With the nasty weather I’ve been fly tying , currently with deer hair, Zora Spooks
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I'm just getting back into fly tying and rod building after a 2 - 4 decade break. 2 decades from flies and 2 more almost since I last built a rod. Lost all my fur and feathers on the move to northern Alberta in '01 so haven't done any since but a year ago now I bought some guys collection from his son after he passed away. Got loads of stuff to play with now. After fishing salmon and steelhead in BC rivers all my life the pike and walleye up here just don't float my boat as much. Then I got a little 12' tinny and now back into the sport big time. 10 rod blanks on order and overdue tho not really set up yet to start working on them yet. Just practising on old rods to learn a few decorative wrapping techniques.
Today I finally got around to making a lock nut to work on the single spool thread carriage on the little CRB CORE rod wrapper I bought 6 months ago. Drilled out a wing nut just enough to drive a locking 1/4" nut into it and it works great. Without the lock the wing nut will tighten or loosen as thread is pulled from the spool under tension.
The original locking knob for one spool of thread and my DIY one. My neighbour had 3 different conical springs and the one on the right was the best. Not as heavy gauge as the original but taller so it tightens down just as well.
All set up and ready to wrap. For the smaller spools I just put a larger nut on the threaded rod so the locking knob doesn't have to be screwed on as far. That unit slides onto the wrapper with a tapered slot to hold it in place while using.
What are you fishing with those cool looking zora hooks? Those other ones with the weedless rigging look like they'd work good for pike. I'm planning to make some deer hair mice poppers but they won't be that pretty. One of the rods I'll be building is a 12"6", 8wt, 3 piece Spey rod I'll use for pike. My old casting arm with the bum shoulder doesn't like tossing shooting heads and big flies on my 10' Powell 8wt all by itself so much any more.
That's the last rod I built in '86.
Nice to see you're not loading those zoras up with 3 treble hooks. I only use single barbless hooks on everything myself and have since I was a kid. In Alberta here they brought in a barbless rule but you could still have 3 trebles on a lure as long as the barbs were flattened or filed off. Whiny wannabe fishermen raised a a stink and they repealed the rule. Not allowed to keep pike at the lake I'm close to so I just have to give them a little slack and most of the time they self-release so I don't even have to touch them. Sometimes it's almost a fish per cast. Nice little trout lake just 20 min down the road from me so having fun rowing my little tinny around there for trout on the fly.
Pic from my pontoon equipped drone. I have a 50lb thrust trolling motor and a 9.9 johnson outboard but don't need the electric in there and can't use gas motors. Never used the 9.9 yet as the trolling motor is good enough on the pike lake. I'll row there too for the exercise.