Many of you likely don’t use a stripping/shooting basket when you fish with a fly, but there are times when you should.  A good stripping basket can add a new dimension to your angling, and solve a number of bothersome situations that can detract from your flyfishing experience and even cost you some good fish.

The LineTender, by HMH, is plenty ample, but easy to wear and use.  Adjustable web belt makes it easy to place basket high or low, or moved to either side of the body. (Handy mesh pocket on belly band is for leaders, tips, fly box, bug dope, etc…)

2.  As a ‘Shooting Basket’,  a)  it should have a flat floor/platform  so line coils can spread out and lay flat and be ready to shoot out without tangling;

The LineTender is big enough to be an easy target, but not so big to be in the way. In this image, the basket is being worn low on the body and angled off the left hip for long, easy strips.

b) it should be shallow enough so coils can shoot with minimal contact with the sides of the basket, which increases drag on the fly line and reduces casting distance;

The LineTender is about 7″ deep, so line stays put, but still shallow enough to allow line to shoot out of basket with minimal drag.  The basket is collapsible, so you can decrease the basket depth during fishing if you want.

c) ‘fingers’ (we call ours “LineShooters”) protruding vertically from the floor of the basket can help reduce or eliminate birds nests from happening at the first stripping guide — ideally, these fingers would be removable and portable so you can place them in the basket when and where you want them depending on how you’re going to fish today.  And, the fingers should be height-adjustable to adapt to your line and casting technique on any given outing.

“LineShooters” for the LineTender come in a set of two, for total of 6 fingers.  They are easily height adjustable to optimize line shoots and minimize tangles.  Each plate can be installed anywhere in the mesh bottom of the basket.

As a convenient angling accessory, you should be able to use the basket when you need it, and move it out of the way when you don’t need it.  And portability is important.  The Linetender easily swings behind you when you don’t need it.  And when you’re done, it coils up small and fits in its (supplied) carry sack, which has belt loops so you can keep it on your wader belt and have it whenever and wherever you need it.

The LineTender coils easily to a small size (top photo) and fits in a  9 X 13  stuff sack for easy storage and transport.

3.  Trim extra deer hair; tie in body hackle.

4.  one thing about tying smaller patterns on a tube is that tubes have a larger diameter than hook wire, so bodies can get bulky pretty quickly.  My solution for this pattern is to dub the body rather than use chenille.  The image here is to focus attention on wax – not just dubbing wax, but also tying wax.  It’s an interesting topic that we’ll address soon.  The wax here is a moderately sticky tying wax that also works well for dubbing that I conjured up on the kitchen stove.

5.  I neglected to shoot a couple of images – dubbing up a tight dubbing rope and wrapping it forward, then palmering the body hackle up. Here I’ve done all that and tied off the body hackle.

6.  Tie in thorax hackle.  Note that I’ve trimmed the hackle off the top of the body so the deer hair wing will sit down better.

7.  Tie in deer hair wing, then dub thorax…

The problem for me was all the tiny bags of tiny beads and not so tiny, but myriad cones in different sizes, materials, and colors.  Seriously, it was an impediment to tying.  There must be other systems out there, but i was thrilled when i tracked this one down.

The outer flat, crystal clear box, with lid, is neat and space-efficient.  Inside this outer box are individual round boxes, equally clear, with screw top lids.  Pour in your teeny tiny beads and they are safe and sound forever.  Whenever you need one, they are easy to get.

HMH sells two sizes.  The Small Box has 12 inside round containers (that’s a lot of beads).  The Small Box dimensions are 6 3/8″ long x 4 7/8″ wide x 1″ tall.  The Large Box has 24 individual round containers and is 9 1/2″ long x 6 1/2″ wide x 1″ tall.   The inside round containers are 1 3/8″ diameter and 1″ tall.  Retail for the Small Box is $8.95.  Large Box is $12.50.

I’ve got a couple of these on my bench and now no longer lose sleep over where my 5/64 tungsten chartreuse no-lead recessed dumbbell eyes are.

You should have a couple, too.

JIGS ON TUBES ?

