, you should gather them and use them to wrap around tippet spools as the original rubber bands break. They work nicely on the Maxima size spools and even the smaller, more prevalent tippet spools.

Fly Tying: Fore & Aft Patterns

I am by no means a fly pattern historian. I leave it to others to delve back through the annals of fly tying. The fore and aft style fly pattern is reputed to have originated in England over a century ago. Most patterns (save those with new synthetic materials) probably had multiple originators in the far corners of the fly tying/fishing world.

The fore and aft is often offered up as a midge cluster. Well, that seems fine for a very small pattern, say size 16 to 20, but my experience with say the Renegade pattern is it has done amazingly well in B.C. lakes as a Caddis pattern beneath the surface. I recall a small, remote lake near Wavy L. that to this day afforded some of the most amazing fly fishing I have ever experienced. The Renegade pattern was in tatters, with the tinsel and rear hackle trailing behind. There were no chironomid/midge in sight. Only, Caddis/Sedge were emerging and skittering. As tempting as it was to put on a large dry Caddis pattern, the sunken Renegade was intoxicating to the fish and to me. I will never forget the fly line zipping through the water as the Kamloops took the fly and jetted off across my path. 

Whether the body in tied thinly or rather plump, like the Renegade, experiment with the fore and aft hackling on a pattern. Try it as a searching pattern where exact dry fly /emerger pattern presentations are not called for. Lakes and busy surface streams would be good choices. The hackles can be the dry fly quality feather or even a softer hackles for a busier look. I have include a Renegade I tied and a Stick Fly (midge) pattern that shows Ostrich Herl for the hackle.