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Gear Review: HMH’s Tube Fly Tool
Posted on November 21st, 2009 No comments
I haven't named this one yet, but I was stoked to finally tie something I've had pictured in my head for forever now
Well I finally got a chance to play with a couple new toys yesterday. Singlebarbed’s 6th Finger Scissor , and HMH’s Starter Tube Fly Tool .
To tie tubes in the past, I’ve either used an allen wrench, or just put the tube directly in my vise’s jaws. The allen wrench works okay, but I’ve never been able to spin/stack deer hair without the wrench slipping a little in the jaws from all the torque on the tube. Putting the tube right in my vise’s jaws worked alright, too, but I ran into the same problem when spinning hair, and would sometimes crush plastic tubes.
I ordered the HMH Tube Fly Tool from J Stockard Fly Fishing . They aren’t one of my sponsors or anything, I just like doing business with them. Plus, for my recent birthday, I got a $50 gift certificate to use there from my mother-in-law.
Like all poor bastards savvy shoppers, I spent a good deal of time going through the tying materials on the J Stockard site, trying to figure out a way to squeeze everything I’ve been meaning to add to my materials arsenal onto that $50 credit. The list of stuff that I first filled my shopping cart with looked drastically different than my final order. My first instinct was to get as many hooks as I could. Then I remembered that I have been wanting to play with rattles on my carp flies, and Stalcup’s Damsel Body on my panfish flies. Then I added a bunch of synthetic hair before I ran into the HMH tube fly coneheads and remembered that this is the tying season that I go to tubes for all my streamer patterns instead of regular hooks. And before you knew it, I was removing just enough stuff that I could add the Tube Fly Tool pictured above to my cart without going over my $50 limit.
Now before I give a glowing review on this product, I’ve got to admit that after a past experience with HMH while I was writing the DayTripper blog, I really didn’t want to. I won’t go into details or anything, but I only point it out because I had sworn to myself that I’d never give a positive review for another HMH product again after what happened behind the scenes.
Yet here I am, about to tell you that the HMH Tube Fly Tool is rock solid in my vise- a Danvise by the way, so [tongue in cheek] I would guess that all of you who tie on a Renzetti/ Dynaking/ HMH/ etc., should have no problems with this tool [/tongue in cheek] .
After tying a few typical tube patterns like the one pictured waaay up at the top of this post, and being happy with the tool’s holding power, I decided it was time to pull the deer hair out.
I went through my mental rolodex of patterns I’ve been wanting to convert to a tube, and sitting way up on top was the Crayfish Muddler, a crayfish pattern developed by Hatches Magazine Editor, Will Mullis.
As I put more and more force on the thread, the hair spun, and the tool stayed put in my vise’s jaws. But more importantly, the metal rod that holds the tube didn’t bend, the tube didn’t spin, and I was happy enough with the results that I broke my blood oath to never endorse another HMH product again.
So, if you want to enter the world of tubes, I’d say this tool is well worth the $25.
Singlebarbed’s 6th Finger Scissors worked well, too. Though I have to admit to setting them on my desk a few times between snips out of pure habit.
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Gear Review: HMH’s Tube Fly Tool
Posted on November 20th, 2009 No comments
I haven't named this one yet, but I was stoked to finally tie something I've had pictured in my head for forever now
Well I finally got a chance to play with a couple new toys yesterday. Singlebarbed’s 6th Finger Scissor , and HMH’s Starter Tube Fly Tool .
To tie tubes in the past, I’ve either used an allen wrench, or just put the tube directly in my vise’s jaws. The allen wrench works okay, but I’ve never been able to spin/stack deer hair without the wrench slipping a little in the jaws from all the torque on the tube. Putting the tube right in my vise’s jaws worked alright, too, but I ran into the same problem when spinning hair, and would sometimes crush plastic tubes.
I ordered the HMH Tube Fly Tool from J Stockard Fly Fishing . They aren’t one of my sponsors or anything, I just like doing business with them. Plus, for my recent birthday, I got a $50 gift certificate to use there from my mother-in-law.
Like all poor bastards savvy shoppers, I spent a good deal of time going through the tying materials on the J Stockard site, trying to figure out a way to squeeze everything I’ve been meaning to add to my materials arsenal onto that $50 credit. The list of stuff that I first filled my shopping cart with looked drastically different than my final order. My first instinct was to get as many hooks as I could. Then I remembered that I have been wanting to play with rattles on my carp flies, and Stalcup’s Damsel Body on my panfish flies. Then I added a bunch of synthetic hair before I ran into the HMH tube fly coneheads and remembered that this is the tying season that I go to tubes for all my streamer patterns instead of regular hooks. And before you knew it, I was removing just enough stuff that I could add the Tube Fly Tool pictured above to my cart without going over my $50 limit.
