All You Wanted to Know About Dubbing, with Tim Cammisa
Podcast Transcript:
Tom: Hi, and welcome to the "Orvis Fly Fishing" podcast. This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer. And my guest this week is my friend, Tim Cammisa. And you may have listened to my podcast with Tim before. He's a very enthusiastic guy. He's a teacher by profession, and he's also a great... [00:00:30.350] He's a school teacher, but he's also a great fly fishing teacher. And Tim is always fun. And the topic this week is dubbing. So, if you're not a fly tyer, you might not be that interested in the podcast. But we're gonna talk about different types of dubbing, different ways of putting dubbing on a hook, and there's a lot to dubbing. And I get a lot of questions about dubbing. So, I thought I would address it [00:01:00.060] with Tim who's a great fly tyer and has written some fly-tying books and teaches fly tying. So, anyway, I hope you enjoy that. Again, if you're not a fly tyer, I apologize. There'll be something for you next week.
And before we get into the Fly Box, just wanted to give you some heads up on some places you might wanna visit with Orvis-endorsed guides, lodges, and outfitters this season. First on [00:01:30.260] the list this week is a guide, Jay Aylward. And Jay is located in Central Massachusetts. I know Jay. He's a great guy. He's also a really serious naturalist. So, if you go on a guided trip with Jay, you're gonna learn a lot more than just about fishing. You're gonna learn about some of the flora and the fauna and the bug life and all kinds of things. So, Jay guides on the Deerfield, the Westfield, the Swift Rivers, and he also guides for big bass and pike. [00:02:00.159] So, if you're in the New England area, especially if you're in the Massachusetts area, he's a great one to look up.
Our outfitter this week is Old Moe Guide Service. This guide service is located on the Green River in Utah. And the Green River is one of my very favorite North American trout streams. I don't get to it that often because it's a long way for me to go. And unless I find myself on business in the [00:02:30.599] Salt Lake City area, it's tough for me to get there. It's an out-of-the-way place. But it is one of the most beautiful trout streams, one of the most productive trout streams. It has great dry fly fishing, really good dry fly fishing most days. It has also good nymph and streamer fishing. Has an incredible population of wild brown trout mixed in with some rainbows. And again, it's just gorgeous water, [00:03:00.275] big fish, and great hatches. So, if you haven't ever been to the Green River in Utah, it's a place you wanna go. And I would go with Old Moe Guide Service. They're an Orvis-endorsed outfitter.
And then finally, the lodge for this week is the Skeena River Lodge in British Columbia. And, of course, it's a steelhead lodge, and there is nothing more classic steelhead than British Columbia steelhead rivers, [00:03:30.715] particularly the Skeena, which is a big, beautiful, very productive steelhead river. The lodge is gorgeous. It's a full-service lodge. It's got a sauna, steam room, a jacuzzi. It's located in a spectacular part of British Columbia where you might see moose, bears, wolves, eagles, and, of course, incredible scenery. And also, they also fish for Pacific salmon, and particularly in July [00:04:00.185] and August, which are the best months for Grand Slam on all five species of Pacific salmon and steelhead. So, again, that's Skeena River Lodge in British Columbia. All three of these operations are listed on the Orvis website in orvis.com/adventures, where you can find an interactive map and find these and many, many other great places that we personally [00:04:30.435] visit on our vacations and hosted trips.
All right. Now, let's do the Fly Box. And the Fly Box is where you ask me questions or you pass along a tip. And if I can answer them, or I wanna answer them, I feel like answering them, I'll read them on the air. You can either just type your question into your email, or you can attach a voice file on your phone and then email it to me. And the email address is [00:05:00.089]
Well, RK, thank you. That is a great suggestion on how to weigh lines and at least get an idea of what they are. And [00:06:30.050] if you're wondering what those weight ranges are in grains, you can look that up on the internet yourself. Just look for AFTMA or AFFTA fly line specs. And somewhere, you'll find the range in grains that each fly line is supposed to weigh. Fly line manufacturers these days often go quite a bit over those ratings. They overline a lot of lines, and [00:07:00.620] that's a long story, but it has to do with some rod makers making their rods too stiff.
Brendan: Hey, Tom, this is Brendan from Pennsylvania. Had a question for you on split shot. I was fishing earlier today and faced a couple of scenarios where I needed to add split shot. And when I did, I noticed that I definitely was getting more takes, but I also missed quite a few fish and couldn't set the hook on them. And so, I'm wondering if adding split shot makes it harder to [00:07:30.029] set the hook on fish, or did I just have a bad day and was missing fish and it was more user error? Also, I'm wondering if it is harder to set the hook on fish when you have split shot, I'm wondering if a similar scenario happens when you're fishing two nymphs and the fish takes the lighter nymph. And is it harder to set the hook on that fish when you have a heavier nymph kinda weighing down that [00:08:00.100] lighter nymph? Thanks, Tom. Appreciate it. Bye.
Tom: Well, Brendan, yeah. I think that anything that you add to your rig, whether it's a strike indicator, a split shot, or a second nymph is gonna affect your hook setting a little bit because you got extra weight on there and you have to pull to counter that weight before you can set the hook. So, yeah, I think it would matter. And, you know, if you're worried [00:08:30.240] about that, then try using just a single weighted nymph, and no split shot if you can get down there. Sometimes adding a longer tippet or a thinner tippet will help you get down as much as using a split shot. But, yeah, it will probably hinder your hook-setting ability just a bit. I mean, the thing here is to maybe set the hook a little bit harder and a little bit quicker if you can. That's easier said than done because fish can spit a nymph out [00:09:00.009] so quickly. But, yeah, I think that's probably the reason that you missed some fish. The other thing is it's possible that fish were hitting your split shot, you know? They see something in the water column that looks relatively interesting, and they put it in their mouth. And, you know, I think sometimes fish actually do hit the split shot.
Here's a question from Dakota. "Thank you for the podcast. I drive a lot for work and listen to you for hours a day. [00:09:30.090] Thank you for all the knowledge you give us. I recently started tying flies pretty frequently and have a few questions. Number one, does UV resin dry completely? When I finish a perdigon nymph, it always seems to be somewhat soft. I don't know if maybe I need to upgrade my light or if it's just how UV resin works. Number two, I recently started tying many elk hair caddis dry flies from Pennsylvania, and I fish a lot in Western Maryland. Can I add head cement to the head of the fly for a more durable fly, or will this affect the way [00:10:00.149] it floats? Looking forward to hearing from you, and thank you for all that you and Orvis do for fly fishing."
Well, Dakota, those are great questions. To answer your first question, UV resin is not a cure-all. And I keep repeating this over and over again. There are places for it, and there are places when other things will work better. It shouldn't be a substitute for head cement. But if you're doing bodies on perdigons or you're making surf candies or [00:10:30.205] some sort of epoxy body flies, then, yeah, UV resin works great. The problem with most of them is that they leave a tacky surface on the resin. Now, some resins claim that they're tack-free, and I've never seen one that's totally tack-free. So, what a lot of people do is after they finish their UV resin body, then they coat it with hard as nails or head [00:11:00.235] cement or, you know, some other clear nail polish, and that will dry hard and it won't be tacky. So, you can do that.
Another thing is that sometimes your UV light loses strength. And what I do is if I'm tying a batch of flies, I almost always replace the batteries in my UV light or recharge the batteries or recharge the light. Some of them are rechargeable. You need full power on those UV lights to really cure your fly. And [00:11:30.125] make sure you hold the UV light close to the fly as close as you can. Make a number of rotations, not just a single rotation. And then a final step that you might do is stick the flies in a fly holder or a piece of styrofoam or something and put them outside in the sunlight. That will ensure further curing. But I think that your batteries might be weak in your light, so replace them. And then, you know, if it's still tacky, [00:12:00.095] because some UV resins are, then put a thin coat of something clear and hard over the top of it.
Regarding your second question, you could put some head cement in the head of your elk hair caddis. What I would do is I would thin some head cement down. I get another bottle, and I get some head cement thinner that's appropriate for whatever head cement you're using and [00:12:30.264] thin it down and then apply that to the head of your fly because you don't wanna apply too much head cement to the fly. That head on an elk hair caddis actually traps air bubbles and helps it float. But, yeah, if you wanna put a little head cement in there, not a bad idea. But I have a better suggestion for you, actually, than doing it that way. When you tie an elk hair caddis, don't just tie the wing down in one spot [00:13:00.360] and then whip finish under the head because what that's gonna do is allow that hair to to pull out and it will also rotate around the hook shank.
So, here's a method that I use, and I know a lot of other people use this. Tie in your elk hair with, you know, good half dozen tight turns with a pinch wrap, and then pull about a quarter to a third of the butt ends of the hair straight up [00:13:30.392] and cinch them down right in front of them. And then do that like two or three wraps, and then pull another third forward or another quarter and cinch those down so they're sticking straight up. And then continue through the piece of the butt ends of the elk hair until you've gone three or four different bunches through there. That's gonna really lock that head in there. And I don't think it'll pull out and [00:14:00.159] it won't rotate. And if you do it properly, all you need is a drop of head cement on your thread wraps, and you don't need to put any head cement through the whole head of the fly. So, give that a try and see if that works for you.
Here's an email from Rob. "My wife just recently purchased a fly casting course for both of us. This is an Orvis-endorsed fly casting school down in Florida with captain Rick Grassett. It's designed for beginning and intermediate fly casters and will focus on the basic casting [00:14:30.330] principles, improve casting skills, and correcting faults. My question being new to this fly fishing game, what would be the protocol on tipping? I'm not sure if we're supposed to tip or not. Any information will be much appreciated. Thanks, Tom." Well, Rob, first of all, you've got a great instructor there. Rick Grassett's an old friend of mine, and I've fished with him. And he's a wonderful guy and a great teacher. So, good choice there.
You know, tipping, in general, in the fly fishing [00:15:00.129] business is about the same as you'd tip in a restaurant. And, you know, these days, it kinda starts at 20% restaurant workers and other service workers work really hard. And, you know, sometimes it's a thankless job. Not so much fishing guys, but other service people, sometimes they don't get the thanks they deserve. And so, you know, 20% of what you paid for the course, I think would be an appropriate tip. And it's the same thing with a fishing [00:15:30.120] guide. You know, you pay a fishing guide certain amount for the day. If it's a good day, 20% or more. If the guide was not so great, then you can go a little lower. But, you know, it's, a general rule of thumb, the same as any other place where you would tip.
