I volunteer for Reel Recovery in Arkansas. We have an upcoming outing in October and could use some flies. If you don’t know what Reel Recovery is, click the links. We are short some flies and I thought I would see if any of you would like to donate. The flies would be used for a Reel Recovery Outing in Arkansas on the White and/or Norfork rivers. Any flies not used there, would be passed along to future Reel Recovery outings around the country.
I did this on FAOL in 2010 and had a outstanding response. I got 700+ flies. Those flies were definitely used at the retreat and then forwarded on to other retreats. When we had the 2011 Arkansas retreat, some of the flies made it back around again.
Most of our fishing this time of year is nymphs etc. There may be a little dry fly fishing with a few midge hatches. Flies needed are:
midges 16-22
soft hackles 14-18
woolly buggers 6-12
scuds 14-20
sowbugs 14-18
PT’s/copper johns/hares ear and variations 14-18
Some Fox Squirrel nymphs would be nice as well 14-18
Other Trout patterns are of course welcome.
If anyone has a small fly box that they would like to send along, that would be great as well. We setup small day boxes last year with fly selections and that worked well.
This is a great charity and the flies would be used by some great guys in need of a break from their battle with cancer.
PM or email me if you are interested and I’ll return the message with my mailing address. I would need them in my hands by October 8th.
I updated my original post with sizes. We mainly fish smaller flies in the White River tail water. My most common size is 16-18 in most of the patterns I listed other than wooly bugger.
I would love to help out with this but I have two problems. I don’t have enough experience tying, yet, to consistently turn out a good looking fly and I don’t have enough materials on hand.
I’ll hopefully have both of those remedied before the next charity event.
Okay, thank you ScottP, for the suggestion … count me in for some Mercury Midges. I’ve never tried tying a #22 anything as I don’t use them for bass or panfish. I’ll get the hooks and beads Monday or Tuesday and get started this week.
What’s a good number to tie and send? How many people do you usually get fishing?
WayneP. I am sorry, I think I have to back out of the offer to tie some Mercury Midges. I went to the Outfitters to get some #22 hooks and the other supplies for tying. Excuse my language when I say, “Holy F*(&#^G S@*T !!!”
I’ve been tying some stuff for about a month now. But when I tried to look at those #22 scud hooks, my eyesight failed. I had to drive home by braille. My mother always warned me that my face would stick like the face I was making, I didn’t realize she meant a squinting face too.
I am still working on my cheapo vice, and I don’t even think it would hold those hooks.
I did tie ten practice midges last night, using up what I thought were tiny hooks that I knew I’d never use. After seeing those #22s at the store today, I understand that the hooks I tied on are bigger versions of TINY.
I’ll take a picture of the ones I tied … if you can use them, I’ll send them.
We regularly use zebra midges of size 16, 18 & 20’s as well. Not sure if those are large enough for you. They dont have to be 22’s. I hardly tie any that small
