Day 77 - Stupid Fly Recipes

So are you like me and frustrated about the crazy new materials that are out there for fly tying? We see them advertised in fly magazines or demonstrated on a YouTube video but when we go and try to find them ourselves we're totally without aid. Or you find a really great pattern that you want to try out, but when you read the materials list you suddenly find your supplies absent of rare albino walrus butt hairs. Seriously?! What gives?

If you're like me, you don't get a whole lot say in what you're fly shop carries in the way of materials. Mine has a whole wall full of crap that I already have or are used for a entirely different species of fish that I don't care to catch.

Let's talk hooks for a moment. Having worked in inventory management for a major big box retailer of hunting, fishing, and camping goods I can say without a doubt that it could be cost prohibitive to stock every single hook style out there. I get that. But that doesn't mean that you can't have some newer hooks styles out there. I mean the klinkhammers are starting to become more and more popular, so why can't we get klinkhammer hooks? How about the fact that there is a whole movement going on beneath our noses right now for barbless hooks? I'm tired of pinching down the barbs on my hooks. I forget to do that sometimes and risk getting fined at certain times of the year.

A couple of years ago, the hot new product was Softex from Icon Products. Fly tying magazines were quick to write about this stuff and created soft really amazing patterns (all thanks to generous samples to the magazines from Icon Products I'm sure). I wanted this product. I couldn't find it to save my life. Not Cabela's, Gander Mountain, or even Bass Pro carried the product, let alone a small Ma & Pa shop. To this day, I've only read about the product and have never even seen a jar of this stuff on any shelf. Of course if I had the product now I'm not sure what product I would tie.

Now, I must admit that I am pretty much geographically challenged to fly shops. I have been most of my life. Muscatine isn't known for it's wonderful pristine fly streams, nor St. Paul for that matter. I live in Greensboro now, and can't say that I know of a good fly shop to carry all the fun things for my imagination to play with. The one place that I did live at (Denver) was never flushed out as I didn't pick up fly tying until a month before I left.

I just have one last thing to say: All you imaginative fly tiers do me a favor, keep your new products to yourself. Don't get my hopes up. Unless you know the product is readily available (like hares ear dubbing) I don't want to hear about it anymore. I have no avenues to get the product and I'm feeling like an ugly sexually charged teenager: frustrated. So please stop, I'm begging you. Of course if you have some new product that you'd like to give me, I'm sure I could write about it here in my blog.