We have a good friend who comes into the shop now and then to talk about fishing, flies, and life (what else is there to talk about?).  He is well placed in the world of FFF fly casting; is one of the most proficient casters and instructors out there; and one of the most calm focussed and centered persons I’ve ever known.

Years ago, before they moved across the road in Last Chance, ID, I was in Trouthunter’s fly shop, and who should walk in, out of the blue, but our good friend.  Never mind pleasantries — the first words out of his mouth were ‘John, do you have any more of those tubes with you?’  He was float-tubing down Box Canyon hooking ‘very large rainbows’ on marabou streamers tied on tubes.  And he knows we’re into tubes here and I guess he just assumed I always travel with boxes of all kinds of tubes.

The point here is that as excited as any of us get about big rainbows (wherever we can get them), our good friend goes completely off center when you bring up smallmouths.

We have excellent smallmouth fishing here in Maine, including right outside the shop in the Andro, if we could ever find time to get out there.  Well, our good friend does, and recently he walked into the shop and, to make a long story short — well, shorter — he showed me a  fly tied on a heavy bead head jig hook…

…and said how amazingly effective they were at catching big smallies “and anything else in the vicinity”.

That got me to thinking, and I asked in a rhetorical way, hmmm, i wonder if I could put a jig fly on a tube?  Then he said hmmmmm, and that he’d be real curious to see what i came up with.

And here’s what I came up with.

Why jigs on a tube?   1)  Why not?  2)  Because we can do it.  3) and because we then gain the primary advantage of using tube flies, which is to use a short-shank hook on relatively long flies.

The technique is pretty straightforward.  Follows is a brief tutorial.

1.  I use the HMH Poly tubes.  They are easy to work and i don’t need to use hook holder when i’m done.  First, make a hole in the side of the tube near the front end — doesn’t really matter how close to the end because you can always trim it to size.  Our Micro tubing is 1/16″ diameter, so to make things simple, I heat a 1/16″ drill bit because its really easy to melt through one wall of tube by slowly spinning the bit in your fingers.  Ream out the hole pretty well, and maybe oversize it a bit if you can.

2.  Next, trim a piece of HMH micro tubing (regular or thick wall) to an angle like a hypodermic needle.  This makes it easier to feed the micro tube around the 90 degree corner when you poke it down into and through the poly tube.

3.  When you feed the micro tubing into the Poly tube, you want the angle of the cut to be flat against the opposite wall of the tube.  Obviously, the more gradual the angle of the cut, the easier it will be to get the micro tubing around the corner.  And, like just about every other aspect of fly fishing and fly tying, a little spit will help here to lube up the micro tubing.

4.  Push the micro tubing all the way out the back end of the poly tube, trim the micro tubing flat, and then burn the tiniest little button on the end.  This little button will help lock the tubing inside the poly tube.

5.  Pull the micro tubing back inside the poly tube and keep pulling it up towards the front of the tube, but leave, say, at least 3/8″ or more of the micro tube inside the poly tube (you can see this in the image here).  Then trim off the micro tube, being sure to leave enough tubing to accommodate whatever cone or bead you’re going to use for the jig head.

6.  Drop the bead or cone down over the micro tubing, trim the tubing leaving a 1/16″ – 1/8″ of micro tubing extending beyond the bead/cone, and then burn it back to rivet the bead/cone onto the poly tube.  I cut a short piece of starter pin to keep my hole size consistent.  You’ll want to hold the bead/cone tight to the poly tube during this process to make sure the cone stays tight to the poly tube when you’re all done.  Yes, your fingers might get a little warm, but what price are we willing to pay for the joy of being clever and creative and of catching monster fish?

Then I burn a button on the front end of the tube ahead of the bead or cone just to finish things off nicely and to serve as a thread stop for the head if you choose to tie it all off in front of the bead or cone.

And, Voila, the jig tube is ready to tie.  Note here how I’ve pulled the micro tubing well up towards the bead.  I did this so if i tie a short body to the fly, I’ll still have room for the hook eye (this is an HMH Poly Tube, so i don’t need to use hook holder, which means nice things for the proportions of these jigs).   If you are tying a longer fly pattern, then you can leave the micro tubing further back.

