Get it here
http://www.nwsalmonflyguild.org/ia/ia_shop/index1.html
 
 
Great place to do business with.

i just let em fly

Sweet ties man!
 
Out of curiousity, how much time do you spend on one of those flies?

Sweet flies, KJH.
 
Been up to tieing some flies w/hooks my dad used to tie on when he was about my age..
 

 

 

 

 
 
Fished a few of them today.. the winds were crazy.

 
Had one solid tug, but he was gone.
 
 
 
 
 

swgr- thanks... the green halo tag didn't show well... been messing with the pheasant is fun
i also picked up some 14/0 today... trying to loose the bulk

FFPA- good stuff... stop doing the dew

Plum, thanks for the words. Hopefully they improve enough that I can fish w/them well next season.
 
KJH.. When you up at NC did Orvis have any salmon hooks? Smaller thread?
 
 

ORIGINAL: flyfishermanPA

Plum, thanks for the words. Hopefully they improve enough that I can fish w/them well next season.

KJH.. When you up at NC did Orvis have any salmon hooks? Smaller thread?

 
flyfishermanPA,
 
Your flies are OK now.  The more you tie, the better they will look.
 
Small neat heads are important to the overall appearance of a fly.  8/0 thread will give you a small head.  You can buy finer thread than 8/0, but it's really not necessary for Erie sthd flies. IMO, uni thread is an excellent choice.  This is the thread of choice of most atlantic salmon tiers.
 
As for hooks, down eye 1x or 2x long, 2x heavy are good. Tiemco 5262 is a good choice for this type of fly.
 
Up eye, atlantic salmon hooks do make an attractive fly, if you want to tie on them, start out with mustads. There are better quality salmon hooks available, mustads are ok and reasonably priced.
 
Hook size for erie swinging flies - 6, 8, 10
 
thread colors - black, white, chartreuse, fire orange.  Most flies call for black heads, many require a red head, I prefer to substitute fire orange for red.  If you are tying a light colored fly, work with white thread and finish the head usually with black or red.
 
My favorite fly for swinging is a tube/conehead, but for bigger water than what I believe you are fishing.
 
FishUSA has 8/0 uni thread and Tiemco 5262 hooks.

I say tie big flies. Give them a reason to chase. But thats just me. Got this droppie the other day. She went around 28". May be the last for me this season. But I'll probably get out a few more times before I cal it.
 

 

I was thinking about practicing tying a few of this style...do the swinging tactics and flies work on local stockies with standard equipment? I cant see why not, but if theres a good reason (probably more to do with the smaller water than the fish), I'd like to know before I go too nuts on material.

you don't have to swing deep
 
i had a bang up day on stockies about a month ago only 12in deep at the most
unweighted picked out black angora buggers w a gold rib
that bass from above was from swinging/skating a foam gurggler (dry)
 
swinging will work in any moving water... the key is current
fish to the dept of the fish

tone isn't expressed through the interwebs
 
wasn't trying to bust balls
 
merely expressing that swinging tech isn't strictly for dredging...
rather a way to present a range of flies in a range of depts (dry, soft hackles, streamers)
 
 
 

i have had unreal resulting skating dries for hungry summer mountain brookies...
explosive takes... 2 and 3 fish fighting for the same fly
 
also had some salmon explode from the bottom for shallow swings...
 
 
i'm a fan of swinging black patterns just under the surface...
fish looking up will see a sillouette, not the details

I wish..
 
PNW

Swinging depth, steelhead
 
I understand pefectly where a steelheads eyes are and the fact that they tend to look up rather than down for something to take. By swinging deep, I mean the lower half of the water column.  I dont want my fly on the bottom, but within 1 to 2 ft of bottom.
 
My favorite river to fish often runs a turbid gray/green color. I've had some very good days with only 1 to 1 1/2 ft of visibility.  This is why I prefer fishing deeper than perhaps you do.  The average run on this river is about 4 ft.  I want my fly usually at about 3 ft.  If the fly is fishing shallower than say 2 ft off bottom, it may not even be visible to the fish under a lot of water conditions on this river.

The Meiser MKS 12'6" 5/6 looks like a real nice rod for big Erie water, bet you'll be happy with it.
 
Entertaining the idea of getting a Sage Z-AXIS 12'6" for the Catt., not sure about wt, either a 5 or a 6wt. do you have any experience with this rod? If so, what wt would you recomend?