So I have been a little late…like a few years or so late…to
as I have called it, the “flash light epoxy” party. I have had my reasons…when
I look in a fly shop, online, in a catalog, or any other retailer I have NO
IDEA what I need to buy nor do I want to pay what a flash light and what
amounts to epoxy costs. I don’t know what I want…thick, thin, brush on
application, squeeze bottle, magnum light….I have followed the basic if it
ain’t broke don’t fix it, we don’t leave fish to find fish, and what works works
mantras.
My epoxy turner and 2.99 tubes of 5 minute epoxy from Lowes
work just fine…I have a stack of 3x5 cards and toothpicks to mix and apply it
and put my flies on the wheel ounce done. I actually have the whole process
down to a science for the most part…a beautifully efficient and coordinated
dance…I may be a little enamored with myself or have a self inflated opinion of
my epoxy application to over glorified craft materials on hooks but the bottom
line is I had a good program working.
Finally after seeing enough posts on Instagram and Facebook
of REALLY COOL bait fish patterns with these supper clean built up epoxy heads
and realizing that ounce again water is going to be low this year and I am
going to have to fish some light lines and light flies for stripers on the
river I broke down and said “I gotta figure this out”…cause I am going to be
straight up here…when I apply epoxy to my clousers they look fine, just as good
as any “flash light epoxy” thing…when I try to build up a epoxy head 9 times
out of 10 they look like crap and get hung on the wall as “decoration” or as
“gifts” to my son, and even my 6year old looks at a few of them as “ya dad uhhh
I might never ever fish that…but I’ll take it anyway….even though at 6years old
I can tie one that looks WAY better”
So, I got in touch with my buddy Matt Callies who works for
Loon…Now there are a few of companies that make this “flash light epoxy” stuff
but I know Matt and I felt completely comfortable admitting that I am a complete
neophyte and still in the stone age using expoxy so I hit him up. That and Loon
is the leader in consciously produced fishing products…like floatant that
dosen’t leave an oil slick in the water coming of your dry fly, so I felt
pretty sure that the stuff wouldn’t cause chemical burns, the light wouldn’t
burn out my eye balls, or the fumes wouldn’t poison my children.
Matt is not only an AMAZING and INCREDIBLY innovative fly
tier…and in my opinion very under appreciated and recognized…he is very good at
teaching complex fly tying in a simple straight forward manner. He basically
told me I need the Loon UV Clear Fly Finish thick and think …..there was two
bottles of stuff I needed “thick” for head build up and “thin” for like epoxy
heads, backs, and thin layer stuff and of course a light…get the big one he
said…the MAGNUM. If there is a magnum size offered why would I buy any less
right.
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| Flash Light Epoxy...I am a convert...and yes that is a Dusty Baker tooth pick holder bubblehead in the background that has become very insignificant now. |
So I tried the Loon UV Clear Fly Finish thick this morning
for the first time. I had tied up some small baitfish patterns to fish for
small and largemouth bass on the river next week and figured this was a good
time to try the stuff out. My “epoxy build up head” fly repertoire is pretty
limited and most of my baitfish flies have lead eyes. The flies I decided to
try the Loon UV Clear Fly Finish thick on were just basic glue some stick on
eyes and build up a head around it flies…pretty simple stuff. I can happily
report that all the flies I have deemed fishable and went into to one of my
boat boxes to be fished. The process was pretty simple, squeeze bottle in one
hand light in the other and lay down some goop, hit it with the light, lay down
a bit more, and hit it with the light until I got the head I wanted. This
seemed to be the easiest and cleanest way to do it…I tried laying down all the goop
at ounce and then hitting it with the light and that worked, but the material
shifted a bit as I laid more and more down on the head …I liked the lay a bit
down, hit it with the light, lay more down, hit it with the light better, this
approach created a more uniform head.
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| Not a bad first batch...not perfect but fishable |
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| Baby bass...aka striper food |
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| Baby bass...aka bigger bass food size |
My deduction is that I am going to use this stuff a lot more
and realistically tie many more flies that have epoxy heads vs. lead eyes as
now it is MUCH easier and much more efficient. I think that will open up some
new fishing opportunities for me as over the last few years I have really
started fishing shallower water and submerged weed beds on the Sac for stripers
with a lot of luck with a fairly limited fly selection. I will try the Loon UV
Clear Fly Finish thick and think on a bunch more stuff…mayfly/stonefly backs,
my clousers, and a few bass flies I am sure. I’ll get some more pictures up as
I work with this stuff. Old Dog learned new Trick.
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