Regardless, when you lay down your thread base with some nice tight turns, you will collapse the Poly tube down onto the micro tubing, thus locking everything together so it won’t pull out while tussling with your leviathan from the deep.

I intend to give these a shot for spring steelies (I hope); early heavy pocket water for recalcitrant landlock salmon, and of course, when we reach the magic 50 degree mark, Smallies.

I’ll report back.

Get a grip, and try something new.

THE ‘API’ YEARS – PART 2, THE SPARTAN “MINI” VISE

(This series of posts highlights the various HMH vises models since their entry into the marketplace in 1975.  The intent here is to enable those with older HMH vises to be able to name the model and otherwise get an idea as to its relative age.  This is especially useful in the event that you, as a vise owner, needs some repair, refurbishing, or you are interested in upgrades, new jaws, etc.)

In 1981, API (Angling Products Inc.) drew up the plans for a new version of the HMH.  It was a scaled down model of the HMH Standard in every way, meaning that they scaled down each individual part of the Standard to create a vise that was essentially a 2/3 replica of the Standard.  This vise they named the Spartan, or the “Mini Vise”.

Other than the obvious size difference, a key difference between that Spartan model, which was built from ca. 1981/1982 thru about the year 2000, and the early Standard vise models was the one-piece jaw on the Spartan vise.  The Standard vise models have always had the interchangeable jaw system (except for the HMH II, right?).

In addition to the one-piece jaw, the features of this vise that also are diagnostic include a 5/16″ diameter standrod, and a down-sized cast iron base.  The Spartan cast iron base, however had a flat surface the length of the base.  The Standard cast iron base had a flat surface supporting the spindle, but the top surface then sloped all the way to the front of the base.

Two jaw styles were available for the Spartan Mini vise, the Universal, and the Restricted Use jaw.  The universal jaw, was bull-nosed and did an excellent job holding even the largest hooks.

The Restricted Use jaw (not pictured) is easy to recognize because it looks a lot like the modern Micro Jaw with a long, needle-nose profile.

So, before you call us up with questions about your “Spartan”, first ask yourself:  is the Standrod of my Spartan a 5/16″ diameter rod?  Is the jaw a one-piece jaw that I can only remove by removing the cam pin and the cam lever, then pulling the jaw from the collet?  Does the collet (the main ‘tube’ of the vise) have two bands of knurling at the front end?  If the answer to all these questions is yes, then you have the API Spartan Mini vise model.  We’ll need to know that to be able to help you out with your questions about your vise.

Now, what are the key differences between the API Spartan Mini vise the the modern (since 2000) HMH Spartan vise?  Read on.

In 2000, we re-designed the Spartan vise back ‘up’ to a more standard size.  The primary objectives for doing so were to bring the standrod up to the industry standard of 3/8″ diameter so accessories would fit on the spartan;  to enable the Spartan vise to benefit from the interchangeable jaw system;, and to enable the Spartan vise to benefit from the better, re-designed chassis.  What this meant, though, was that virtually none of the parts from the API model Spartan could be used on the new HMH model Spartan.

C’est la vie.

API Spartan on the left.                    …and…..        HMH Spartan on the right.

API Spartan has smaller diameter standrod;  cast iron base;  double knurl bands on collet; and one piece jaw (see below).  Modern Spartan has 3/8″ diameter standrod; heavier and larger-foot-print plate steel base;  no knurling on collet;  interchangeable jaw system.

The image above shows the guts of the cam lever / jaw assembly on the API Spartan vise (top) and the HMH Spartan (bottom).  HMH assembly is longer overall.  And HMH jaw and drawbar are 5/16″ diameter whereas the API Spartan jaw shank is 1/4″ diameter.

So, that’s about it.  But having said all this, I will note here that it is not impossible to build a Spartan Mini Vise (although any of these built today would be C-Clamp versions only).  Many of the original Spartan Mini vises are still in operation today.  I mentioned in an earlier post that Sylvester Nemes, in particular, tied on one of the little Spartan Mini vises.  It is a sweet little tool that ties the little stuff and the big stuff with ease.

Let’s see how well you pay attention — for those of you who are interested, give me a call and we can talk about whether the Spartan Mini is right for your vest pocket…

Get a Grip.