Archives

Month: November 2024

  • Happy Thanksgiving


    When I went to pick up our turkey from Hemlock Hill Farm this year, I noticed a turkey feather on the ground. I couldn’t resist tying a couple flies with it. The barbs and afterfeathers provided nice bodies and tails for these dry flies and midges. Sizes 16 and 18. Happy Thanksgiving!

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  • Turning Tenkara Line Spools


    Turning Tenkara Line Spools

    I turned some tenkara line spools out of spalted maple on the lathe. Tenkara spools are something you can wrap your line around while in transit. Tenkara rods are longer than standard fly rods, collapsable, and have a fixed length of line tied to the end instead of a reel. When you move around, a…

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  • Week of November 18, 2024


    The cold weather is here, and I am happy to have it. It snowed on Friday, but melted overnight. Given the weather, I’m in full hearty meal mode. Charlie was home sick on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. That made for a challenging work week. He was vomiting, but had full energy and was bouncing off…

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  • Week of November 11, 2024


    I’ve been working on other people’s blogs at work all day, time to post on mine. Downtown Peekskill with Amanda and Charlie on Monday evening. We went to dinner at the Irish place, and we also checked on the Little Free Library and exchanged some books. We had another tough weekend with Charlie, so I’m…

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  • Week of November 4, 2024


    Short post this week. I need to get some sleep. It has been a long week and I am tired. This work week was stressful and parenting was difficult. Optimistic that next week will be better. I made my own rosin and fly tying wax this week. I tied a few flies this week, too.…

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  • Making Rosin and Fly Tying Wax


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    Two weeks ago I scraped some pine resin off of a pine tree. This week I turned it into rosin, then blended it into fly tying wax. What is rosin? Rosin is the stuff musicians rub on violin bows to help them grip the strings better and produce better vibrations. Baseball pitchers use it to…

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  • Wool Yarn Body Frenchie Nymphs


    Trying out some jig hook Frenchie nymphs with Shetland Spindrift wool yarn bodies instead of traditional pheasant tail bodies. This is my first time using the pheasant tail feather my Dad found, and my second time using dubbing. I’m getting better at the dubbing, but still inconsistent. I’m going to sleep on it, then pick…

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  • Week of October 28, 2024


    Charlie worked with me in the shop on Monday night and I got down the hand drill and bit brace for him to check out. I was surprised by how quickly he grokked them. It was cool to see. He drilled decent holes by himself much safer than with a battery drill. I’ll have to…

    Read more…: Week of October 28, 2024