I have run into a problem that had not occured to me before. I was going thru three old swap collections looking for ideas for crappie/bluegill flies. I found 4 different crappie flies that I think will do well for me at the Central Washington fish-in. Trouble with two of them is that instead of adding a toe tag with the recipe the tier put a note on the fly saying to check His swap post for the recipe. Well Its been 3 years since the swap and no way can I find that recipe. It is my opinion that this is a poor method of giving out the recipe. Recipes should accompany the fly.
Luckily one of the tiers in question was in the chat and was able to supply me with one of the missing ones. Three is enough for the fish in so I didn’t persue the 4th recipe. It is a simple looking fly and I’m sure I can tie it easily.
Lesson learned, from now on I check the tags and will copy any missing recipes down as soon as I receive the flies from any swap.
What, it’s their fault you didn’t write it down? I don’t recall putting a recipe with my flies in any of the very few swaps I have done. Then again, my flies are always too simple to mess up too much.
Unfortunately, a lot of tyers don’t bother to follow toetag instructions from the swap pages. It goes with the territory and I’ve given up trying to worry about it. I don’t know if it will help, but here are the bluegill swaps I’m aware of:
I keep the toe tag on the fly. If I tie any of them up and can’t follow the pattern, I email the person and get it. I have a notebook with patterns and sample flies.
In my opinion a toe tag should contain the tiers online name, the fly name and the recipe. I do this for all flies I tie for swaps. I just beleive this to be the proper way of doing it. Just my 2 cents. John
I usually try to include name of the fly, my name, creator of the fly if known and the recipe. The problem arises when someone sends a very small tin (like Altoids) for a swap container and after putting in the toe tags there is little room left for the flies.
lets just suppose you got some flies without the recipes on the toe tags. why not just send a PM to that person while the swap is still fresh on the pertinent swap page. just look at the fly swap page on this site. how many pages are listed for swaps???
if all of a sudden you pull out a fly from a swap 3 years ago and theres a toe tag and no recipe, you should have asked about it then, not now.
i try to send my flies out with a business card that i designed for the particular swap that includes a photo of the fly and the recipe that is then inserted into a small zip lock baggie (i omit the baggie for dry flies etc). it is a little overboard and i’m slowly beginning to realize that. not many swappers put in an effort to toe tags, so maybe i’ll go down that road too! i personally believe my email address is private and will remain that way. send a simple PM for more info. everybody knows when they get one, a dialogue box pops up on the screen.
One could take a quick picture of the fly received and print it onto regular printer paper instead of photo paper(to save money) and attach the tying instructions to this or write the tying instructions on it. Then hole punch the edge and file it in a binder with index tabs for bluegill flies, crappie flies, bass flies, nymphs, buggers, emergers, etc,etc. You could even put the other information on this like the year of the fly swap and the swap master.
I have to with Ron, Use of the small box’es does make it hard to get all the flies and the toe tags inside. I think the reason most folks use the small box’es is because of shipping cost. I try to use box’es big enough to hold tags and the flies that will be shipped back in a swap. When I host a swap I put it in the instructions to use a box big enough to hold what you will be getting back. That is also why I ask everyone what size hook they will be using for their flies, it makes it easier to determine the size of the box. Just my 2 cents. John
I keep a small cheap note book, that when I receive a fly I right all the info into about that fly and as Warren said I do put a pic of the fly beside the info. This only takes a couple of minutes to do and I have it for future info. But it does help it you are given the info when the swap is listed or a toe tag with all info is supplied. My daughter just glues the toe tags in her notebook. John
My real problem stems from the fact that I never envisioned myself ever fishing for gills or crappie as we don’t have them up here. So being a lazy type I didn’t write down the recipes. Now I sure wish I had. I’m doing it now you can bet.
Another problem has reared its ugly head. Ole blue posted those links and now my cup runneth over. Thanks blue. I will need several months to pick out and tie some of those neat flies. Ahhh such are the trials and tribulations of being a GnuBee.