Here's another email from Patrick. "I really love the podcast. Whenever I'm on a long drive to a fishing destination, I've got [00:16:00.120] you on the radio. Latest drive was 13 hours of Tom Rosenbauer, and I got something out of every minute." Well, Patrick, I feel sorry for you having to listen to me for 13 hours. "My question is about changing lines, say, from sink tip to nymphing rig to a dry rig. Do you have separate reels of each line, or do you have separate spools? Where do you store these lines when on the water? Perhaps you do something different. I'm working on being a more proficient angler, and it could use any suggestions [00:16:30.779] you can provide."
Well, Patrick, if you can afford it and you got the space, it's a lot easier to carry extra reels, and that's what I generally do. And if I'm carrying two lines with me, I just put the extra reel either in my sling bag or in my waiter pocket. You know, if you're wearing a backpack, you can throw it in your backpack. But extra spools will work, and they're a little bit more economical, but it takes a little bit more time to [00:17:00.100] change the spool. So, either way will work if you're doing separate lines. And then, by the way, for removing lines from spools and changing lines on reels and so on, there's a great product out there that I just became aware of, made by Scientific Anglers. It's called a Regulator Spool. It's a little device that you can wind a line onto a reel. You can wind a line off a reel and then store it really easily. And it's just a great [00:17:30.144] little product for people that have multiple lines. So, it's worth looking into. Again, that's the Scientific Anglers Regulator Spool. You can find it online in many fly shops. All right. Let's do another phone call. This is a tongue-in-cheek message from Jim in Kansas.
Jim: April 1st, 2025. Tom, this is Jim of Kansas. I'd like to thank [00:18:00.035] you and Orvis for the great podcast, as well as all the great work Orvis does, fly fishing, in general, and trout fishing, in particular. This is my third time reaching out to you. Previously, I asked about getting my pals some coaching to improve their skills now that I've gotten them as far as I'm able to. The second call was about tying flies and using fowl and feathers from my backyard, including [00:18:30.765] blue jay feathers and cardinal feathers. These are all molted. Well, you know, you answered my question, and so I did use some of those collected fathers and tied some beautiful renegades in cardinal red and blue jay blue. I think these flies are some of the best flies I've ever tied. They're balanced, beautiful, and real fishy-looking.
So, recently, [00:19:00.634] while fishing on some public water requiring barbless hooks, I was using these flies when I was approached by a fishing game officer. The officer by the name of Sid Fitch was very professional. Since I had made sure to pinch down all the barbs on the flies I was carrying, I had no concern when Sid asked me to show him my fly box. Well, Sid was kind and [00:19:30.460] specifically asked about those gorgeous renegades. As you know, pride goeth before the fall. I boasted to the officer that I had tied those renegades from feathers out of my backyard. You can see where this is headed. Sid explained to me the penalties for violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act are steep, and I am to appear in court soon. So, [00:20:00.579] couple of things, I wanted to give you a heads up that I may have to throw you under the bus. And my second question is, where can I find a good lawyer? Tom, thanks for the help. I'm gonna be setting up a GoFundMe page. This is Jim of Kansas.
Tom: Well, Jim, since I don't have a dedicated April Fool's [00:20:30.309] podcast this week, that's a good one. I wanna thank you for that. Now, Jim is making a point here. In a past podcast, someone asked me if they found molted feathers in the yard from a cardinal or a blue jay or whatever, if they could keep those and tie flies since the bird doesn't need them anymore. And I found out from someone else that that is technically illegal. You're not even supposed to [00:21:00.140] pick up feathers that have molted from a wild bird. Domestic bird's a different story. But wild bird, you're not even supposed to pick them up. That includes road kills and feathers you found in your backyard. Now, is a wildlife officer going to track you down to see what feathers you have on your flies on the water? No. I don't think so. And I think it would be rare to almost nonexistent possibility. But, technically, [00:21:30.619] it is illegal. So, you've been warned. You do what you want. Just know that now you know the law. And thank you, Jim, for your nice phone call.
Here's an email from another Jim. "My brother-in-law has given me about 12 spools of old tippet, all different sizes and a combination of fluorocarbon and monofilament. He kept all the spools in great shape and stored them in a ziplock bag, but they must be over 20 years old. [00:22:01.009] Can I use them?" Well, Jim, you can throw the monofilament out. Monofilament does degrade with age, less likely if it's been stored out of ultraviolet light, but it's probably... There's two reasons why you should throw it out, or use it around the house for hanging pictures or something. One is that it does degrade. And the other thing is that monofilament nylon has improved quite a bit over the past twenty years. [00:22:30.339] So, it's probably not something you wanna save. On the other hand, fluorocarbon does not break down. And I know that I have fluorocarbon that I use for saltwater fishing that's 20 years older from when it first came out. So, the fluorocarbon is usable. The monofilament is probably not.
Here's an email from Ben from Northern California. "I've been tying flies off [00:23:00.029] and on for about a year now, and we'll see from pattern kits. I've started to feel more confident and would like to step up my game. It's a bit overwhelming trying to figure out exactly what materials I need, and I would like to have multi-purpose materials since that is friendlier on the wallet. I'm looking to tie some smaller drys and nymphs size 14 to 18. Also, I wanna tie small, medium streamers like buggers and scalping. I'm wondering if you have any recommendations for easily transferable materials, especially different feathers. [00:23:30.039] Hackles are much more expensive than I was expecting, and I would like to be able to use one or two capes for multiple different flies. I predominantly fish the McLeod and Upper Sacramento Rivers when steelhead aren't around in larger systems anyway. Thanks as always for all that you do for our community. I listen to your podcast weekly, and I am undoubtedly a better angler as a result. I also greatly appreciate your commitment to conservation and preservation of our beautiful aquatic ecosystems." [00:24:01.484]
So, Ben, I'll start with hackles because there's a number of things you could do here. One is you can buy sized saddle hackles for, you know, your smaller dry flies. In that way, there's no waste. You probably get two, three, four, five flies out of a single saddle hackle. They're sold in things like [00:24:30.224] 100 packs and so on, and they're sized to a particular hook size. And then you could buy bigger feathers for your buggers and scalpens. However, if you want to get a hackle cape, yeah, you'll use the smaller feathers at the bottom of the cape at the skinny end of the cape for your dry flies. And then as you go up into the cape, you'll get some good streamer feathers, neck hackles from dry fly cape in the upper part [00:25:00.105] of the cape. The bigger feathers are actually quite good for tying feather-wing streamers. And they're also good for things like Woolly Buggers or just collars on sculpins and things like that. So, you're gonna use more of the dry fly hackle. And honestly, that's what happens. But you can use those bigger feathers on the top for streamers and big steelhead flies and so on.
Other materials that you could use that are transferable, [00:25:30.904] one thing is EP fiber. EP fiber is a great fiber that I personally use for bonefish flies, for striper flies, for wings on dry flies, for shucks on nymphs. It's a very useful material. And then, of course, your threads are gonna be transferable, and a lot of your dubbings, you know? Just because a sculpin calls for some [00:26:00.244] particular type of dubbing doesn't mean you can't use your same dry fly dubbing on there. So, you know, there are lots of materials that are transferable. Deer hair, for one thing, deer hair, you can use for everything from little tiny midges to deer hair body flies, to caddis flies, to mayfly wings, to parachute wings, and then you can tie bucktails and streamers out of bucktails, or deer hair. So, [00:26:30.805] that's a useful material. And you'll find lots of others, but those are kinda primary ones that are good for lots of different kinds of flies.
Here's an email from Mark from Texas. "Been fly fishing for 20-plus years, and your books, videos, podcasts, and my local Orvis store have been all instrumental in my growth as a fly angler and tyer. I've also had the pleasure of being guided by several Orvis-endorsed guides who expanded [00:27:00.164] my knowledge of both fly fishing and the natural world they work in. First a tip, then a question. I know it's a conundrum for those of us that try to combine fly fishing with photography. We don't want either to get in the way of the other and the results of both suffer. I'll offer a couple of tips that I've used to successfully combine my fishing with quality photography and bring home some great visual memories of places we fish, hike, float, and travel to. I use a 3-liter roll top dry bag with a wide comfortable strap. [00:27:30.345] Wearing across my body, it sits on my right hip. In it is a compact DSLR or mirrorless body with a 24 to 120-millimeter F4 lens attached, fully charged battery, plenty of memory. In the bottom is a polarizing filter, an extra battery, microfiber cloth. The camera body also wears a wrist strap as drop insurance on the river. In inclement weather making a river crossing, I keep the rig rolled down and tight. If fishing action or wildlife is imminent, I leave the top [00:28:00.075] open, ready for action. Either way, I can access the camera or secure it within seconds.
And now, the key part. What do you do with your rod? I need both hands to operate my camera, and laying the rod down in the middle of a stream or anywhere is not very practical and takes away fishing time. Get a rod clip. Mine is the Smith Creek. Basically, a foam-lined aluminum cylinder with a cutout to press your rod into. Attach it to your vest, sling bag, backpack strap at about chest [00:28:30.150] level. No damage to the rod. It's out of the way for taking photos, but you're fishing again in seconds. Now, my question. Where are the baby and adolescent carp hiding? On the rivers, lakes, streams that my partner and I fish, we see the young and smaller varieties of many fish species, bass, sunfish, trout, etc. The carp we see are actively feeding, sunning, and cruising, and catch are all 16 inches plus in size. Where are the little ones?" [00:29:00.505]
Well, Mark, thanks for those tips on taking a good camera with you. And, yes, phones are pretty good these days. But if you're really serious about taking great pictures, there's no substitute for a DSLR or mirrorless camera with the wide variety of lenses that you can take in. You're gonna have better image quality. And that's about actually what I do as well. I think that, you know, having [00:29:30.200] a roll top dry bag and having that camera inside there is essential. If you use a fishing backpack, of course, you can put the camera in your fishing backpack, too. But if you need to take a picture quickly, gotta take the backpack out and pull the camera out of its dry bag. But that dry bag has saved me at least once in the past few years. I took a fairly long swim in a big fast river in Chile one day, and I had my camera in one [00:30:00.150] of those roll top bags, and it stayed perfectly dry even throughout my swim and struggling to get back up the bank.
