Wayne - You've done it again...Outstanding! The use of ostrich herl for the thorax is inspired. That little change should give the fly a lot more movement/life, which can make all the difference in a fishing fly. Brilliant. I also love your variations in thread color (light cahill and olive) under the clear D-rib material. You could easily adjust a pattern for a local hatch, simply by adjusting the tying thread.
I really enjoy these posts, on many levels. It is nice to be able to tye again. I hadn't thought about it during my trip much, but once I was home, I just had to pick up my scissors and start playing.
Ariel - I love your idea of carrying around a couple Sharpies for field modifications. Very cool! If you have an art supply store nearby, you may want to look at some Prismacolor marker sets. They come in a dizzying array of colors (at least 156 colors). That being said, I have done fine with the choices of colors offered by Sharpie. One of my favorite colors is the Marigold Sharpie.
Martin - The photos are just lucky chance. I originally planned to use the plain blue background, but the colors of the hackle and body of the fly got washed out with that background. I then decided to try some with only my desk as the background. I lowered my camera (tripod) until I had a dark background to contrast with the fly. I then opened the lens aperture as far as it would go (f/2.8) and set the ISO to 200 and turned off the flash. The exposure was captured using a ten second time delayed shutter release (
hands off the camera to prevent movement during the shot). The camera chose a shutter speed of 1/25th of a second, based on the available light. Once I downloaded the images to my computer, I noticed the shaded gradient of the background and how well it complimented the fly. It would be very difficult to get the right combination of light, camera angle, settings to duplicate the effect. In reality, I just got lucky.
