Thank you for the invite, Peder. Looking forward to contributing here regularly.
Also, I visit animal pet stores that contain birds. I speak to one of the sales clerks and they will happily give me feathers that have fallen to the bottom of the cage. I once received Blue Macaw feathers that were amazing. Find a shop that makes fur coats. They will have fur scraps of mink, sable, beaver, and other animals. A shop in Bon Air, Virginia once gave me 2 bags of beautiful fur.
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Tied a few over the last couple of days. I am not the best at tying but I like to pretend. We’ll see what the fish think.
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These are awesome ideas! I’ll have to find a pet shop near by. Do you live in VA as well?
Daniel,
Yes, I live in VA. I live west of Richmond (the capital) in an area called Midlothian.
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Very cool Mike, I’m near Middleburg VA. Excited to get back out there this season, tried for a couple winter fishing trips but I am not made for the cold. Any places out my way towards Shenandoah you’d recommend? Or anywhere between us?
Daniel,
There are miles and miles of trout streams in VA. I usually hit the small streams early in the season since the water level gets extremely low during the summer. I leave these streams alone during the summer because the trout will get stressed out and die. During the summer months I fish the streams/rivers that holds more water. As you know, we get droughts and when this happens I head out to the western part of VA. There are several really good books to help you select streams/rivers. Shenandoah NP has many streams that are great during the early season but get too low during the summer. West VA (eastern side) has some excellent streams that fish well all the time. Far western VA,
north eastern NC, and eastern TN also are excellent all year. I love stream fishing and do not hit
the larger rivers due to crowds. In your area, west of Middleburg, is the George Washington National Forest and Massanutten Mountain. I have not fished this area but some people recommend Passage Creek. The Upper Rapidan River has been fished so heavily that I stop going there. It was one of my favorite spots in the 1980’s to the early 2000’s. You might try this area but you do need a SUV to drive on the dirt forest road to get there. Go there in the middle of the week to avoid crowds. Harry Murray has two excellent books on fly fishing for trout. He is a pharmacist in Edinburg, VA off #81. Harry Slone also has a great book on trout fishing in VA. I believe the 4th edition is his newest book. All of these books are a little dated but they contain a wealth of information and streams to fish. Use the Delorme Atlas and a good compass (or a GPS) and get out there and explore.
Daniel, let me know if you want more detailed info by e-mailing. I would be more than happy to help you. I might have an older edition to one of the books that I would be happy to send to you at no cost. Just let me know how I can help. ><))))))*>
Thanks for the extended replies there, Mike. I picked up the Harry Slone book on your recommendation so I’ll have to do some research this week and see where I should be heading. I’ve also recently moved to Middleburg from about 45mins away so a whole new slew of creeks and rivers to explore and catch some sunnies and chubs for the fun of it. However I hope to finally get onto some trout this year so looks like I’ll have to start driving a bit further. I also just bought a canoe, ever heard of anyone using Tenkara from a canoe? I’m willing to try 
My first ever “hair” flies, loose attempts at the Deer Hair Sedge from Morgan Lyle’s book using synthetic dry fly dubbing from FTD
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Here in the UK Spring is supposed to have arrived but still we have the cold North & East winds. Hopefully it will soon be warm enough for me to catch a few. Let us hope the flies below do their business!
All tied on Fish On curved compund hooks size 14 using various coloured Uni-thread 8/0 and sewing machine silks and embroidery threads. All with a Jackdaw scalp hackle tied in reverse.
David
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I like the flies, but I love the choice of background!!!
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That is Grasmere Lake in the English Lake District.
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A fun set of experiments ive been working on. All shot and processed on an iphone. I always enjoyed the illustrations of flies in older fishing/fly tying books and that spurred on the idea to create these. Discovering tenkara has really got me excited about fly tying again. I live in Eugene Oregon and there are a pretty good amount of small streams to fish in the area that i overlooked for years as a western style fly fisherman. Tenkara has opened up a lot of doors and ive really enjoyed the process so far.
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Nice. Thanks for sharing @Ryan6f7. Welcome to the forum and hope you enjoy your time here.
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I really like the style here. I saw these dokeshi kebari on tenkara angler awhile back and thought they were very well done. The bodies are embroidery thread and UV resin?
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That’s right; I use a UV crafting resin that’s much cheaper than the official fly tying versions, it seems to work just as well.
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