Regarding your question about baby carp, you know, I'm not sure. One of the things you might be seeing him and not recognize him because carp are a minnow. They're in the minnow family. And when they're young, they might just look like all the other minnows that are in the shallows. But it may be that the baby carp [00:30:30.690] are in deeper water or in shallower water than you're fishing or in some other type of habitat. I honestly don't know. I don't see many fish in carp waters that I recognize as baby carp, but I may be seeing them and not just realizing it. So, they're obviously around somewhere, and it will remain a mystery until maybe a fish biologist comes on the podcast and tells us where those baby carp are hiding.
Aaron: [00:31:00.690] Hi, Tom. Aaron from Hopkinton, Massachusetts here. My wife and I are looking ahead to the not-so-distant future when we'll be empty nesters and considering a move after the kids have left for college. I've heard you mention on the podcast you live on a trout stream, and that's something I've always daydreamed about. Beyond the obvious benefits of being able to walk out your back door and start fishing, are there any things you wish you had known before living by a river or stream? It's clear now more than ever flooding is a concern, but what else should I be thinking about? I know you're not a real estate [00:31:30.075] agent, but I greatly appreciate any advice you can share. Thank you to you and the Orvis team for the great products and learning tools you provide, and tight lines to you and all the listeners. Thanks.
Tom: Well, Aaron, you know, other than the obvious, which is the potential for flooding, which you mentioned, one of, I guess, the thing that I learned about living in a trout stream is first of all that
[00:32:00.511] trout populations go through cycles, and they do move around a bit in certain rivers. And what you see when you move in there might not be what you see a few years later, depending on the number of droughts and floods and so on. And you will probably notice that the fish populations go up and down. They're cyclic, as they are in most drought streams, but just living on one, you recognize it more.
[00:32:30.035] I guess the most important thing that I learned was that you can't fool Mother Nature. When I first moved in, there was almost a 90-degree bend in the river, and I wanted to preserve that bend because it had some nice pools in it. And also, my property line was the center of the river. And if the river broke through that and created an oxbow, I would not only lose some land, but I'd lose some really good pools. So, I spent a fair [00:33:00.105] amount of money, got a machine operator in there, and dumped a whole bunch of stone on the bank to try to protect the bank. And within five years, it still blew out. And, you know, I have tried time and time again. My property, the stream is quite unstable. It's still stabilizing from past land use practices and may take a lot longer to [00:33:30.371] come into some kind of equilibrium. So, I've learned that there isn't a lot you can do. Sometimes we humans are quite arrogant in thinking we can make a river go where we want it to, and that's just not the case. So, I kinda let it go and live with the change in my pools every year.
Oh, you know what? Another important [00:34:00.375] thing is that the importance of riparian vegetation. So, you live on a trout stream, and first thing you wanna do is cut some trees down or remove some brush so that you can walk right down to the river, or you can have a nice view of the river. Don't do that. I didn't, and I'm glad I didn't. I can't see the river nearly as well as I could when I first moved in. I let everything grow back. I even put willows along the banks and planted trees. And, yes, I can't [00:34:30.204] see the river as well now from the house, even though it could be visible, but I have to look through the trees. But the banks are a lot more stable now that I've let all the trees grow in and all the shrubs take over.
So, you know, be careful about cutting down trees. And, you know, you want trees in the water so when they die and fall in the river, you're gonna have good structure. And all that vegetation, all those weeds and things that you're tempted to get rid of so that you can have a nice lawn [00:35:00.264] down to the river is only gonna degrade your habitat. So, I guess those are the most important things I've learned. Okay. That is the Fly Box for this week. Let's go talk to my buddy, Tim Cammisa, about dubbing. Well, my guest today is the great Tim Cammisa, good friend and great fly tyer and author, school teacher, all-around nice guy, [00:35:30.289] and a very serious fly tyer. And, Tim, before we get any further, let's just happen to mention your new book that I have sitting here right next to me.
Tim: Oh, I'm happy to mention it. And by the way, it's an honor to be on your podcast again. I think this is my third time. I figured after my first one, I'm like, "Ah, he's never inviting me back." Then you invited me back. So now that this is number three, I appreciate it. It's lovely to talk again now, [00:36:00.230] though I do wanna tell your listeners, you know, I'm speaking to the listeners now, what you see is what you get with Tom. You know, Tom invited me to fish with him in Vermont before, and he is as generous as he is on the podcast on the water. I mean, he is just that person 24/7. So, I wanna make sure I get that out of the way because you were just so much fun to be on the water with.
Tom: Oh, I cranked at you a little bit.
Tim: Yeah. It was very mild. I was like, "All right. Listen, this is [00:36:30.030] his home water. He showed me some secret spots here. I'm just gonna take it all in." And my Pennsylvania brook trout style is a little different from Vermont, and I had some nice takeaways. It was great.
Tom: Yeah, it was a fun day. Really fun day.
Tim: It was good.
Tom: The name of your new book is "Tying Euro Nymphs and Other Competition Favorites." It's cool because you got fly tying in there, but you've also got a bunch of other experts that are giving tips on both tying and fishing [00:37:00.420] these flies. So, you know, I thought it was a really neat roundup. And this stuff changes, you know, yearly. We discover new things, and there's new ways of putting one more color of floss on a hook behind a bead.
Tim: There's a few different styles of this [crosstalk 00:37:26.398] thing. Listen, I know where you're getting that now. [00:37:30.050] You're chirping already now. Man, we're not even, like, three minutes in. I'm already hearing it about. So, the listeners are clear. Tom wrote a wonderful section in the book. I asked him, you know, "Hey, I'm asking all these experts and these fly tyers and fly fishers from around the country or from around the world to just give some input on, you know, Euro nymphing." And interviewed a lot of people. I mean, we're talking hour-and-a-half to two-hour Zoom interviews with some of the best of the best individuals like Devin Olsen, Fly Fishing Team USA, Howard Croston from the UK. [00:38:00.079] He was a world champion. Lubos Roza from The Czech. I included manufacturers like the Kitcheners from Semperfli, Fronto [SP] Hanak from Hanak Hooks. And it was amazing just to kind of get all their input.
Originally, I set out to talk about, you know, the flies. It was, like, 15 of the current top Euro nymphs, And then I'm like, "Well, I can't just get 15 flies with this macro photography. Let me give 15 variations." So, I included the variations. And then we had to have fishing suggestions for those flies, so I had to include [00:38:30.349] that. But whenever I started looking back through my interview notes, well, we're also talking about just Euro nymphing, in general. So, I had to include, you know, background on Euro nymphing and talk about just some styles, give some leader recipes, stuff that I would want if I was buying this book. Then I realized every single angler also...you know, I asked, I think, Devin a question, "Hey, what would be your top five flies that you would wanna have with you no matter where you're fishing in the world?" And he rattled five off. So, I'm like, "Well, I'll ask that question to everybody else."
So now, I'm looking at the end of the book, and I quickly [00:39:00.074] realized I have confidence fly lists for some of the best anglers from around the world today. Like, "Let's put those in as well," which by the way, like, no one has the same two lists, which I just thought was... It didn't surprise me, but it's just really cool to say, like, George Daniels' list was pretty darn different from Tim Flagler's, and his list was different from, you know, Lance Egan's, and Lance's was different from Josh Miller's. And it was just so cool to see, you know, how all these top anglers, you know, what they do [00:39:30.114] has led them to their own personal success. And that for me was just...it was so neat being able to be the person that put all this stuff together. It was a lot of work on my book. I think I came in about three months late, but I thought your section, you know, because I asked you, you know, "Hey, could you do a little write-up for this?"
I didn't give you any questions. I knew you wouldn't need any guidance. And you kinda posed the perfect question. It's what is a Euro nymph? And, you know, now that I've reflected on that, like, that was such a great question because what is a Euro nymph? Is [00:40:00.034] it just a fly that's tied in the round, you know, could represent a myriad of insects, and it can get to its depth? You know, its proper depth wherever you want it in the right amount of time, which is its general definition, but that could just meet so many different qualifiers. And I think because of your section, Tom, it kinda forced me a little bit more because the book's not Euro nymphs. I mean, there's a section on Euro nymphs that obviously it's strong. I mean, the first main chapter is perdigons, then we have some wing flies, some dubbed flies, [00:40:30.244] but then I also have a section on junk flies. Then I have a section on dry flies because all these top anglers are using dry dropper, so I'm like, "Let's throw the dry flies with that." And then I also have a section on streamers.
So, it turned into this like...you know, if you just read the Euro nymph title, I think that's probably not doing it justice because there's just so much more to the book. And I guess the last thing I'll mention, you talked about how it's ever-changing. I mean, my editor, I think I was driving them crazy because as I just kept getting more and more current information, [00:41:00.465] I would say, "Well, we have to add this, and we have to do this. And, like, I need a picture of Fly Fishing Team USA because they won the bronze. I want this picture in my book. I interviewed half the darn team. I want that picture." And Fulling Mill sent me the picture. And then I'm like, "I'm learning about this, the Popsicle Dry Fly from Josh Miller when he talked about it on your podcast." And I'm like, "Well, I don't have time to include that, you know, full write-up, but I better get a picture of it for my book." So, I was just trying to get all the today's, like, everything that's current with Euro nymphing in [00:41:30.139] my book at the last moment.
Tom: Yeah. And, you know, people shouldn't be afraid if they don't care for Euro nymphing or maybe they haven't tried it, whatever. They shouldn't be afraid of looking at this book and using it because as I said in that little section I wrote for you, I use these nymphs interchangeably. I Euro nymph with stuff that wouldn't be considered Euro nymphs. And I dry dropper and indicator fish with the same [00:42:00.440] flies that I'd use on a Euro rig. So, they're just nymphs. But, yeah, I guess you caught the right description where it's a nymph tied in the round that doesn't really specifically imitate anything that sinks quickly. That's a pretty good overview. But, you know, those can be used at any kind of nymph fishing.
Tim: And I think any type of a rig, [00:42:30.349] they could be used on rivers, they could be used in lakes. I mean, they're very generic patterns, which...
Tom: Absolutely.
Tim: ...I think is...you know, that's kind of the secret sauce, though there are a couple people. You know, I have sections that I really honed in what bead colors, you know, does this angler use? And I have, like, which of the anglers said gold was their favorite. I listed those anglers, which one said copper, which one said light pink. You know, I have all that. And there was even one section where one of the anglers, I think it's Ollie Bassett, he lives down in New Zealand. We were talking through that, and I was like, "Hey, I'm noticing [00:43:00.360] there's so many of these competition anglers that just keep going down in size with their patterns." And I said, "Well, what do you think? What's the secret to that?" And he's like, "Tim, I don't think they're eating the fly at that size. I think they're eating the bead."
