I just read his book and 31 steps is too much, please tell me you can tie a fishable CJ with less steps and time.
Charlie Craven does it in 28 here.
wow i didnt realize that there was that many steps
28/31 doesn’t make much difference when it only takes 2+ minutes to tie one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqXwnQahpX0
Props to Mr. Craven.
Yeah, I need those skillz, it takes me that long to tie on the tail.
Rick
As Warren has posted, it can be done a lot faster if you happen to have magic skills. The Devil owns Craven’s soul these days, but he sure can tie!
Bless John Barr for inventing this fly, cuz it really does work! If your tying skills are as “good” as mine, you will come to think of this as the perfect fly to tie in the winter when it is too cold to hit the water. As you tie it you KNOW it will work and can dream about the trout at the end of your line when the snow goes away. But it is going to take you several full winter afternoons to tie them up in the sizes and colors you want.
Nothing wrong with that, plus you get to keep your soul.
tie the tungsten bead copper john, its only 14 steps (page 22-23)
a lot of the steps in the book can be eliminated and arent really necessary. you dont need 4 steps to show tying in the body wire and wrapping it forward.
however, not everybody is an expert fly tyer. if the extra steps in tying the fly helps a new tyer visualize whats being tied, its ok with me.
Two hundred years from now, something bad will happen to Charlie’s descendants.
Oldfrat, it’s never too cold to hit the water. Sometimes you bounce off of the opaque white surface, however. 
You can take about ANY process and break it into as many steps as you want. That does not make it any more or less difficult, it just splits it out into however many pieces you wish.
Tie one, then tie another, then tie another, and another… By the time you have tied a couple dozen, or a couple hundred, all of those steps will have condensed back into “Tie one PT nymph”.
If you look at Charlie’s tutorial http://www.charliesflyboxinc.com/flybox/details.cfm?parentID=17 you can see that a lot of those steps are pretty simple and add about 1 second to tying time (e.g. sliding the lead, or sub, wire against the bead). To speed things up even more, I don’t add the epoxy until I have at least 6 flies ready, then do them all at once - saves time and epoxy. I’m not even close to being considered an adequate tier, but I don’t find the Copper John to be all that difficult, and as Oldfrat said, the fly is worth the time. Learn to tie it and you can use those skills on many other flies. Charlie’s videos are fun to watch and even if you can’t do one in 2:13 like him, tie enough and you’ll be surprised how quickly you can crank them out.
Regards,
Scott
Yeah - after the first time I read that kind of tutorial for THE Copper John, I mentioned to my first fly tying mentor, John Stenerson of Idaho Falls, that I would never tie one of THOSE. John explained his six step approach ( starting with a hook with bead in place in the vice ).
Tie in the tails.
Tie in the copper wire behind the bead and tie it down to the shank back to the tails.
Wrap the wire forward to where the thorax starts, tie off, and trim tag end.
Tie in peacock herl and wrap forward to form thorax, tie off, and trim ends.
Tie in legging material, whatever you chose to use, tie off and trim excess, if any.
Whip finish. Head cement is optional.
FORGET the wing case.
FORGET the expoxy.
The simplified coppery john nymph is “tied in the round” so it will always present to a fish what they are likely to see looking at one of those fancified 31 step flies, and will certainly look like at least one view of the true Copper John, which is tails, wire abdomen, peacock herl thorax, legs, and beadhead.
Have you thought about what view of a Copper John a trout likely sees as it comes downstream at him ?? Not being a fish, I can’t say. BUT my guess is that most of the time they see something that is very much like Stenerson’s simplified “in the round” version described above.
Have you thought about what view of a Copper John a trout fisherman likely sees wherever it he sees that effective, pretty, famous, fancy, nymph extraordinaire ?? WOW - got to have some of those !!
Just saying …
John
Similar to John, I dont fuss with epoxy…ever. When I tie these, I do: tails, wire, pearl mylar case, herl body, hen hackle legs, pull case forward, whip finish.
Without the optional case & tails, there isnt much difference between a copper john and a brassie soft hackle…which is widely regarded as a really simple fly.
What’s the story on Charlie Craven? Bidding with the devil? Explain! I’d be interested because I don’t know the man–only his website.
Bruce
I’ve traded e-mails with him and bought some materials. In all my dealings, he’s been a great guy to deal with, provides outstanding quality material, and lots of sound advice. His shop is supposed to be one of the best; hope to get the chance to visit it some day. As you can see by his site, he’s an outstanding tier and innovator.
Regards,
Scott
ps - he is left-handed, so all that stuff about dealing with the devil may be true (lol)
thank you.
And he does it all backwards! :lol:
The difference between ‘steps’ and ‘explanations’.
A lot of what many fly tying tutorials label as ‘steps’ are really explanations. Basically additional photos and text to show why you are doing somehing a certain way.
It may be really be only one ‘step’ to tie in and wrap the wire to form the abdomen, but someone who doesn’t know how to do that could use several different spots of explanation to explain how to do it so that fly comes out the way you want.
A step, to me, is something that you begin and end before changing to another material or operation on the fly.
A copper John has around four or five true ‘steps’.
Buddy
Lastchance, I was only kidding about Charlie’s deal with the devil. It is a joke explanation for his amazing tying skills. He’s also an extremely nice guy with an amazing ability to remember names and a fly shop that seems to stock every legal tying material known to man.
I was in Charlie’s shop this Fall and it is a great place. Also, those guys are more than willing to help out some PA boys find CO fish!
Thanks. I was just wondering. You don’t get voice inflections with the written word so sometimes meanings get lost. I don’t know him, as a I said before, but I talked with him on the phone and he seemed very nice.