Try dying stuff.

[J Castwell]

I remember 'way back' when I was 'into' dying lots of tying material. What a time it was; what a mess I usually made of things. I think I can safely say that at least 90% of what I dyed failed. I remember a tendency to over 'cook' hackle necks. 'Rendering' is the operative word here. Dark, blue/black pieces of chicken hide with a few pathetic feathers still clinging to them. My version of blue-dun.
The sulphuric acid treatment on the rabbit hair (makes it yellow) actually did work and I tied with that chunk for years. The deer hide (whole) in the vat for months (alum as I recall) never did get soft. I was supposed to beat it over a stump I think. I remember 'cooking' a pair of leather gloves once too, but for the life of me, I have no idea why I did that. They shrunk and turned into 'cracklins', kinda. Fun times. Mostly didn't learn anything of any value. But did have a grand time. You might give some of it a go.

[Bamboozle]

With the help of Eric Leiser and his book "Fly Tying Materials", I too was a dying junkie back in the day. I even used to do seminars at TU meetings with my Rit and a hotplate.

I once found a barrel full of white hen necks at a fly shop for about $1.00 each. I snapped them all up and dyed them every variation of dun that existed on earth so I could get my Sulphur wings...just the right shade of Letort Dun, (whatever that is). As a result I always keep on the lookout for white or light colored fur, feathers or hair JUST IN CASE I get hung up on a certain shade not on the rack in the shop.

The beauty of dying was/is that you can get the exact color you are looking for which adds a dimension to creating a new/revised pattern that is missing when you just buy the colors available.

BTW, dying something black is a nightmare!!

[Hendrickson]

Had my share of experimentation resulting in small mammal skins with the texture of a turtle shell; feathers with burnt barbs and brittle stems; patches of deer and elk skin where the hair just fell out; colors that I can't even describe; and a woman, mother or wife, that didn't appreciate the fine art of the dyeing process. Too bad they didn't have Kool Aid back when.

H.

[Buddy Sanders]

But,

Does it really matter what shade of a color the fly is?

Aren't we overthinking this a bit?

Do the fish really care?

Is all that mess and effort worth it, or would we be better spent actualy fishing or tying flies or practicing the cast?

I know it's fun, but does it MATTER?

Good Luck!

Buddy

[Bamboozle]

But, Does it really matter what shade of a color the fly is?

It does or doesn't matter depending on what you want to believe but worrying about fly color variation is as worthy a fishing anxiety as rod brand, rod length, rod action, fly size, fishing hat color, WF or DT, hook type, hook size, thread brand...

...we all have heard about that kid with the cane pole, safety pin hook and juicy worm out fishing the "sport" with all the goodies. It all works some of the time.

The day that fishing makes perfect sense, and conjecture, opinion and emotion take a back seat to logic is the day I go back to golf.

[Joe Valencic]

My wife won't let me play with chemical emulsions any more, so I can't try dying anything. Please don't ask for details, suffice to say I'm not allowed.

Joe

[Hendrickson]

I know it's fun, but does it MATTER?

Isn't the point of fly fishing, and I mean the total experience, to have fun! If it didn't matter, why are there 000s of fly pattern, 100s of fly lines, hooks of all shapes, leaders stretching the bounds of visability, 100s of reels that perform the same basic function, bird breeders that can't leave well-enough alone(thankfully as well as regretably), dozens of new rod models produced every year, etc., etc.? Of course it matters

H,

[MontanaMoose]

Buddy, don't you know? The only reason for any of the crazy stuff ff'ers do off season is to keep from going crazy before opening day or ice out ! I admit some do creative things like make rods, tie flies etc. but geez, imagine the pouring rain (here now), some imagination and the crazy laughter echoing through the halls of a happy retired guy's place while trying to dye things. :))

JC, now on the cracklins...do I salt to taste after or is there enough salt in the curing process? Elk hide gloves 'render' better munchies or is steerhide tastier?

Cheers !

MontanaMoose

[Gandolf]

Hi James and All,

I dye stuff at least a few times a year, being fundamentally cheap, and also hating to buy 5 or 6 dyed saddles or whatever, when one will do for years for me, if I dye it into the colors wanted. Also, if I don't buy 5 saddles, and instead buy one, the funds not used on 4 more saddles are available to buy some other material.

Finally, it is hard to find the colors that I sometimes want. Thus, I dye a white hen saddle a number of colors for my sunfish flies.

One other reason to dye is that sometimes it is the only way to come up with a standard material that I want. For example, I was having a hard time finding long saddle hackle of good quality for large improved sofa pillows. At the time I phoned or emailed most of the major hackle producers, and none had the #6 or #4 brown hackle that I wanted. (I love those big sofa pillows for the dark golden stone hatch on the Cimmarron.)

I found a couple of large grizzly saddles on Ebay. That was the only big saddle hackle I could find. What to do...what to do... what to do. Well, I bleached the griz from black chevrons to brown to light brown chevrons, and then used Rit tan to dye it brown...at last feathers for improve sofa pillows!

(The bleaching was done with a 50/50 mixture of household ammonia and household hydrogen peroxide... it took 24 hours but it worked.) (If you take Rit tan, and use it about 10 times as strong as the instructions say it makes a pretty good brown.) Now the situation is better for this big hackle, but not then.

Some of the old Scottish wet flies use blue or red hackle, that can be tough to find, and one cape would tie these for several of my lifetimes. One cream cape (which I already have) can be dyed to give all of the blue hackle I need. I also hate to buy an entire cape when I only need half a dozen to a dozen feathers from it. Buying a cape every time 6 feathers are needed is a good way to really jack up the cost of fly tying.

I use mostly Rit and Coolade, or generic (cheaper) Coolade. With the Rit, I use it much stronger than the recipe calls for and usually only use a little bit from the bottle to dye enough feathers for a few years worth of tying.

I also wanted dry fly rabbit dubbing that had virtually no guard hair in it, and already had some white rabbit hides. Thus, I dyed a few small pieces of hide the colors I wanted, picked out the guard hair by clipping, holding between the finger and thumb of one hand, and picking out the longer guard hairs using my other hand. Took a while but not too long to give packages of dubbing much larger than you buy from the fly shops.

One important thing is to not heat the material to be dyed too much, that will prevent damage to the material. It is difficult to get EVERY color that is wanted, but can get many of them. Also, Rit and Coolade do not have any strong chemicals (IE: no caustics, acids, or oxidizers (bleaches)), so they are inherently much easier on materials than some of the older techniques.

Joe, I also know how to deal with the better half to do my dying...I go into the shed where I can't mess up her kitchen!

Oh, one advantage of being a chemist is you can borrow beakers and an infinately variable hot plate
from the lab to do the dying. (These can be bought on Ebay, and I may buy them sometime.)

Regards,

Gandolf

[RonMT]

I have dyed materials for over 40 years and yes it does matter at times. I also dyed for a large Fly Company for over 9 years so I have done a lot of it. I kept a log book so I knew what was going on. With out it I could not have remembered some of the way's of doing some of the dying. Heck I have dyed as many as 100 capes at a time.

As far as the fish caring about the color you bet they do. Just depends on were you are fishing and what for. I have seen were it mattered on spring creeks to the point of not catching a fish at all. I have also seen it matter in saltwater.

I just dyed some calftails for a local shop. So I still do it some. In fact I have clients across the country that I dye somethings for each year. Seems they can't get the color they need anyplace else. So I say YES color does matter at times. And at times it dosen't seem to. Just depends on were you are and what you are fishing for and how much experence you have in fly fishing? Ron