And he goes on to tell a story how he fished nothing but a bead in a really pressured area with some really technical rainbow trout, I believe, in New Zealand. And he fished nothing but a bead, a few wraps of thread, and made, like, two or three casts and caught just a gorgeous rainbow. [00:43:30.039] And he felt really guilty, and he's like, "I released it. I felt guilty." But I said, "I bet that was a one-off." And he made, like, five more casts, and he caught another one. And then he was like, "Oh, shoot." And it's like, "I'm a fly tyer. I mean, you don't wanna hear stories like that, which...it's not like I'm not gonna tie just beads. That's not the game for me, and I'm sure not for most." But, you know, you also have to take a step back and be realistic about this. You know, are the fish...? Do they care if we had seven turns of that wire versus five turns? Does that stuff really matter, or is it just confidence [00:44:00.360] for us?
Tom: I hope we never find out.
Tim: You and me both. You and me both.
Tom: But we're gonna talk about something. We're not gonna talk about Euro nymphing per se today. We're gonna talk about something that applies to fly tying in nearly any kind of fly. We're gonna talk about dubbing. What a dumb word, dubbing. And, you know, you're gonna talk, and I'm [00:44:30.105] gonna chime in here and there. But there's a lot of dubbings out there. My god, there's a lot of, you know, premade dubbings, and then you add in all the furs that you can use to blend your own dubbing. It's confusing. And so, I'm hoping that we can help people sort it out a little bit and decide what kind of dubbing they need. And then we're gonna talk a little bit about techniques for putting dubbing on a thread, right?
Tim: Oh, I think [00:45:00.135] we have a lot. You know, you're pushing me for this dubbing one. At first, you said dubbing, and I was like, "All right. Let's talk dubbing." I'm like, "I don't know how much is gonna be there." And, you know, I sent you a little outline. We'll kind of follow. I'll go through the outline. And I started adding my notes, you know, just so I have a general guide as to what we're talking about. And as I was, you know, finishing up, I'm like, "We're not gonna get through all this stuff." There's so much in the world of dubbing. I mean, let's start with, you know, what is dubbing? We'll go to that first level. I mean, [00:45:30.335] in my perspective anyway, it's a base material. We typically use it on the body of flies for a variety of things. I mean, we could use it to add texture, maybe to add bulk to the fly, to add movement. We could use it to add color. In some instances, we use it to add flash, you know, maybe even a hot spot, things like that. But, you know, also you can take a step back and say, you know, you can use it in more of a practical sense. Like, I'm thinking whenever I'm tying dry flies and I wanna split tail, sometimes I'll use a little dubbing ball, [00:46:00.335] and that will help to separate my microfib. Or at times that I'm just saying, "I wanna tie a soft tackle with a partridge or a CDC wing, but I don't want it to completely fold over the body," maybe I'm gonna create a little dubbing ball there to help encourage it to sit up a little bit. So, we have, you know, all these components of dubbing.
Tom: And before we get into types of dubbing, I wanna answer the question that I answer I don't know how many times a year. Yes, you can use [00:46:30.065] cat dubbing. Yes, you can use dog under fur. You could use stuff you scrape off the carpet for dubbing. I have used dryer lint, which dubs very well, by the way. Anything that you can spin on a hook and get it to stay, you can use for dubbing. So, use your imagination.
Tim: Okay. I'm crossing off the unique dubbing. So, Tom jumped to the very end. No, we have a unique [crosstalk 00:46:57.985]. Listen. I mean, yeah, [00:47:00.204] that's it. I don't know. I would tell people, be careful with the lint filter from your dryer because when you get a good mix and you try to replicate that, you're never getting that color again. That's a one-and-done.
Tom: No, it's always kind of a neutral gray, regardless of what [crosstalk 00:47:16.495] you have in the dryer.
Tim: Maybe I'm doing something.
Tom: Maybe you have more colorful clothing than I do, Tim.
Tim: No. But, I mean, yeah, you're right. I mean, I think the more unique, the better. I think in many cases, and we'll get to this when we talk maybe even about blending dubbing, I like my dubbing [00:47:30.090] to be a little bit more unique than others. I want mine to be just a little different if I can. But, I mean, if you even think back, and this is probably dating, you know, both of us because you've been doing this a little bit longer than me, but this is my 35th year of tying flies. I mean, I remember years ago when I first learned, I would find the recipe for a fly. It was called the White Hendrickson, and you had to use, like, a urine stained or a burn vixen of a Red Fox because it gave you that nice light color. And I'm like, "How am I gonna find urine-stained fur? Like, how unique and [00:48:00.110] off the wall is that?" But then as you fast forward through time, I mean, there's even some dubbing that I've gotten in fly shops that have metal into them. I remember...I think it's a Quick Descent Dubbing that...
Tom: Quick Descent, yeah.
Tim: ...we really used to put on. Yeah. But it would add weight to your fly. So, oh my gosh, but whenever it comes to that, where do you wanna go with this? Your pets, yeah, they don't stand a chance at my house. That's for sure.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Meaning when I was a kid in tying flies, I caught a mouse in a mousetrap once, and I skinned it out. And [00:48:30.739] I still use it sometimes. So, you know, anything that you can spin on a thread will work for dubbing.
Tim: Well, listen, I guess that's a perfect segue because I think what you said there is probably...at least in my mind, what's the fundamental tying concept with dubbing? Like, there's one, and it's creating a dubbing noodle, spinning it on thread. I mean, I know, you know, to me, it's just second nature. Like, "Oh, I make these little dubbing noodles [00:49:00.179] and that's my body, and I move on." I'll never forget I taught a fly-tying class at a local fly shop. And I remember I had around 12 students in that class. It was a larger class, and we're halfway through the first fly, and one of the tyers says, "Hey, can you show me that dubbing thing again?" I'm like, "Yeah, it's a dubbing noodle. Let me show you again." And I did, and, you know, he wound up his body, and he was like, "Oh my gosh." He's like, "That's my first dubbing noodle." That alone was worth the price of admission. And sometimes, you know, we forget, like, how we take this stuff for second nature.
So, [00:49:30.059] I think that's the first step is, you know, it's really difficult to stress to people, number one, like, you really want a thin amount of dubbing. I mean, that golden rule is take a pinch of dubbing, split it in half, and maybe even split it in half again. And, you know, start with a really thin amount between your thumb and your forefinger. Sometimes I even use it between my forefinger and my pointer or my middle finger, you know, even pressure. I know I really stress with people as I'm looking at [00:50:00.050] the hook and I'm looking down. I wind so my dubbing goes on clockwise. So, my thumb is going from right to left, and those two fingers are going from left to right. And I'm always going in the same direction. And I think that's a key is that some people go back and forth, and they see it happening so fast, but we're not spinning back and forth. We're just...
Tom: No, one direction.
Tim: ...consistently... Yeah, using it in one direction. And once I get, you know, beginning of that dubbing on, right before I get to the end of it, the end of my noodle, I kinda leave that straggly. And [00:50:30.059] that's because if I wanna add a little bit more to it, I can then put some more dubbing on it and that end of that first initial noodle will kinda help to grab onto my second piece. I did a video with Tom Baltz this summer, and he demonstrated that technique so well [crosstalk 00:50:44.198].
Tom: Interesting.
Tim: Yeah. If you leave that bottom of your dubbing noodle really loose, you can attach more to it. It just really connects. So, that's my key is, like, step one, you know, get a nice thin noodle. I also subscribe [00:51:00.179] to... I'm gonna give credit to Charlie Craven because, you know, whenever I was learning this years ago, I used to say, "All right. I wanna have a tapered body on my dry fly or my nymph," which means I want it to be really thin in the back, and I wanted to kind of get to a carrot taper and build in a nice, you know, smooth transition as I get up to my thorax. And I used to put more dubbing onto my dubbing noodles. So, I would try to taper it on my noodle and wind forward. And then at some point, I learned that, you know, Charlie Craven, his method [00:51:30.130] was keep it one diameter. Don't have a taper on your thread. And if he wants, you know, a thicker body, if he wants to build it up, then he makes more turns with his dubbing noodle. So, that's what he's done for consistency. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, but that's kind of been the way that I've instructed and I've personally tied for the last X amount of years.
Tom: Yeah. Or you can start out with a non-tapered, really super thin noodle, and then add a little more on top of it as you go down the thread. [00:52:00.398] You know, you don't wanna, like, put just a little bunch on for the area near your tail, and then put a big lump, you know, next to that, and they'll interlock better. And also, it does not matter. Don't let Flagler tell you it matters because it doesn't matter whether you dub clockwise or counterclockwise. I've proven it to myself. I've tested it. He says [00:52:30.155] it unwinds, and I can't remember whether it's clockwise or counterclockwise, but it does not matter. Just do whatever is comfortable for you.
Tim: I agree. Yeah.
Tom: Put a lot of pressure on it. I squeeze my thumb and my forefinger almost as hard as I can together when I dub. I don't know about you.
Tim: I wouldn't say I put a ton of pressure, but I will say I agree with you about it's either [00:53:00.175] clockwise or counterclockwise, just not back or forth. So, yeah, I personally don't feel that that matters. I've seen tyers, you know, tie both directions, and their flies have come out. I'm thinking to myself, "Have people, you know, counter-ribbed it, and that's why there's not an issue there?" But I know with my dry flies, the majority of them, they're not counter-ribbed, and I've always gone that one direction. But again, that's not the issue that I see people running into. I mean, one of the big issues is sometimes whenever [00:53:30.344] you're selecting your thread, a lot of tyers...and I recommend a lot of new tyers to go with a GSP, a gel spun polyethylene, something like a nano silk because they're so strong. But the downside of a GSP is they're not naturally waxed.
I think that's an issue. Like, people are saying, "Oh, why is it tougher to dub on this thread?" And it's because, you know, a lot of the threads are wax threads. I know I tie with a lot of Semperfli products, and their wax thread is...it's literally waxed, which [00:54:00.034] just is able to grab the dubbing a little bit more. And I just hate to say to beginners, "Well, you gotta get some thread, you have to buy some dubbing wax, and that's gonna help you," which it will with GSPs. I mean, they have specific waxes for GSP threads, but it's one of those fine balances. Like, what do you recommend to a beginner? Do you go with wax because you know it's gonna grab the dubbing, or do you go with a GSP because you know it's gonna be tougher for them to break their thread? You know, that's one of the dilemmas I have when I'm teaching new tyers, especially.
