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I was tying some bead chain eyes on some hooks
so that I could super glue them and then tie flies
next week. I like to put about 10 wraps of thread
around the bead chain and then super glue it. This
holds the eyes straight and leaves me plenty of room
to put thread there when I finish tying the fly.
I had received a box of materials that were picked
up at a garage sale by a friend who was away for
the winter. He was wandering around down in Florida
and saw this box that had some hooks that said Dry
Fly size 18. He decided that for $1.00 he would get
it and bring it to me.
I got about a dozen boxes of hooks with from two
to twenty hooks in a box. There were several partial
spools of thread, some floss, chenille and a few
things that I am not sure what they were.
There were some feathers in baggies but they did
not look good. There was "sawdust" in the bags
and I pitched them rather than try to do something
with them. Also by bending a few of the bags I found
that the stems were very brittle. I did not think
that is was worth infesting everything I had to try
to save these. I am not sure how long the bags had
been closed.
I did decide that this was a good time to use up
some of this thread. It would tie the eyes on and
then be zap-a-gapped, so I was not worried about
the strength of the thread. Also the thread used
to wrap the bead chain eyes on gets covered up by
the thread to tie the fly so it is a way to use up
scraps of thread. Most of the spools in this box
of stuff were mostly used up and had two or three
layers of thread on the spool.
I put on a spool of brown thread that did not have
much left and started wrapping on eyes. I did three
when I broke the thread wrapping the fourth set of
eyes. I looked at the thread and the end of the
thread was wrapped around the thread going through
the bobbin. I untangled it and looked at it carefully.
Usually I just re-thread and go on, but this time I
think I showed some smarts. For some reason the
thread was spooled on so that the end of the thread
was looped over the first two layers of thread put
on the spool. This meant as the thread turned I had
a tag end flopping around to catch on everything.
At this time I showed a few more smarts. I have a
few empty spool and decided to wrap the thread on
one of those so that I would have more control and
not get tied up in knots. I know, it might have been
smarter and quicker to just pitch it, but I wanted
to see how it was spooled on.
That was how I found that the thread was wrapped
over itself. It did go on the other spool fairly
easily and then I finished using it up on tying
eyes on.
The next spool of thread I used I put on another
spool right away. It also had the tag end of the
thread folded over between the second and third
layers of thread going on the original spool. It
was easier to do it this way than to tie some and
get it wrapped up. I checked the rest of the spools
and they were all the same, but they are all fixed
now.
There were no labels on the spools and the thread
looked to be in the 6/0 to 8/0 range. This was from
side by side comparisons to the thread that I have
now. If anyone knows who made this and why they
did it this way I would like to know.
Ice is off the ponds but the wind has been blowing
40 mph. Warmer days ahead.
Hope you can get out on the water. ~ Rick ziegeria@grm.net
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