Carp Swap Goodies

The carp swap goodies came in the mail.  Dubbing from Singlebarbed.com arrived the same day.   It was like a mini Christmas.   I'm going to do a review of the dubbing later.   I can say right now it's the best dubbing I have ever seen.   Trevor from Fly Carpin did an awesome job getting this swap organized and sorted out.  He had the difficult job of divvying up who got what flies and trying to be fair at the same time.  Many people submitted more than ten flies and one person submitted over 100.   Here was my haul.

 

 

If you want to know more about the flies there is a forum for each on at Carppro.net. The tyers are answering specific questions about their flies. CarpPro did an amazing job spotlighting the swap in their latest issue of Carp Pro Magazine. I hope I can continue to be in these swaps every year.

The Good, the Bad and the WTF?

Inspired by Howard's post from Windknots and Tangled Lines I decided to post my recent ties.  I found this fly at Orvis and I loved it.  I'm a big fan of beads in flies and I also love soft hackles.  This fly had a little of everything.

In the process of trying to tie this fly I went a little hackle crazy. I kept thinking about other things to add and try. Next thing I knew half of my tying materials were out on my table. I had so much crap stuff everywhere that I kept losing my scissors and other tools. Even if a fly turns out ugly I want to keep it. When you're tying a fly you kind of attach a memory too it. When you fish it you remember when you tied it and why you tied it that way. Here's what I ended up with and I know it's all over the board.

 

 

 

One thing you'll notice is how none of the flies look exactly the same. I have a hard time with that. I also don't stress about it so the flies come out how they come out.

I'll have to wait until the spring to try a lot of these. I have been working quite a bit on carp fly experiments. Most of them are similar or an attempt at what is out there.

These were my first attempts at Jay Zimmeraman's Back Stabbers. I really like how they came out and they are fairly simple to tie.