Tom: You know, [00:54:30.034] back in the days of Danville thread, which we all used, it had a pretty heavy coating of wax on it, and it would gum up your bobbin. I actually think that most threads today are not waxed, or they're extremely lightly waxed. I don't see the same amount of wax on thread as we used to see. And maybe it's because it gums up bobbins. So, you know...
Tim: Or their machinery. Yeah.
Tom: [00:55:00.014] I mean, Semperfli might wax some of their threads, but I think most threads you get are not gonna have any wax on them.
Tim: Yeah. And they have a brand. Theirs is specifically called Waxed Thread. They have two tiers. So, it's Waxed, you know, or the Nano Silk. I mean, those are really the two tiers of threads that I use most frequently with Semperfli at least. You're right. I I have not had a gummed up, you know, bobbin for, well, I don't know, twenty years. I don't know.
Tom: Yeah. [00:55:30.275] So, when do you wax? How often do you wax, or do you wax at all?
Tim: I don't. I'll be honest. I personally don't. I stopped using dubbing wax I don't know how many years ago. Even with GSPs, I also keep a little bowl of water by my tying desk for a variety of things, but if I'm ever having trouble getting a grip on that dubbing, I'll add a little bit of water to my fingers. And that will just kind of keep those materials in check depending on what the materials are. So, that [00:56:00.244] would be a little hack if you wanna call it that. I think the other issue is, and this is very difficult for people that I notice having issues with their dubbing noodles, I don't think they're always using what we would call, like, a user-friendly dubbing. There are some out there. If you're using fine natural dubbings, like beaver, like a super fine, like kapok dubbing, they dub so easy. I mean, they just make you look like a pro.
There was at one point I was doing a tying demo, Tom, I think in Ohio with a fly-tying group there. And imagine it's me on [00:56:30.014] stage, and I have about 50 individuals, 50 tyers out in this audience, and they're all tying, and I've just given them some dubbing. And I remember saying, "I'm gonna give you this kapok dubbing. You're gonna tie with it. You're gonna be like, 'I'm the best fly tyer of all time,' because you're gonna have the nicest dubbing noodle of all time." And as they started making their doodles, you could just hear them exclaiming, like, "What is this stuff? Like, look at this dubbing noodle, and it's certain materials, they're just easier to dub versus if you're choosing something that's really coarse, really slick, some synthetics are just... [00:57:00.034] they're tough." I mean, for me, they're tough to dub. So, whenever you take a tough dubbing like that, something that's really coarse, something that's slick, it's got a lot of flash, and then you're trying to apply that to something like a GSP that doesn't grip at all, it's a recipe for disaster. And you can see how someone's gonna get frustrated. They're just gonna get disappointed, like, "Oh, I can't do a dubbing noodle." So, I guess that's where our conversation's gonna eventually lean into. Let's talk about some of those naturals versus synthetics.
Tom: Yeah, yeah, go ahead. [00:57:30.085]
Tim: All right. Well, let's go down that path. Let's break this into...I guess, we'll do naturals first. I'll share my favorites. I'd love to hear yours, too. We'll get to synthetics, and we'll talk about some that blend the two. I mean, I'll first list the naturals that I've kind of used over the years, then I'll highlight three of them. Over the years as I think about my flies, my Uncle John, he was one of my mentors. He tied so many of his nymphs with muskrat. I have so many pieces still in, you know, full furs [00:58:00.000] in my basement. I love rabbit. I've used seal sparingly, and we can get into that with the synthetics. I've loved beaver dubbing for dry flies, squirrel dubbing, you know, spiky, especially is just some of my favorite. And I think some of the lesser knowns would be something like kapok dubbing, which comes from a plant. So, it's an organic dubbing, something like mohair, which comes from...I think it's an Angora goat. Don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure. And then even, I don't know, an off-the-wall dubbing would be something like CDC, where I've [00:58:30.099] actually taken CDC fibers and made them into a dubbing as well.
So, those are some of the natural ones as I kinda look through my collection to say, "All right. Which ones have I used the most in the last five or six years?" And out of those three, my big three are...I mean, it's easy, rabbit, squirrel, kapok. I mean, those are my three. I mean, I think I use rabbit for so many of my nymphs. I use it occasionally for some dry flies. Maybe if I'm tying, you know, the bolts pair nymph and a few, you know, [00:59:00.179] maybe some parachute dry flies. But when I'm thinking about Walt's Worms, I mean, rabbit is just my go-to...I blend my own. And I'll tell about my technique in a little bit. But to me, it's a soft material. It's got a nice buggy texture to it. There's just some longer fibers that you can mix in, and it's relatively easy to apply.
Same thing with squirrel. I kind of use the two of them interchangeably. It's another soft dubbing. I think it dubs well. But if I want it to be a little bit [00:59:30.210] spikier, I tend to go with squirrel versus if I'm looking, you know, with a lot of rabbit patterns, especially my Walt's Worms, I wanna say I want them buggy, but then whenever I counter rib them with something like a fluorocarbon, I really bear down on that to keep them as tight as possible to make them a little bit more slender so they dive through the water column. And then my favorite dry fly dubbing is now kapok dubbing. It used to be a super fine, you know, tyer. That was kind of my thing, but I switched over to kapok. I [01:00:00.349] I remember years ago, just knowing the background of kapok that, you know, that was something that I've tied with 30 years ago. I remember having bags of this cream-colored kapok that I would try to dye. I mean, I know that it used to be used in, gosh, I wanna say life preserver vest because it's a naturally floating fiber, whether that means it's gonna float any better. I don't know about that.
Tom: It doesn't, and I'll tell you all about it.
Tim: Yeah, I'd love to hear your thought. See, I'm not concerned about that, but I know whenever I dub with it, I can make just [01:00:30.219] a really tight dubbing noodle. And whenever I wind that dubbing noodle forward, it almost looks like a rope. And I love that. It makes my dry flies look just naturally segmented. That's what I love about that kapok dubbing. The issue for me over the years was always I couldn't find, you know, a brand or a manufacturer that had consistent colors. And now, that's the reason why I've returned to it is, you know, I've now found they have some consistency with the colors now. So, those are my big three for natural materials, and [01:01:00.139] I'd love to hear yours.
Tom: Well, hare's ear, for sure. Hare's ear and rabbit, you know, just rabbit without the guard hairs, for tying small dry flies, you know, where you want a nice tight little body or spinners or whatever. muskrat is a great, wonderful fur. Tough to get in colors, almost impossible. But if you want a gray-bodied fly, it works great like an Adams. Something that we [01:01:30.019] used to use a lot of back in the old days of Catskill Drys was Red Fox. You know, we'd use the urine burn part for Hendrickson's, but we'd tie our March Browns out of the kind of darker brownish and our gray foxes out of cream fox belly. If you can find Red Fox, it dubs beautifully. It's one of the nicest, natural furs to dub. And [01:02:00.190] Australian possum is a favorite of mine. That's pretty readily available. Beaver, I don't use beaver as much anymore. I mean, we used to be able to get otter and mink and, you know, all kinds of different dubbing. You can still find them. But if you got rabbit and a bunch of colors, boy, you can tie all different kinds of dry flies.
Tim: And tell me what you think of this because I felt like the mantra, again, this is now as we did ourselves. It [01:02:30.030] was like, "Well, if you gotta use for your dry flies mink, beaver, muskrat, these are the water-based animals, so their fur has some type of level of water repellency." I don't wanna say that was BS, but I've always thought, like...I never subscribed to that. At least that was my thought. I just wanted to go with a natural dubbing that maybe if I either wanted movement or not, I just chose some of those because I could either get a finer dubbing noodle, or it was just a more natural material than some other options.
Tom: Well, I'll tell you what, I did something today, [01:03:00.179] Tim, in preparation for this that I've always wanted to do, and I never did, you know, a kind of an experiment with it. So, I took a size 14 hook, and I tied a fairly fat dubbed body on it. And I used the same hook, same thread, and I did it with kapok, muskrat, one of the synthetic fine dubbings, you know, ultra-fine, or whatever, fine and dry, or whatever. [01:03:30.429] Hair's ear, dubbed CDC, which FMF Fulling Mill is gonna start to sell...
Tim: No way. Oh, okay. That's cool.
Tom: ...ice dubbing and SLF. And I put them all in a bowl of cold water, just laid them in there gently. And after about a minute and a half, every one of those hooks sunk [01:04:00.472] and the kapok was the first to go, by the way. Every one of those sunk, except the muskrat. The muskrat is still floating in the bowl.
Tim: I thought you told the Orvis, you know, online site, they're gonna have a run on the muskrat today.
Tom: I don't know. I don't think we even sell it.
Tim: [crosstalk 01:04:24.012] sell muskrat anymore.
Tom: No. So, there may be something to the whole water [01:04:30.284] animal thing. And like I said, I've never done this before in a more or less controlled situation. So, you know, water animals, yeah, maybe it makes a difference with a dry fly.
Tim: I'm discounting it. I'm like, "Oh, mink, beaver, I don't know."
Tom: But, you know, we got so much other stuff that... I mean, it's not just the dubbed body that floats a fly, right? It's the hackle, or the deer hair, or the foam. And so, you know, [01:05:00.155] it's not all about whether the body floats or not, certainly.
Tim: No. I'm sure your listeners want some little hacks as well or, you know, some little secrets or tips. This is at least my current process. As I finish tying a dry fly, the very first thing I do with it when it comes off my vice, I have a little bottle, it's like a prescription bottle. And in it, I used to keep it halfway full with...gosh, I think it's called High N Dry. It's a floating. They have a spray bottle. So, I would [01:05:30.094] dump half the spray bottle out, and I'd put it in that little prescription bottle. I would throw my dry flies in there, let them sit overnight, and then, you know, blot them dry with paper towels. You know, I was telling that to some of the owners or maybe the head engineer of High N Dry, and he's like, "Hey, I'm gonna start working on a pretreatment. Can I share it with you?" And I'm like, "Do you really need a pretreatment? I can just use a spray." And he's like, "Yeah." He's like, "The reason we use the spray is for when you're on the water." He's like, "You're losing a lot of the good stuff." He's like, "Let me come up with it. I'll get [01:06:00.135] you some."
