RS2

Fly Tying Head Cement for Small Flies

Griff's head cement is gone, and a part of me has died. I'm in search of a replacement for the best head cement currently available for tying small trout flies. Griff's head cement has been discontinued, which was the best head cement commercially available for tying of small flies. Rim Chung is now using laquer and laquer thinner. I've gone to Veniards No. 1. Lacquer-based Head Cements Many other modern Catskill masters also use spar varnish as well as lacquers in their various forms. The well known Western fly tyer A.K. Best, in his book, "Production Fly Tying", advocates the use of common hardware store lacquer for its economy and fast drying qualities. Many of the "lacquer" head cements you purchase appear to be a very small bottle of nitrocellulose lacquer that you can get at the hardware store for a whole lot less money…(like A.K. Best says). If the head cement is a pale yellow color (or clear) and smells like lacquer thinner, it is a good bet it is lacquer. Griff’s Head cement - Griffin makes two versions, thick and thin. This is a very common product found in the US. A lot of my friends used this stuff because it was so readily available in our area. But it’s not thin like Griff’s. TroutHunter Harrop Superior Head Cement is the next on my favorite list, but the cloudy color is less than desirable to look at in the bottle anyway, though the application of it seems fine. I am also trying Homemade Thin Nail Polish Head Cement Recipe which is the 2/3 Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails, Clear Topcoat, with 1/3 straight acetone. Veniard’s No. 1 is the closest I have found and my favorite so far. Rim

By |April 29th, 2020|Categories: Fishing, Fly Tying, Rim Chung, RS2, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Fly Tying Head Cement for Small Flies

Semblance Minimalists, Impressionists and Exact Imitationalists

The essence of zen is the beauty of simple things. Fly or Nymph Fishermen tend to fall into one of the above three categories. I am a semblance minimalist fly fisher and only carry 5 or 6 different patterns. I used to carry around 3000 patterns, I was an exact imitationalist, as I was a commercial tyer in my youth. But nowadays it’s just Rim Chhng’s RS2, the Improved Yong Special, the YKnot, the Calgon Fly, Andy Kim’s micro egg and a pheasant tail variant. If I found my former methodology more effective, I'd return to it. But minimalism suits me, and the fish as well. My old pen pal Nick Sawyer explains the minimalist set up well: http://EzineArticles.com/4255534

By |April 29th, 2020|Categories: Fishing, Fly Tying, Rim Chung, RS2, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Semblance Minimalists, Impressionists and Exact Imitationalists

RS3 Fly-Imitation is the Best Form of Flattery

Over on avidmax.com, they just recently posted the following article about the RS3 fly, which is a supposed adaption to create a bulkier nymph than the RS2 fly which was devised by my very good friend, Rim Chung, some 30 years ago. Not sure why you would want "a bulkier nymph" but perhaps he's on to something, I don't know. To me, it looks more like the emerging Alien out of the movie by that title than an improvised RS2 to me, but everyone is entitled to their own tyings and who knows what works until you experiement with it, which Rim would approve of doing as many experiments as possible on the stream to find what works best for you and the trout in your area. There have been many commercial attempts to duplicate and/or improve the RS2 since Rim invented it, as he has never sold it commercially or attempted to keep the pattern to himself in anyway, including Rim's own Avatar fly. So as Rim always says, imitation is best form of flattery. Here's the article by Max Pavel on his RS3: How to tie the RS3 Max writes: The RS2 is a classic pattern that was created by Rim Chung. RS stands for “Rim’s Semblance”. The fly pattern was designed to imitate an emerging mayfly. If you have fished in Colorado the chances are you have heard about the RS2. The RS3 is a spin on Rims pattern that I developed because I wanted something that was tied on a heavy wire hook with a slim profile to be fished on bigger CO rivers where the average mayfly is a bit bigger then on the tailwaters. This fly has been very

By |January 15th, 2020|Categories: Fishing, Fly Tying, Rim Chung, RS2, Uncategorized|Comments Off on RS3 Fly-Imitation is the Best Form of Flattery

Silk Fly Tying Dubbing

Often times I am asked where do you get the natural beaver fur dubbing dyed in various colors for tying Rim Chung's original RS2? I was surprised the other day when Rim suggested to a guy that he buy silk dubbing. I didn't even know it existed. The problem with commerical beaver dubbing is that the fibers are cut and blended in a blender type machine. This results in a lot of short, coarse pieces that go onto the thread in a big clump. The natural fibers off the pelt, can be 1/2" to even 1" long and they can be aligned vertically with the thread, a few fibers at a time, to form a dubbing rope which is then twisted finely onto the thread. The problem nowadays is there are not many commercial companies offering beaver fur on the pelt, and if it is offered, it is usually only in the natural gray, brown and sometimes black, not the olive, yellow, and tan that Rim also uses. So to check it out, I ordered some Kreinik silk dubbing in the following colors:Adam's Grey Black Cinnamon BrownDark DunLight CahillOlive Hare's Ear Pale Yellow They are nice and fine fibers, with longer strands, perfect for substituting for natural beaver. So if you can't find natural beaver dubbing on the fur, and/or don't have time to dye your own then try some silk dubbing. Kreinik Manufacturing Phone: 1-800-624-1928 Fax: 304-428-4326 URL: www.kreinik.com