Now before I give a glowing review on this product, I’ve got to admit that after a past experience with HMH while I was writing the DayTripper blog, I really didn’t want to. I won’t go into details or anything, but I only point it out because I had sworn to myself that I’d never give a positive review for another HMH product again after what happened behind the scenes.
Yet here I am, about to tell you that the HMH Tube Fly Tool is rock solid in my vise- a Danvise by the way, so [tongue in cheek] I would guess that all of you who tie on a Renzetti/ Dynaking/ HMH/ etc., should have no problems with this tool [/tongue in cheek] .
After tying a few typical tube patterns like the one pictured waaay up at the top of this post, and being happy with the tool’s holding power, I decided it was time to pull the deer hair out.
I went through my mental rolodex of patterns I’ve been wanting to convert to a tube, and sitting way up on top was the Crayfish Muddler, a crayfish pattern developed by Hatches Magazine Editor, Will Mullis.
As I put more and more force on the thread, the hair spun, and the tool stayed put in my vise’s jaws. But more importantly, the metal rod that holds the tube didn’t bend, the tube didn’t spin, and I was happy enough with the results that I broke my blood oath to never endorse another HMH product again.
So, if you want to enter the world of tubes, I’d say this tool is well worth the $25.
Singlebarbed’s 6th Finger Scissors worked well, too. Though I have to admit to setting them on my desk a few times between snips out of pure habit.
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Rerun: Labor Day Carp
Posted on September 17th, 2009 No commentsIt’s college time for me again, so since free time is scarce, I thought I’d share an old post from almost 2 years ago to the day that I wrote after my first time fly fishing for Carp. I’ve got English Comp I and II under my belt now, so I couldn’t help but go [...]
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That Fresh Feeling
Posted on May 28th, 2009 No commentsAfter writing yesterday’s post, I begged and pleaded with asked my wife if we could go home to Michigan this weekend. Although she initially wasn’t to keen on the idea, I eventually talked her into it. Just goes to show the power of visualization. So tonight, instead of hitting the carp flat, I’ll be packing.
To [...] -
That Fresh Feeling
Posted on May 28th, 2009 No commentsAfter writing yesterday’s post, I begged and pleaded with asked my wife if we could go home to Michigan this weekend. Although she initially wasn’t to keen on the idea, I eventually talked her into it. Just goes to show the power of visualization. So tonight, instead of hitting the carp flat, I’ll be packing.
To [...] -
The Perfect Day
Posted on May 28th, 2009 No commentsMore than anything in the world, I wanna go back home to northern Michigan this weekend. I want to take a walk through the cedar swamp, to the hardwood ridge overlooking the Black River where I proposed to my wife. I want to take the long way back to the car, and hopefully find a [...]
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Pinklining
Posted on May 19th, 2009 No commentsThanks to Midcurrent, we have the term “bluelining”. Thanks to Singlebarbed, we’ve got “brownlining.” Now, 40 Rivers is proud to coin the term, “Pinklining.”
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Local Banter
Posted on April 24th, 2009 No commentsAnyone else in New York’s Capital District noticed the weather forecast for this week?
While fishing the Mohawk with my son the last three days, we watched the water levels fall significantly. I don’t know how many times I told him that any time the fishing is gonna be off the hook. We just need a few consecutive days of warmer air temps to get things moving. Seeing the forecast above this morning tells me that by the end of the week, there will be no excuses for not finding fish.
This is what we’ve been waiting for- at least those of us who target the area’s warmwater species. For trout and steelhead I’d like to see more mostly cloudy days, but I’m not complaining. In fact, I feel pretty good about how the the next few weeks should fish.
The bass are in that phase where they’re cruising the shallows; either solo or with a few buddies. The smaller fish are aggressively taking flies, but the big guys just aren’t ready to commit yet. Even my son who is fishing with live bait is having a tough time getting the bigger bass to suck in a glob of worms. I watched one Largemouth in the 18″ neighborhood come over to check out his wormy goodness, it’s tail came up as it’s nose literally touched those squiggly invertibrates. But he didn’t eat. While hauling in crappie after crappie yesterday, there were several bass that would repeatedly follow his crawler back to shore- again, not fully committing. I couldn ‘t help but feel I could have got one of them to take a small fly slowly hopped across the bottom, but it wasn’t my time to fish.