And he sent me some. Or, actually, I saw him at a little show, and he gave me a bottle. It was called, like, version 2.0 of their pretreatment. And he's like, "Let me know what you think." And this stuff, Tom, I'm not saying your fly is gonna float all day. It doesn't work that way. But putting it in some type of a pretreatment like this, I think they're just coming out with it. I mean, it's literally only in, like, two fly shops right now, that pretreatment. It'll be making its way around the country. It just gives you so much [01:06:30.224] more floatability with your dry flies by doing that because it soaks into everything. And whatever they put in this, I don't know what their secret sauce is, but it's really good stuff.
Tom: Well, over the years, there have been...and I forgot the names of them, but there have been pretreatments sold out there. I don't know of any that are on the market now, but it's good to hear somebody's bringing it back. People ask me this question all the time, and I never pretreat my dry flies. I just don't because I'm [01:07:00.045] lazy, and I'm in a hurry usually to get fishing.
Tim: Well, these are when tying the night before. If it's the day of, no, they're not getting pretreatment. We're going, and they'll float for what I need. Listen, that's because we just wanna make one cast, catch the fish, and then we're good. That's how it's supposed to work, right?
Tom: Yeah. You know, I met a guy at the New Jersey show who says, "You know how you wet your fingers when you dub?" And I said, "Yeah, I usually or often do that." He said, "You know what I do is I put a little, [01:07:30.310] like, paste or liquid, you know, kind of the gel fly floating on my fingers, and I dub with that." And I said, "Well, that's a cool idea." But then I got home and I thought, "Oh, man, I'm gonna have that grease all over my tying bench. I don't think I'm going there." But, you know, it's something to experiment with.
Tim: No, I think that's what's kinda neat about fly tying. And I love to say this just about fly fishing and fly tying. It's kind of like, you know, you get to choose your own path in these sports, and that's what I love [01:08:00.014] so much about it is that, you know, whatever path you wanna take, it's great that you wanna take your path, and I'm on my path, and I'm in kind of a less is more phase of life right now. So, it's like, "I just need fewer options on my fly-tying desk at this point." And I know in 20 years, I'm gonna get crazy again, and I'll be, you know, integrating everything back in. But, yeah, for sure, I think I love that aspect of it.
You know, let me transition over to synthetics. Before I do, let's also point out, like, I love naturals. [01:08:30.340] If I can kind of go in that category, I really just pull so many flies with natural dubbings. The issue that I think some people have is, you know, it's tough for consistency purposes. Sometimes, you know, when you go to pull something off a peg or you buy it online, you don't have a chance to look at it, to examine it, to say, "Oh, this is the right shade. This is what I'm looking for." And let's be honest, a lot of new tyers, if I say to you, "Hey, what are you looking for if you get a piece of muskrat or if you get some beaver?" [01:09:00.520] They may not know what to look for. So, I think that's kinda tricky. And even if you know somebody that hunts your traps or you do it yourself, you know, because I'm a hunter, sometimes those pelts don't look so well at the end of the day.
So, I can see that a lot of people wanna look at synthetics for consistency purposes to say, "If I buy this product, I know it's gonna come to me in this color." We hope anyway. "And I can get it, you know, for the next, hopefully, couple seasons and have it from that perspective." [01:09:30.140] I mean, whenever I say synthetic, in my mind, this is, you know, something that's coming from man-made materials, things like, you know, Antron, acrylic, polyester. Right off me is I'm like, "All right. What are my dubbings? What are, like, three or four of my synthetics that I couldn't live without?" It's stuff like ice dub. You know, it's something that's really reflective, flashy I use for translucency. I prefer ice dubs that are made of really fine and, you know, flashy, sometimes reflective fibers. I love SLF, [01:10:00.630] which I always...you know, when people tell me, "Oh, SLF," I'm always like, "What does that stand for? Do you know?" And they're like, "No. What is it?" I'm like,"Well, it's a synthetic living fiber." The whole point is...
Tom: Oh, I never knew that.
Tim: Yeah. I mean, the whole point is it's designed to mimic the natural fibers, but then it's supposed to have some durability because that's kind of like the con, if you wanna say, some people will say of the natural fibers is maybe they're less durable than synthetics.
Tom: They're not, they're not. No, they're not.
Tim: I mean, I used fishing flies for 25 five years. Come on, no.
Tom: Yeah, they're not less durable.
Tim: [01:10:30.500] No, organic or not. And the other two that I would have, number three, which I wanna mention it because I think a lot of people still use it even though I don't as much is superfine, or sometimes it's labeled as extra fine. You know, it's something that's very lightweight, buoyant, used a lot for dry flies, though I tend to use superfine and even kapok dubbing on my nymphs, especially for my Frenchies. I guess it would be a little tip I would give people. Like, whenever I tie my Frenchies now, I used to tie them with, like, a hot [01:11:00.140] orange, or Hi-Vis orange, or pink thorax, or something like that. And now, my thorax is just, like, one turn or two turns of a really muted kapok dubbing or a super fine dubbing. The color is not a grab, you know, just something that's just there.
And then I think the last dubbing that I would have, I would just say, is, like, a generic Antron dubbing, something that's crinkled. You know, you can get that trapped there. Look, maybe you might be going for with your caddis flies, that type of stuff. And then the general [01:11:30.409] category is that I see, like, we have synthetics that will kind of replicate a natural fiber that's tough to dub. And one that I don't have experience with, and I'm sure you do, would be something like seal dubbing, where I've never really used seal dubbing, but I've seen stuff like, you know, seal alternatives or SemperSeal dubbing, I think Semperfli cells that I've used to make up for that seal dubbing, which people have said over the years, like, there are certain [01:12:00.029] flies that call for it because they like that translucency. They like the shine. But it's slippery, and it's tough to dub.
Tom: It is.
Tim: You know, whenever there's a problem, it's like, "Oh, let's get this manufacturer, and they're gonna help solve the problem." But those are my go-to synthetics, you know, that don't include the two, you know, because that's the last category. So, I'd love to hear your list.
Tom: Yeah. Generally, I think I have 35 to 40 [01:12:30.085] boxes, you know, plastic containers of all different synthetic dubbings. I just grab one. If I want something pre-blended and spiky, I'll grab ice dub. If I want flash, you know, there's some synthetics that are mixed with hare's ear and rabbit and squirrel, which are good. [01:13:00.265] But most of my dry flies, if I'm not using rabbit, I'll use that super fine or ultra-fine or whatever, the really, really fine synthetic fiber. I don't even know what it's made out of, but it works great, it dubs great. You can dub a really tight body with it. And, you know, I have four or five brands of it, and they're all pretty damn good. SLF is probably the closest [01:13:30.225] thing to seal that I've seen. You know, I've got a lot of seal for because I've been tying for over 50 years, and it used to be legal. And, you know, if I look at seal and I look at SLF, pretty damn close. So, yeah. You know, please don't get hung up people on getting, you know, the exact blend of dubbing that somebody [01:14:00.095] specifies in a fly pattern because you'll go crazy. You know, just pick something that looks about like it and use it. It'll work fine. The fish aren't gonna know the difference.
Tim: Oh, for sure. And, you know, I make YouTube videos on fly tying. I mean, that's really was my first in fly fishing, and if you wanna call it the community or the industry. And at first, I didn't wanna put recipes with my flies because for me, that was kind of the fun, the creativity where it's just, "All right, well, you know, I'm using this dubbing for the body, but [01:14:30.274] you can use anything that's close." And, you know, I kind of have gone back and forth with that philosophy for years because I wanna at least say, "Here's what I used. This is the recipe." So, I do give the specific recipe, but I've tried my darnest over the years to also say, "Just because, you know, Devin Olson says you use this color dubbing and this type of dubbing on his blow torch, you don't have to use that exact one."
I mean, there's a great story that I tell in the book. You'll get a kick out of this for your listeners, [01:15:00.585] a really high-level person who's in that urine infant category. His name is Josh Miller. Yeah, he's been on your podcast. He's a really fishy guy. And when I interviewed him...which I'm friends with Josh. He lives in my area. You know, we're both from Western Pennsylvania. So, you know, we're really close. And I'd interviewed him. He just got off a day on the water. He was guiding that day, and he's in his van because he's got this really cool van that he sleeps in so he can just stay out in that [01:15:30.055] area while he's guiding during guide season. So, I call him. We're having a Zoom call, and I get to the, you know, "What fly do you use?" And he's like, "Well, there's only one fly that I use. It's the Walt's Worm." He's talking all about his, "Here's the Walt's Worm." It was great just to hear him just go off for a while talking about that, though he also fishes other flies, just so we're clear.
But as he's talking about the Walt's Worm, he goes on to say that, you know, one of his clients was out this one season, and, you know, all they did the entire day was fish Walt's Worm. And they caught a ton of fish on this Walt's Worm with a variety of techniques. [01:16:00.300] They just loved it. And the client was like, "Hey, Josh, can I keep one of these?" And Josh is like, "It's literally here's your dubbing tied up to the bead." I think the ribbing on it was just his thread. I think he left a tag end off the tail, then he just counter-wrapped it. And that was the whole fly. It was just a nothing-fly. But, you know, as fly tyers and fly fishers, it's like, "It's gotta be the fly. It's not my technique. It was that fly."
So, the next season, they come back, and Josh gets them rigged up and they're fishing. And, you know, the angler stops. He's like, "I gotta look at this fly because [01:16:30.130] they just caught a bunch of fish." And he looks at it, he's like, "Oh my gosh, it's a different shade." And he pulls out last year's fly, and he's like, "Josh, you changed them. You got a different shade." He's like, "What happened? Did you realize, like, we're on a freestone stream, not a spring creek, and that's what I would do." And he's asking Josh all these questions, and Josh looks at him, he's like, "No, I ran out of dubbing, and I was over at the fly shop, and that was the only one they had on the peg, so I just grabbed it. And that's why all my Walt's Worms are trapped in." This guy, he was waiting for some really deep answer. "No, that's [01:17:00.000] what I got. That's what we're using today, guys."
Tom: Yeah, yeah. So, we haven't talked about dubbing on a loop. And how often do you dub on a loop?
Tim: So, I love how you just move this forward. So, the next kind of, I guess, area of this, I would say, you know, we have our dubbing noodle. That's our base concept.
Tom: The standard way of doing it.
Tim: That's the standard method.
Tom: Yeah, quick, easy.
