Fish, Flies & Water » Bugs & Such

Art Archive – DTF Mayfly Adult

JB — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 20:12:08 +0000

Continuing the FF&W Art Archive series with another image from the book, Designing Trout Flies. This one is from page 45. The collection of numbers correspond to colored pencils that I used for the “presentation” edition of the book. That edition was quite a beauty: handmade wood boxes (with burled panels), leather covers, all of the [...]

Art Archive – DTF Mayfly Nymph 1

JB — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 02:19:22 +0000

For those of you who have a copy of the book, Designing Trout Flies, you’ll likely recognize this illustration (see page 25). What’s a bit different is the collection of numbers (corresponding to pencils) and colors. The notes were part of my artistic preparation for working on the “presentation” edition of the book. That edition [...]

Some Favorite Art – Gaylord Schanilec

JB — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 04:37:08 +0000

I actually blogged about Gaylord and his work a few years ago—before I decided to do a major blog upgrade and killed my old database. Since that time Gaylord has been working on a variety of projects, but his mayfly art is still available (as is his beautiful book, Mayflies of the Driftless Region). If [...]

Trico Snowstorm on the Clark Fork

JB — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 02:40:09 +0000

September snowstorm in Montana? No, Tricos. Hit it just right this morning on the Clark Fork, fishing with my good friend, Flynn Sherick. The insects were mostly isolated to one stretch of the river on our float, but it was madness where the spinners were coming down. In addition to the usual pods of rapid-fire [...]

Film Flies & Shutterbugs

JB — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 19:01:17 +0000

Some FF&W readers may know that my “back-in-the-day” history involves a five-year stint working in the film and TV industry in L.A. Met a lot of amazingly creative and brilliant people in that time, and got work with a more than a few fellow fly-fishers on-set, as well. In that vein, MidCurrent just posted a cool [...]

Some Old Art: Ephemera danica

JB — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:07:26 +0000

With “big mayflies” of various kinds now hatching in many parts of the northern hemisphere, I thought that I’d toss up a drake illustration that I did in the last century. Was originally a pen-and-ink piece, but this sample was subsequently hand-colored (pencil with liquid blender). I think a related fly-tying piece may be in order [...]

Trout’s Eye Hoppers

JB — Thu, 06 May 2010 04:00:51 +0000

These are a couple of shots that I had posted over at FlyTalk, but I thought they’d be of interest here, too. Basically a trout’s eye view of a real hopper, along with a furled variation of the Bow Legged Hopper pattern (original, non-furled recipe below). You can see the edge of the fish’s window in [...]

More on Fishing Dry Damselflies Wet

JB — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:01:58 +0000

After the Braided Butt Damsel post, I got a couple of questions about fishing damselfly adult patterns wet. Using the BB Damsel pattern shown, with a yarn parachute post (versus foam), the fly can be fished “damp” easily (just fish “sans floatante“). If you need to get the fly deeper, or are fishing a pattern [...]

Braided-Butt Damsel (Fly Pattern)

JB — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:01:34 +0000

If you’re not into fly tying the above title could give you pause, but if you are into the “vice of the vise,” then here’s a post for you. This has already been up over on GB’s blog, but I figure why not post it here, as well? This is from GB’s 1991 book, Designing [...]

Modern Midges

JB — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:28:51 +0000

I forgot to mention that I made a couple of small contributions (emphasis on the “small” part) to this project: a fly pattern (the Cross Dresser) and a short techniques piece. Authors Rick Takahashi and Jerry Hubka put some serious effort into this book (with tyers from all over the world contributing), and the finished product [...]

Terrestrial Time: Tying the Bow-Legged Hopper

JB — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:18:51 +0000

Yeah, it’s October and I’m still finishing up the terrestrial series. I’ve been working hard on another project lately, so I’ve slipped behind here at FF&W over the last couple of weeks. None-the-less, here is the promised hopper tying piece (an older, but still good, pattern). As with the previous beetle post, rather than trying [...]

Terrestrial Time: Hoppers

JB — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:01:24 +0000

As with the previous beetle post, this is a snip from the July ’09 E-List mailing. I promised the E-List that I would add some info here on the blog (on fly tying, specifically). The tying part is coming up next. Actually, this is post 5 of 6 (each terrestrial subject has two parts). One [...]

Terrestrial Time: Tying the Thompson Foam Beetle

JB — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:50:45 +0000

Took me long enough, but here is the “terrestrial time” beetle-tying post. As with the previous ant post, rather than try to re-type all the info, I have done the digital equivalent of a tying scrapbook. The images below are scanned (and then Photoshopped) straight out of GB’s 1991 book, Designing Trout Flies (there is no [...]

Terrestrial Time: Beetles

JB — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:07:44 +0000

As with the previous ant post, this is a snip from the July ’09 E-List mailing. I promised the E-List that I would add some info here on the blog (on fly tying, specifically). The tying part is coming up next. Actually, this is post 3 of 6 (each terrestrial subject will have two parts). [...]