YOUR OWN VICES FROM SCRAP
“Just For Grins and Fun”
🐟 Artificial Flies — AN Art —
Artificial flies are of several types; some imitating an insect (either flying or swimming), others a bait fish or crustacean, others attractors are known to attract fish although they look like nothing in nature.
And then there is the last group, those that attract fishermen and attach themselves to their credit cards…
I go to auctions and Pawn sites looking for used gear and can safely say, “ No harm came to the fish, the fisherman’s wallet took a hit”.
Flies can be made either to float or sink, and range in size from a few millimeters to 30 cm long; most are between 1 and 5 cm.
Artificial flies are made by fastening hair, fur, feathers, or other materials, both natural and synthetic, onto a hook.
The first flies were tied with natural materials, but synthetic materials are now popular and prevalent. Flies are tied in sizes, colors and patterns to match local terrestrial and aquatic insects, baitfish, or other prey attractive to the target fish species. And they are available in midge, almost flea size to enormous streamers in salt water.
There Are Vices in Fishing — You will need a Vise. All the fly lures or flies are tied on a jig holder called a fly vise. The pictures here are ones I made myself from a collection of “ Stuff”.
Commercial FLY TYING VICES range from simple to complex and from 14.99 to 1499.00 depending on your income and ability to hide credit cards from your wife. The stands and portable bases I built with HD Magnets from Home Depot made this the most flexible Fly fishing station and more ideas coming…
All my benches have tops that are magnetically inert but I have a wood topper if something is magnetically sensitive and easily interchangeable on top. Because I ground, it has never been needed —
The larger X-Acto’s needed some filing on the locking ring to get the nose to protrude enough for gripping the hook. And they also needed the gripper widened a bit to accommodate larger hooks.
Neodymium magnets: A neodymium magnet (also known as NdFeB, NIB or Neo magnet), the most widely used type of rare-earth magnet, is a permanent magnet made from an alloy of neodymium, iron and boron. The round ones ( home Depot) come in three sizes on an end cap display. You need to drill out, we call it opening the hole in the center for a 1/4 x 20 bolt. I used allen heads. Best selection ACE HARDWARE or Home Depot
Plain metal construction plates are found near the wood aisles in HD in various sizes. And the heavier all steel bases are found in electrical, or plumbing, they are rectangle all-steel cover plates. The medium magnet and this all-steel plate hit sisxteen pounds gripping. Nothing moves. No clamps needed. Brackets came from displays we tossed again from my old photo store. The big stand holds everything especially items with live fish hooks in them. Thats why the display stand.
The term for tying a fly to your line as I initially and very naively thought was wrong, but rather a term for making your own flies rather than buying them. But fly tiers are thinkers and observers and do think differently, it’s an art and in its simplicity the art is in duplicating, imitating and the presentation of what the fish are eating. Some times , the alternative are flies that stimulate reaction by a fish or threat a when bass are on their nests.
You would also tie flies to possibly save money. Flies are easy to lose in trees, and note: they have also been found in ears, legs and shoulders and lost to rowdy fish, but mainly tiers or fly fisherman are in a sense artists…they live for the art of it.
EAR FLIES: For those who catch themselves, Its best to cut the hook above the barb with diagonal cutters or pliers, pour merthiolate, bacitracin or iodine merthiolate on the hook, swallow two shots of good Tennessee sour mash, internally and on skin surfaces, and pull it back or through. Go get a tetanus shot. We generally use barbless hooks in close quarters. Safer —
Many flies truly are works of art, created with various materials like beads, foams, animal hairs, and much more. The beginner angler will not be fly tying; there are literally fifty excellent books written on the craft, and it requires a whole other set of tools and skills.
This is something to look into after you’ve gotten the hang of the fishing itself. My Lasky model shown below handles the bigger Salt-Water lures. These are not cut in stone, for sale or anything else, I built them for fun and the beauty of it is that is cost me little or nothing, and lots of experience. And if I don’t like something I Un-build the parts, they go back into the bin and we start over.
HOMEMADE FUN FROM SCRATCH
THE VICE GRIP
Great on medium and large size hooks like streamers for baby Tarpon etc… I found the Chinese knockoff mini vice-grips on promo at LOWES for $2.00 so I bought five, cheap enough and very secure. Use them for everything.
NOTE: To build this no vice-grips were harmed in any fashion. Again , I built these for fun and was surprised to find out they worked great. It really can lock down on large hooks.
I also have enough adapters to convert this to a tube vice in two simple steps.
It is on an adjustable tilt and swivel photo head which is mounted on a handle bottomed by a 16 lb. magnet.
THE X-ACTO KNIVES
Sooner or later we had to come to the X-Acto knives. All the extra vises I made are equipped with magnets as the base to allow quick change of devices.
The magnets are from Home Depot - medium size and Anilco powerful, as are the steel reinforcement plates on all the black bases and allow many configurations and may be changed out as needed for storage or use.
They are a cheap cool solution, they work, don’t move, rock solid and allow rapid changes in concept and even duplication with the same hackle or bobbin.
Lots more coming you can build yourself like Bobbins,Bodkins, Bobkins, whatever, forceps, Hackle holders and Bobbin holders….
I chose to build with magnets ( about 3.00 -6.00 dollars) as small parts and hooks, are safer and don’t get lost… they allow quick changes, multiple vices to allow duplicating or making two flies at once, heavier enough to stay put, etc.
HINT: The steel friendly magnet plates came from Home Depot, in the wood area, ll kinds of brackets and stuff. They average 98 cents each. Or steel cover squares in electrical for 62 cents. But heavier and more substantial plates are found in HOME DEPOT either plumbing area for 1.64. Mid aisle, bottom row, left side.
The heavier the plate the stronger the magnet hold, so heavier is better. It allows me to make my man cave COMPLETELY CONVERTIBLE and very versatile. I have a dozen assorted devices that allow my work benches to be converted into different platforms and projects for again small builds, experiments , soldering, glueing and so forth. Those magnets are brutally strong. I have never had one slip or move.I
Forget about the Golden Years, thats bullsh*t, the only gold you’ll see is yours probably outgoing to the doctors. Keeping active is the key to long life. Never stop dreaming , building, be active, have some kind of crainial activity or you will become a victim of ALZHEIMER'S and/or DEPRESSION. An active mind and body prevent that.