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I was tying some bead chain eyes on some hook 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 hold 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 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 feather 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 just 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 (written 03/10/04)
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