Don,

Thank you for the reply.

I by no means have rubbed shoulders with many of the more well known tyers or fisherman though I can say that meeting John Betts many years ago did have an influence upon me.

I do not tie for business purposes rather to support my habit and because I am interested in the all the aspects of my chosen sport/hobby/obsession.

Ray Bergman's book was my bible 30 years ago and when you mentioned it I walked over to find it on the bookshelf only to recall that I gave my last copy to a young fisherman not long ago.

I do use the method of splitting tails with the figure 8 and had used that you mention by Al C, and I do use synthetics as much as possible and where they make sense due to ease of manipulation and durability...including microfibettes for tails.

The point that James B. illuminates in his presentation of Marinaro's fly has stuck with me so I began experimenting with the using the method in other combinations for a better imprint of a mayfly dun impression on the surface of the water, noting what Vince wrote in reference to the fly in the 'Ring of the Rise'.

I appreciate your comments on Bergman and Schwiebert and I had no idea of this particular historical context and will have to obtain another copy of 'Trout'. I will say this about Bergman--he taught me to fish with a flyrod for trout as I had no one in my personal acqaintance who was really such a fisherman though my father used a flyrod for panfish in the freestone streams of Southern Missouri.

My second exeperience of fishing with a flyrod, now this is 35 years ago I guess, I was using simple cheap store bought flies probably purchased at a hardware store or K-Mart or something, a fly reel mounted on a spinning rod(I couldn't afford the equipment), and brought to net 13 trout in two days of fishing using Bergman's methods and largely, the wetfly which I have never abandoned, well, I now use soft-hackles for the most part. This one trip when I was about 19 or so was what hooked me on fishing for Trout and fishing with a flyrod which is what I use probably 90% of the time now.

I did see someone offering display art based on the traditional flies represented in the plates of the book Trout. Shoot. what kind of display box do they call that? ...it slips my ability to recall of this moment.

I will give your method of tying the thorax fly and note that I guess I was approaching the use you suggest, stripping one side of the feather before hackling.

I guess my observation is that the quill body dry flies have a pronounced effectiveness proven to me on the St. Vrain when I lived in Colorado years ago. I had doubted this at the time but was sold to include them among the flies I tie for fishing. Hence I guess, AK Best in iterating his enthusiasm for quill body flies is important. I also framed a lot of what I use from that time because this is when I met John Betts so perhaps about 1983 or something like that. Funny but the explosion of using synthetics is big business now.

Anyway, the methods of tying including
hackle-less flies, paraduns and flies with trailing shucks ie, from Carl Richards had an influence on what I tie in similar fasion. .

I think you can see why I am influenced to combine methods or at least use a series of flies for circumstances being met on the water.

I do appreciate your comments.

my best,
David