I hope everyone is having a great Thanksgiving holiday! Mine was and is most excellent. I’m at Jacqulyn’s family home today getting ready to eat Thanksgiving supper one day late. I do a lot of griping, but I am thankful for a lot. Just a few of those things:
1. My Wife
2. My Family
3. My Lord Jesus Christ
4. My friends
5. My job (even though I do a lot of complaining about it)
6. My health and the health of my family and friends
7. Opportunities for travel and fishing and the hope for more
8. Memories of good times and good friends
9. This country
10. A sound mind (there are those who might argue this point)
During this day, I have had a lot of time to sit, relax, read, and tie some flies. I finally got around to tying a few parachute royal wulffs. During the middle of my tying session Jacqulyn’s father managed to almost roast himself and the entire house. He was checking the turkey to see how it was coming when the pan, full of turkey grease, twisted out of his grip, spilling hot grease all over himself and the oven. The grease burst instantly into flames when it hit the heating element in the oven. Lots of drama, but everything turned out okay with Mr. Meeks coming out with only a few scorched hairs.
Any way, I included a photo of my royal wulff which managed to make it out without getting scorched. Although I was pretty rusty when I did this one, the fly is fairly representative of my current skill level. Not too bad, but I still have a few problems with proportioning, and I have trouble with my parachutes landing upside down too often. To combat the upside down landings I tied the wing post lighter than in the past and tied the hackle heavier and longer . I tend to tie too far back on the hook shank resulting in the tail getting tilted down slightly. Need to correct that. Feel free to comment with more tips for me if you see anything else wrong.
Well, I guess that’s all for today. Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend, and maybe you can get out and catch a few late autumn fish or hunt down a duck or deer. I won’t be fishing this weekend, but tomorrow I will be outside smoking ribs for five hours in a couple of homemade smokers while tying flies. Sounds like a great day to me! Take care,
hawgdaddy
Well, I tied several more of these on Saturday. I managed to get them looking quite a bit better. I got the tail looking correct, I placed the wing a little closer to the eye of the hook, and I got the hackle to “lay down” a little better as opposed to pointing up all over the place. I guess practice does help. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving,
hawgdaddy
I just got all my fly tying stuff back out of the boxes…I am so tired of moving!!! Maybe this time I can get a few tied before I move again. There was a Wooly Bugger still in the vise with only the lead wire on it (yes it was packed that way). I probably should finish that one first!