Recent comments

Submitted by Craig on

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I was taught never to mock someones English or grammar. They are multilingual and I am not.

Submitted by George Meyer on

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Great book,in my personal library as I type.

Haha! Or could call it "the bearded dragon". Since my hair is red and dragons breath fire! Haha. Not sure if I want to cut off my beard hair though...

Yeah, you could call it "The Beard" only problem being, only real men, with real beards, would be able to tie it. It could be the next fly tying hit, and go viral.

Submitted by Phil on

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Photo initiated resins have been around since the late 1970's but have recently become inexpensive enough for general use. In dentistry the first ones were indeed UV light initiated, but the wavelength was soon changed due to a concern about carcinogenicity, even though the exposure time was very short. Manufacturers moved to the blue part of the spectrum- around 480 nm. This worked very well until the introduction of LED lights, when some materials would not cure with lights from other manufacturers due to the vary narrow spectral range of the LEDs. This was soon dealt with by using a group of LEDs with slightly different wavelengths in the lights. Cures and color stability became more reliable. I am fairly sure that none of the resins currently on the market are UV initiated. They would have to be checked with a photometer to be sure. They probably all come out of the same barrel from a chemical company in Germany. Small companies could not do the chemical production required..

Shawn,

Your beard is a perfect match for the blue fly! No, honestly: it's an excellent fly tying video. Keep them coming.

Martin

Tim,

I know the problem with most of us judging Africa as an entity. It's like when my US friends are coming to "Europe".

"Well pop by for a cup of coffee while you're in the neighborhood!"
...like in Rome or Madrid. It's only a thousand miles...

I will make sure that I take extra care not to be too general.

Martin

Submitted by Tim Rolston on

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Thank you for your response Martin. I hope that your recognize that there was no intended animosity in my comment, more simply a desire to redress the balance and add perspective. Unfortunately I know that all too often people don't read or assimilate all that is written, leap to ill based conclusions and before one knows it "Africa" is too dangerous a place to visit or do business with. Sadly many people's grasp of geography is sufficiently limited that they read "Nigeria" and extrapolate to "Africa" and I only wished to point out that this would be an unfair conclusion to reach. Thank you for taking the trouble of a response. Tim Rolston www.inkwaziflyfishing.co.za

Tim,

I know that Africa is a continent and not something that should be viewed as a single entity. There's a huge difference between the different countries, but for my headline, I chose to simplify things. And I don't think my headline vilifies anybody to be honest. The post is about the connection between Africa and flies.

And to say that it's based on a "bit of spam" just shows that you obviously don't see what I see in my inbox, in the comments on this site and on my Facebook page. Having a large and popular web site attracts a lot of people, and I prune out messages from people wanting to do business with me on a daily basis. A lot of those are fly tyers based somewhere in Africa. And yes, that might not mean Morocco or South Africa, but to most of the GFF readers Africa is about as much info needed to place it as it is for you to know that I'm based in Europe. There's no derogatory motif behind that, just a wish to make understanding easier.

And sure the English in most of these messages is way better than my Swahili or Yoruba, but that doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to share the funniest ones and poke a bit to those who are clearly not showing their own flies in their marketing.

I am also sure that there are plenty of these operations that deliver excellent flies, and have seen lots of flies come from Africa and Asia, which are easily as good as flies tied in any European of US based flyshop. The post actually both mentions one and shows flies tied by a factory where people clearly both know how to tie flies and how to market themselves.

Regarding payment and logistics in connection with doing business with these manufacturers I have only little knowledge about the options, and I would be the wrong person to give advice on how to transact with them.

Last but not least, I don't think I'm tarring anyone but the businesses I mock and surely not a whole continent – in spite of the headline.

Thanks for your comment.

Martin

Submitted by Eberhard Scheibe on

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Thank you very much, sharing your extra ordinary results of your tests.
I like to see that others the same named attributes of the producers of thread are willing to test.
It is a long way, but some guys are the better "detectives"

Bets regards
Eberhard

Submitted by Tim Rolston on

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I feel compelled to comment on your piece "African Fly Connection". Firstly some very good flies come out of Kenya, although I suspect that not all are, just as not all flies anywhere are top class. Secondly I would suggest that the average level of English from the correspondents (almost certainly a second language) clearly exceeds the grammatical abilities of at least one of your commentators. I would further point out that I am pretty sure that many of the flies that are sold in US shops come from Africa or the East and are sold at a pittance compared to the shelf cost in your local fly shop. But the really sad thing is that your headline vilifies and entire continent based on a bit of spam. There are plenty of competent Fly Anglers, Fly Casters and Fly Tyers in various African countries. It is incredibly difficult to do small amounts of business with the US, simply getting paid is a nightmare, as to suggesting Pay Pal, well I can't stop laughing, come to Africa and try to deal with Pay Pal.. So whilst we all get annoyed by spam, be it from Chinese hook manufacturers or Kenyan Fly Tyers it isn't reasonable to tar everyone with the same brush and denigrate an entire continent based on a couple of emails. Kindest regards Tim Rolston www.inkwaziflyfishing.co.za

Submitted by Michael Diesenbruch on

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Kasper, Great Article. I was wondering, with your recent Election, are the Greens Going to try and close off more areas to Fishing? Cheers, MDD

Submitted by John on

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There are a number of very good suppliers in Kenya, i have used Fly fishing Kenya a number of times and have never been disappointed. I know of a few others that get their flies from the same area and try to pass them off as hand tied locally, the world loves a trier.

John

Submitted by George Meyer on

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Wow,Martin you must have an internal furnace my fly hurling bretheren, I myself wouldnt be able to get out of the truck let alone get geared up for arctic exploration, great article/story showcasing the length some of the crazier fly fisherman go to pursue what they love. I am at least motivated to day dream od winter tubing.

Since you got this far …


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