Tim: And now, it's like, [01:17:30.010] "Where do we go next? What's the next stage?" So, for people who are like, "All right, this is what I've done," you know, I'm gonna say, as we get up there, there's a couple other techniques that you can use, and one of them is called a dubbing loop. And the dubbing loop...gosh, that's something I originally learned from...I'll go back to my great uncle John. He tied a fly that I'm sure many of your listeners have never heard of. It's called a casual dress. And it was with muskrat. And I remember it was a dubbed body after he put on his tail. It was just with muskrat. And then when he got up to the front, [01:18:00.100] he would use this dubbing loop, and he would make this real bushy, you know, wing with the thorax, with that muskrat. It just looks so cool then, you know, he would finish off the head. And that was just, like, my first introduction to that.
And the dubbing loop technique is one that when I look at it, I like it for if I'm looking for either a dense body, maybe a brush-like body, and you have lots of options created, stuff like the split thread technique where you can use a bodkin or even they sell tools to help split your [01:18:30.069] thread and you place some dubbing in there, or you can use, you know, tool. You know, there are some dubbing loop tools out there. There's one that's...I call it the Ferrari of dubbing loop tools. It's called the Stonfo Elite Rotodubbing tool. I think that's what they call it. I mean, it's got ball bearings. It can turn on a 90-degree angle. Anytime I tell people that, you could tell they're like, "Yeah, I don't need to get this." Then I use it for one fly, and the next time I see them, they're like, "Yeah, I bought it $60. I had to get it. This is cool," you know, for those of you [01:19:00.130] who have the addiction like us. And I use it a lot more frequently now, making dubbing loops is what you're saying. I use that technique a lot more so for wings, I feel like, than for bodies of flies.
I guess if I go back and say we talked about the naturals and we talked about synthetics, I do find myself using a lot of blended stuff, which would be something like hare's ear blended with a little bit of flash, or would be like... I don't know, there's a brand that I use. I think [01:19:30.024] it's called Arizona Simi Seal that in my first book, a fly that I shared with people was called the mini jig bugger. It's like a blend of mohair and flash together. The whole fly was just that in a dubbing loop, and I'd place this dubbing loop... So, for your listeners, you know, just to kind of go into what this looks like, you would take your loop and you would kind of form a loop with your loop and then lock it in place with your thread. So, you have kind of this independent loop of thread. And then [01:20:00.064] on the end of that loop, you know, we're saying across from your hook in the opposite direction from the hook, at that end, you would either put in a tool, you would have a weight. I mean, I've seen people use a variety of homemade...well, just something to keep tension on that loop. And then within the loop, you can place CDC, you can place dubbing. You know, for that mini jig bugger, it was that Arizona Simi Seal, and then you spin the loop.
And once you start winding that loop forward, you know, then we use another technique [01:20:30.085] that we use for hackle where we actually will kinda pull that dubbing back every turn so we don't capture itself, you know, moving forward with the thread. I don't know, that mini jig bugger that I tied with that Arizona Simi Seal, it was just a killer because once you had everything forward, once you tied it off, you could go back through the fly with, like, a piece of Velcro or whatever type of dubbing brush you're using and just pick it out. And it just looks so darn buggy. It would just turn into a natural tail.
[01:21:00.814] But I love tying dubbing loops. The one kind of cautionary tale I give to other tyers, so those who are saying, "I wanna get to this. This is what I wanna do next, don't cram a bunch of dubbing in there. Don't get so much in there that, you know, you think you're doing a good job, but when you put so much dubbing in one spot in that dubbing loop, it just creates way too much bulk. You can't get enough tension to lock it in place. And then after you finish the fly and you've trimmed your thread, you go back through it with a comb, [01:21:30.194] and it just pulls all that hair right back out. So, that's the cautionary tale. But, yeah, I guess as I was completing interviews for this current book, Tom, so many of these anglers are using dubbing loops, especially for their CDC, for their legs. There's so many anglers that are just using CDC interchangeably now for a partridge because they just love the movement that it offers, you know, just, I guess, for ease of access for many of them, too. And by using that CDC, one of the easiest ways to tie in CDC [01:22:00.454] without the stem creating bulk is with a dubbing loop.
Tom: Yeah. I do often use wax when I use a dubbing loop because it holds the stuff under the thread while I'm fiddling around with, you know, trying to get everything in there. So, I do like to wax my thread when I use a dubbing loop.
Tim: That's really good. I wish I would have called you before I tied this one fly from my book, and maybe the Blowtorch where the last step [01:22:30.024] is to get some CDC and you put it inside your dubbing loop and then you spin it. But when you're doing macro photography, it's like every step is 15 minutes or 10 minutes. At one point, I had all the CDC in there, and I wanted to just get it lined up, you know, perfect for the picture. And I felt like I had to sneeze. And I'm like, "f I sneeze and these CDC fibers come out of here," and I did not use wax. So, it's a great tip. I really like that one. Is there a brand of wax you use, or is it just whatever wax is out there because that's something I don't grab [01:23:00.114] anymore?
Tom: Yeah, no, I haven't found one that I'm really in love with. Some of them are either too sticky or too hard. And I would just urge people to try different ones. I mean, I used to love Overton's Wonder Wax. And I think you can get it again. That came in a bright green plastic tube. I think it's available now again. But that was always just the right amount of stickiness, and I [01:23:30.045] think it actually had some natural resins in it because it smelled like pine tar. I don't know what was in it. Anyway, you know, you could use cross-country ski wax, too, I'm sure.
Tim: Yeah. Okay.
Tom: Well, nobody waxes their skis anymore, though.
Tim: No. No. I have some wax I keep for my children for their sleds. So, maybe I'll grab that.
Tom: Yeah, that might work.
Tim: It's just enough. I know I have fly-tying wax down there, but it's gotta be 20 years old.
Tom: No, it should still be good.
Tim: All right. I [01:24:00.114] have a couple more things I wanna mention, but on this same topic, let's get to something that I've explored for a very brief moment in fly tying, and I just never stuck with it, you know, pun intended, touch dubbing. Is that something you've gotten into because I think I used it with mole maybe. I don't even know how I remember that, but that was the one area I'm like, "I can't speak about that one."
Tom: Yeah. Well, I can't either. I've done it, like, twice, and it looks awful, and I don't like it. [01:24:30.114] You know, it's basically you put some wax on your thread, and you touch the dubbing to the thread, and then you wind away. It will lock into itself, but I don't know, it's hard to get a good tape, or it's hard to control it. If I was in a real hurry, I might do it, but I don't get touch dubbing. I don't understand why people would do it.
Tim: No. No. For anyone [01:25:00.225] out there, please go to my website, find the contact form, email me why you use touch dubbing because I'm the same way. I felt like I put too much wax on it or whatever I was using at the time. It looked weird. I think I was going for something sparse, but buggy was, I think, the look I was going for. And as I finished it, I looked at it. It looked like a 4-year-old had tied it. I'm like, "Well, that was not what I was doing."
Tom: Yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe there's a trick to getting it to look good, but, yeah, [01:25:30.045] I'm not in untouched dubbing.
Tim: All right. Well, I'm looking at my list. The only other area that I really wanted to kind of comment about that I find value in is the notion of blending dubbing.
Tom: Absolutely.
Tim: That's something I can speak about. All right. Cool. And when we say blending dubbing, I kind of take it to that higher degree, but you don't have to. I mean, I'll talk about my personal process. Would be like, "Hey, let's grab something like a hare's ear," something like that. And we're really lucky because, you know, we have dubbing [01:26:00.135] rakes that we can buy now. I think Hareline sells a really great one. I know some people who use their own trimmers, which are fine as well. I mean, there's lots of ways to get that stuff, but the Hareline dubbing rake is awesome.
Tom: Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Tim: I use some of the less-priced ones, and they just don't grab as well... I mean, I had a manufacturer that reached out to me, and they wanted me to sell one. I'm like, "Oh, I'd love to with my website on it. This is awesome." And they sent me three different models, and none of them were able to really rake and get that material off like the [01:26:30.029] Hareline ones. I will [crosstalk 01:26:31.834].
Tom: Yeah. The Hareline one's terrific. Yeah.
Tim: So, I'll first start by...you know, I rake an entire one. We're talking, I don't know, 5 or 10 minutes to get most of that dubbing off those things. It does not take as long as you would think. I have that in kind of a pile. And my personal system, and this is rudimentary at best, I use what I call the pinch system, where I'll say it like, "All right. I'm gonna take four pinches," and I know what my pinch is. "I'll take four pinches of dubbing, and then I put it into a coffee bean grinder." I have this little Starbucks coffee bean grinder [01:27:00.079] that it's probably 15 years old that we no longer use for that. So, I'll put them in my little coffee bean grinder. And then I say, "All right, what do I wanna blend this with?" Because I like to just, you know, for my Walt's Worms, for some of my scuds, some of my crest bugs that I'll use in Central Pennsylvania, I want some little colors integrated into those, not so much for dry flies, but more so for my instance, for some streamers. And I'll say, "All right. Maybe I want a pinch of something like a, I don't know, ice tub in UV purple."
I'll start with [01:27:30.149] maybe one pinch of that. Put that one pinch in, and then, you know, I'll put the cap on, plug in my coffee bean grinder, and then just, you know, hit it for about, I don't know, seven seconds, something like that. Then just give it a couple pulses, open it up, and just take a look inside and say, "All right. Is this enough flesh, or do I need more flesh?" I tell people, and I'm very upfront with this, don't ever stick your fingers in there. Unplug it first or have a button you can click. I mean, that thing doesn't have any brains. It's not worth [01:28:00.100] losing your digits over, but, you know, that's my method. But then, you know, before I grab it and I take it out, write down that recipe because whatever you add...because I'm notorious for saying, "All right. I'm gonna put 6 pinches of hare's ear, 1 pinch of purple, you know, 1/2 pinch of this raspberry one." It comes out, and I'm like, "Oh, this is just awesome." I put it in a little Ziploc bag, and I have to immediately write on that bag with a Sharpie to remember that was my recipe for that one. Because if it's [01:28:30.109] a good one, I wanna replicate it. Like, "I got it."
