Dubbings & Hackles, etc.

[joaniebo]

Over the years, I gathered enough wools, furs, dubbing mixtures, capes, saddles, wings, etc. to keep me (and future generations ) tying flies for many years. So, in the past week or so, I decided to go through a couple Rubbermaid-type storage boxes and "kinda" sort / re-arrange some of them.

Good heavens, where did I get all this stuff? That being said, being "unorganized"(?) sometimes brings peasant surprises ("Gee, I DID have a Jackdaw scalp", "What the heck is this?", "Wow, nice dubbing mixture, wonder what's in it?")

Now to get off my butt and use some of this "stuff". Heck, at being close to 75 years old, how am I going to use it all?

Bob

PS - Haven't gotten to the whole skins, threads, wires and hooks YET!

[narcodog]

Bob I had the same epiphany a few weeks ago and said to myself I need to use some of this stuff. Sometime ago I offered material but no one took me up on it. Yet I still keep buying.

[Johnno]

I’m moving house. It took a few days to sort my room out and several car loads to take it to storage.. I g
Found feathers and fur that hasn’t seen light of day for years.....

[Mike62]

Digging through the detritus of a long tying career is always an exploration of personal growth, ...and occasional embarrassment. We sold off the big farm about 5 years ago and I moved down the road 4 miles to this smaller one. In packing up the tying room I dug down through layers of long forgotten materials and lists of patterns to tie. It was like an archaeological dig and a slightly weird sociology experiment rolled into one.

Some of the materials, I couldn't for the life of me understand what I had been thinking when I aquired them, let alone what I had planned to tie with them. The evolution of my fishing style and the flies that fed that journey were sometimes Kafka-esque, sometimes Salvador Dali meets Carrie Stevens. At first I tried to save everything, notes and all. Then, with my wife glaring at me over the top of her glasses I cut the cord and consigned what I thought was a significant amount of material to the dumpster outside.

Now, 5 years later, I'm going through stuff that made the cut and the move and thinking to myself "What the hell did I save this for?!"

...it's a vicious cycle.

[DUBBN]

Daylight saving time is in a few weeks. Except for hackle, hooks and thread, if I did not use it in the past year, it gets thrown out or given away.

[Theroe]

At 60, I’m still in the “need more crap” phase...

SO, Send everything to Theroe!

[letumgo]

I drove past a perfectly good dead skunk last week, and did not stop to take it home for skinning/tying. I still regret it.

So yeah, I'm still in the collecting phase...

[Ron Eagle Elk]

Just a bit past 73 and I keep finding stuff I thought I was out of, usually located under a cape I used just last year. Every time I stop by the local fly shop I see something and think "That would make a nice______. I'd better get some before they run out." After the purchase, the bag with the contents is stuck under the table. I just found four bags with the contents still inside, under the table. Forgot they were there.

[Theroe]

I drove past a perfectly good dead skunk last week, and did not stop to take it home for skinning/tying. I still regret it.

So yeah, I'm still in the collecting phase...

Rule 16b: Never, EVER pass up a good roadkill

fwiw, 16a is: “Never pass up a good fly shop, or yard sale when in a known heritage fishing area”

[letumgo]