Word on the street says that the areas carp were active during our last little warm up, then they disappeared when things got cold again. I have a hunch that by the end of the week, I’ll have caught my first carp of ‘09.
Then there are those coldwater species to consider…
Most area streams are actually looking mighty tempting after the high flows we’ve been looking at. According to the Delaware River Club’s Blog , The Upper Delaware River System is seeing those typical early season hatches: stones, black caddis, BWO’s, etc.
The warm weather over the next week should motivate some of the Battenkill’s early season bugs to make their presence known. However, if I had a chance to get over there, I’d be flogging big streamers.
Then there are those migratory rainbows we easterners call steelhead, that are getting groovy in the Lake O tribs. Sure, every steelheader worth his weight lives for those days when you can’t feel your fingers, or you walk off the river drenched from storms that drop enough rain they could be classified as tropical storms; but you gotta love chasing chrome in a T-shirt.
Yes, us Capital Districters have plenty of options right now, not to mention those salty mofo’s who’ll be making their way up the Hudson any time now. I love this time of year. One night I’ll be tying #20 olives, 10″ woolhead streamers the next. It’s that time when you gotta have your 4wt and your 8wt with you at all times, cause you need them.
Tonight, when you get home from work, raise your favorite tall one towards the ceiling. Cause this is what we’ve been waiting all winter for.
Wintery coldness is officially over.
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Ripples
Posted on April 24th, 2009 No comments- Just watched “Hustle and Fish”, full review coming on Monday http://tinyurl.com/cojdw9 #
- Will it Blend? http://tinyurl.com/2t5trc #
- Looking forward to getting Hustle and Fish in the mail http://tinyurl.com/cojdw9 #
- Damn, I forgot how good 70 and mostly sunny felt… #
- trying to figure out where to find that first carp of the season after work #
- I am the king of internet checkers #
- Debate to save Michigan UP’s Coaster Brook Trout rages on http://www.detnews.com/article/20090416/METRO/904160461/1409/METRO #
- The Flyosopher spews venom towards PETA- hilarious as usual http://tinyurl.com/dlcqev #
- FAS posts excellent article on better understanding of reflection as it relates to photography http://flyartstudio.com/wordpress/ #
- Pennsylvania’s largest Brook Trout of 2008 http://tinyurl.com/ddrpk3 #
- Am I the only one feeling a little worried about the flows around NY being below normal already? http://tinyurl.com/c4gyqn #
- MI Environmental Council to award Rusty Gates w/ it’s Petoskey Prize http://tinyurl.com/dlqzup #
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The No Camera Curse
Posted on April 23rd, 2009 No commentsWhen I pulled up to the access spot, I was surprised to see a truck already there. First instinct told me to go to a different spot, but I decided to hop out and see if there were any tails sticking up on the glassy flat below the pocketwater. As I came down the trail, I saw the other guy with a net in one hand, flipping over rocks with the other.
“How’s it going?”
“Alright” He says.I scanned the flat, then noticed a fly rod sitting on the bank.
“Any luck?” I ask.
“Nah, they’re not biting here. I’m gonna go downstream.”He picked up his rod and walked up to an old Ford Ranger. I scanned the barren flat for a few more seconds, weighing my options.
Something told me that this guy was a tool, so I walked up the trail to my car and slid my waders on as he broke his rod down. Not that it would have mattered if he was some sort of fly fishing god, when I’ve got a feeling about a spot, I trust it. No words were spoken, but body language said he thought I was either an idiot for fishing where the fish weren’t biting, or an arrogant SOB. Either way, he was probably right.
I tied on the fly I call “The Other One”. It’s probably my second most productive fly for carp and smallies. I waded out to the slackwater pockets at the tail of the riffles and started working it parallel to the white water. Strip, strip, strip. Next thing you know I can feel something descent throbbing on the other end. It felt way to big to be a bass, so I was guessing it was a small carp when it erupted out of the water. It was no carp. I fought it the rest of the way in and slowly knelt down, completely and utterly blown away by this fish. It’s the fish I’ve been chasing for probably 10 years, and the one thing killing the moment is the realization that my camera is on my computer desk.
I couldn’t help but notice how big this fish was compared to my hands. I touched my thumb to it’s front lip and then stretched my pinky finger as far towards it’s tail as it would go and then touched my thumb to where my pinky just was and repeated. It was a little over two and a half stretches long, and after a quick calculation, I realized I was holding my first 20″+ smallie.
A million thoughts raced through my head, but I knew what I had to do. I popped the fly from it’s upper lip, then burned the fish into my memory before lowering it back into the water and watching it leisurely fade away.