I mean, there are some people that are so good at this. I have a good friend in Central PA. His first name is Tom, and I mentioned him in the book, Tom Glass. He has this, like, crest bug dubbing that is to die for. I probably shouldn't have put it in the book because people have asked me, like, "Hey, where can I buy that dubbing?" I'm like, "I don't want you to buy that. That's Tom's. Like, that's his secret dubbing. Tom uses it, and I use it. I don't want you guys to use it. Like, he doesn't sell that stuff." But I want them to know, like, that that's out there. There's other methods [01:29:00.369] for this blending. Like, I've seen people use air. I've seen people put it in, like, a bowl of water and mix all the stuff. I haven't used those methods. I've heard good results, you know, depending on what you're trying to achieve, but the coffee bean grinder, that's been my method. I love it. Just it gives you your own unique dubbing. But you don't have to use that rake and do this with the hare's ear. I mean, you can go and buy a bag of hare's ear dubbing. So, some people look at this and are like, "Oh, I gotta buy all this." No, you don't need to buy a raker. You can buy a bag of just [01:29:30.119] hare's ear dubbing and then use that as your base and blend your own. But to me, I think that's just really cool. You know, it truly makes that fly your own. So, that's at least my own thoughts to that.
Tom: No, it's very creative. I have used the bowl of water for hare's ear before, too, just dump it all. And some you can add a little soap, just so it mixes better. And then you put it on a screen or a, you know, strainer, and [01:30:00.225] you rinse all the soap out of it. And then you just lay it out on a piece of newspaper, paper towel, whatever. And when it dries, it's all nice and felted and mixed up. So, you can do it that way, too. And I will sometimes mix dubbing by hand, where I'll mix it all together, and I'll pull it apart, and then put it back together, and pull it apart, and put it back together, you know, just keep doing that over and over until it's thoroughly mixed. So, you can do it with your hands, too, if you want.
Tim: Yeah. Absolutely.
Tom: But the [01:30:30.104] coffee grinder is the best. I think the coffee grinder is the best rake.
Tim: And I better stress it. This isn't just about dubbing, you know, hare's ear or a natural with the synthetic. I've also blended, you know, different synthetics together, different ice stubs together to get different... You know, there was this midnight purple color I was looking for for this one-stone fly pattern. And I didn't like any of the store-bought colors. And I thought, "Well, I got black. I have purple. Let me just keep blending them till I get that right shade I'm looking for for this one streamer." And I was able to get it. So, it's not [01:31:00.154] just naturals and synthetics. You have a lot of options with that out there.
Tom: Oh, yeah, yeah. And as you said, it's creative and it's fun. And if you can't get exactly the right color, you know, you buy a dubbing selection in one of those little plastic containers, and you can, you know, just mix two colors to get the exact color you want.
Tim: For sure. Well, I guess I have a few more thoughts, but the one area that I do wanna tell people because I'm sure there's some listeners who might be listening to this, and they're like, "All right. I [01:31:30.064] love the time flies. I can't dub. My dexterity's off a little bit. Maybe I have large fingers. Maybe I have..." numbness in your fingers, which I get it. My father-in-law, dubbing just...it was very difficult for him. And no matter what we tried, he never got it. So, I get that, and that's very frustrating. The good news is I know what's really awesome about our sport. There are options out there. There's alternatives out there for dubbing, things like a dubbing brush. So, if you type in, like, a nymph dubbing brush into [01:32:00.145] something like Google, you can buy these brushes that are already premade for you. You would just tie in one side of it and just wind it forward kind of like a dubbing noodle. So, we have those things available.
There's this one yarn out there. It's called Dirty Bug Yarn, and it has all these really cool colors in it. I use it for a lot of my nymphs. And when I tie them, it's also kind of naturally segmented because you can just wind it forward, but you can also spin it first. So, you take that yarn, kinda like with the Utah Killer Bug, and you spin that yarn, [01:32:30.345] get it really tight like a rope, and then wind it forward, and it just looks awesome. So, there's yarns out there to do that. There's also some dry fly poly yarns that I've used over the years for dry fly bodies. That would be the one area that I guess if I was, you know, speaking out of manufacturers, I don't think I've seen enough for really fine dry flies that I'm sold on yet that I would say, "All right. You're having trouble with, you know, dubbing the body of a dry fly going this route." I think I would probably recommend [01:33:00.064] alternative materials versus some type of dubbing, and maybe a fritz or something like that.
There are some nice fritzes, but they're more of a chenille base than that dubbing that I would be going for with a dry fly because that's probably the one recommendation I really will stress, especially with dry flies, is that, at least in my opinion, the bodies of our dry flies as tyers, at least in the United States, are way too thick, even my own at times. And I look at those whenever I look at a natural. We're talking about a drake. That's one [01:33:30.095] thing, but when I'm looking at PMDs or sulfurs, you know, so many mayflies and even caddisflies because you don't see their body a lot, and you look at the size of their body compared to some of my own on dry fly hooks, and I'm like, "Oh, geez, I would double the size of that body." Maybe not that drastic, but they really are fine and delicate body. So, I would stress to everyone, you know, try to just limit the amount of dubbing you're placing on the bodies, especially with your dry flies.
Tom: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, Flagler and I are often telling [01:34:00.159] people when we tie, you know, or do our live tie-offs that you just wanna barely dirty the thread with your dubbing. You don't wanna, you know, huck it on there. You wanna just, you know, take a little fuzz between your fingers and dub that. It's all you need.
Tim: For sure. Yeah, for sure. Well, I'm looking over. Those are my notes. I mean, I guess the last thing I have is just, you know, shoot for consistency. And one of my...I don't wanna call [01:34:30.029] it, like, one of my favorite tools at my tying bench. This would be a lie saying this, but it's okay to have a razor blade at your bench, or it's okay to, you know, place a dubbing noodle on and get it to the front and say, "All right. Now, it's time to pile on my, you know, comparadun wing or something and say, 'You know what? Take a second. Just back it off and redo your dubbing noodle,'" because there's something to be said about, you know, consistency of flies coming off your vice. And whenever I tie one that's really good, you know, I'm like, "Ah, that's the one I want." Well, I want them all to look like that one. [01:35:00.449] You know, years ago, I caught a fly on...it was for one of my YouTube videos, Tom. And after it was done, you know, I took it out of the vice, and I came, I showed my wife. She was reading a book, and I'm like, "Heather, you know, what do you think of this?" And she's like, "Oh, looks great." She's like, "What's it supposed to look like?" And I'm like, "What do you mean?" She's like, "Well, show me a picture of what this is supposed to look like." And I don't know if she meant the natural, or I think she just meant the fly, the pattern.
So, I showed it to her, and she was like, "Well, your wing's a little off." I'm like, "Well, who asked for your opinion [crosstalk 01:35:25.922]? But it was really, like, one of those [01:35:30.109] moments that stuck with me for, I don't know, 15 years now that she said that about that fly. And if I looked at it, I'm like, "You know what? She was right there. Now, let's assume that we're on the stream, we're on the river. We're in the middle of a hatch, or we're about to put on a fly, and we look through our box. And I see, you know, a bunch of flies that look good, and then I have that one that looks bad. And if I put that fly on, this is my own personal take on it. I don't fish it with the same confidence that I do with a fly that at least looks good to my eye."
Tom: Yeah, I agree [01:36:00.159] with you. Yeah.
Tim: That's me. And maybe now I'll tie it back to the confidence flies and all those sections in my book that so many of those anglers, I feel like there's this trend now in fly fishing where so many anglers are saying, "It's not the fly. It's your technique," which I subscribe to that to an extent. But I think it's easy to say that if you say, "All right. Here are my five confidence flies. These are the five nymphs that I fish in my five dry flies," and you found those patterns that you know are gonna work. And then you can dig into your technique, [01:36:30.359] which they definitely go hand in hand. But I wanna make sure those five nymphs that I tie, you know, when I look in my box, maybe they're not, you know, perfectly identical, but they're pretty darn close, and I'll have the confidence to say, "All right. I tied this one well. That body looks great. It's a nice taper or it's perfectly thin the whole way up. Like, I put it on, and I don't have to worry about the fly anymore." It's like, "All right. That's my fly. I know it's gonna work. I got confidence in it. Now, let's go catch that fish." And that's my mentality, you know, ending this podcast.
Tom: Okay. That's [01:37:00.189] a good way to end it. And before I let you go, I wanna read the name of your book again, "Tying Euro Nymphs and Other Competition Favorites" by Tim Cammisa. And, Tim, tell people where they can find your website and your YouTube channel.
Tim: Sure. My website's troutandfeather.com. They can contact me through that. They can find my social media using that same Trout and Feather, anything like that. And I appreciate everyone who comes and visits my website or shoots me a message. I try [01:37:30.114] my darnedest. I reply to every single email I get. I used to tell people I've replied to every YouTube comment of all time, and now there's way too many comments. So, I apologize to anyone who does leave comments on YouTube. I just don't have the bandwidth to reply to those, but I will reply to any email that you send.
Tom: Well, on YouTube, you gotta sort through the trolls, too, because when they send you an email, you know where they live. But, when, you know, they're anonymous on YouTube, they're really brave.
Tim: Listen, for anyone [01:38:00.064] who subscribed to my YouTube channel, I have, like, the best followers. I haven't made fly-tying videos on my channel for a couple years because, you know, over the last three or four years, I've written a couple of fly-tying books. And there's just something about writing a book on fly-tying and making a fly-tying video that they're just really two separate entities.
Tom: Yeah, they are.
Tim: Most of my YouTube videos over the last two years, I mean, four years, I've been really big on either giving fly fishing tips or, you know, interviewing the voices of fly fishing that I [01:38:30.015] wanna make sure, you know, we don't forget. People like Tom Baltz, Tom Rosenbauer. Like, I have a lot of really great people lined up over the next couple seasons as well. So, I'm doing those interviews. And I finally I think three or four weeks ago, I released a fly-tying video, and I haven't released one for years. And I was like, "Will these people even remember me as a fly tyer?" And I had such good feedback, like, so many comments that were awesome. Like, [crosstalk 01:38:54.913].
Tom: Oh, that's great. That's great.
Tim: I have, I think, a series of five. It's confidence flies that I'm in the midst of releasing, [01:39:00.265] Winter 2025. So, I'm excited. I released two so far, and I have three more, and the feedback has been awesome. So, I really appreciate all the non-trolls out there.
Tom: Yeah, yeah, me too. All right, Tim.
Tim: All right, Tom. Did we talk too much about dubbing?
Tom: Well, some people might think so, but some people might have gotten something out of it, too. I don't know. We'll find out when I get my comments.
Tim: Listen, I learned a few things tonight talking with you, and I appreciate.
Tom: So did I.
Tim: Yeah. So, thanks [01:39:30.005] so much.
Tom: All right, Tim. Thank you, and I will talk to you soon.
Man: Thanks for listening to the "Orvis Fly Fishing" podcast with Tom Rosenbauer. You can be a part of the show. Have a question or a comment? Send it to us at