By |August 3rd, 2019|Categories: Fishing, Fly Tying, Rim Chung, RS2, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Silk Fly Tying Dubbing

Rim Chung and the RS-2 as Featured in The Denver Post

Chung’s RS-II a fishing pearl Rim Chung, originator of the RS-II, remains an active fly-fisherman.By KARL LICIS and SPECIAL TO THE DENVER POST | The Denver Post PUBLISHED: February 2, 2010 at 1:22 pm  UPDATED: May 6, 2016 at 5:03 pm When Rim Chung came to America, little did he know he would create what might be the most effective fishing fly ever devised for Colorado’s South Platte River.ADVERTISING Perhaps it was inevitable. When he arrived in Denver in 1968, the elements for development of the RS-II were already in place. First, Chung already was an accomplished fisherman. “I probably had a certain knack for it,” he said, recalling his childhood in South Korea, where he grew up fishing with long, limber bamboo rods for saltwater fish, with live shrimp as the bait of choice. “I was a good fisherman when I was 15.” Equally important, he and his fellow fishermen were inquisitive. They engaged in lively discussions of the fine points of their fishing — the precise best way to place a shrimp onto a hook and exactly how it should be presented to the fish. He brought some pearls of Oriental philosophy, including an observation by ancient Chinese sages that man should strive to be as one with nature, in this case the water, and recognition of a moral responsibility to the effect, “Why disgrace the fish by not learning about it?” Those qualities would serve him well when he took up fly-fishing in 1970, but the main catalyst leading to creation of the RS-II might have been something in his nature that told him the prevailing approaches to the sport were not necessarily the best. “When I do some self-reflection, I think I must have been born an

By |August 2nd, 2019|Categories: Fishing, Fly Tying, Rim Chung, RS2|Comments Off on Rim Chung and the RS-2 as Featured in The Denver Post

Simple Flies, Tactical Fishing

I always like the way that the fly fishing industry markets with buzzwords. The latest one being "tactical", having been preceded by many others over the past three decades. I started before the days of Roger Hill's classic little book on Fly Fishing the South Platte River: An Angler's Guide. Having fished with Roger, and after becoming good friends with his son, Jeff Hill, who was also a former commercial tyer, I was intrigued by the dozen or so rather impressionistic flies that Roger listed in the book, many of which were popular renditions available at that time from local fly shops, not necessarily anything he claimed to be his own inventions. Roger is a rocket scientist by trade and no dummy at the fly tying bench, yet the South Platte Classic flies that he mentioned in the book were filled with very simple images and dressings such as this one: Others included the Brassie, which was brass wire with a black thread head. Or the Buckskin, which was a little buckskin wrapped as the body with a thorax of a couple turns of peacock. Or, the Black Beauty, black tying thread, ribbed with brass wire, and a little dubbing for the thorax. Other flies came out of this simple South Platte Style, including the Miracle Midge (same as the Black Beauty, only white or cream thread, and later with the addition of a glass Mercury bead head). You might say they are more of semblances of insects rather than exact imitations, as Rim Chung often says of his famous RS2 (which, by the way, is not a super easy fly to tie, at least not in the segmented way that Rim ties it, not

By |May 1st, 2019|Categories: Fishing, Fly Tying, Rim Chung, RS2, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Simple Flies, Tactical Fishing

The Search for the Holy Grail of Fly Fishing

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity. -Lao Tzu I have searched high and low for the holy grail of fly fishing for over 30 years, in books, guides, flies, articles, and every place imaginable. I have found many soothsayers, naysayers, potion sellers, tricksters, hucksters, and a few people who had forgotten more than the others had managed to remember. Starting with the Dame, and passing through Skues, Halford, Sawyer, Kite, Best, Gierach, and taking us all the way to modern day, I have now read them all, every book that I could find in print, or out of print, on fly fishing. And I have tried to meet as many of the people in real life as well, on this side of the pond and across it. There's an interesting saying that a guru horse trainer of mine, Wilson Dennehy says, " less than 10 percent of the people know 90 percent of the available information in the world." By that he means, there are very few experts who really know everything there is to know about a subject. Here's some of the things I have found along the way to finding a guru of fly fishing. Most of them helpful friends along the way leading their own way on paths to the top of the same mountain, but many others (not depicted) were distracting from the true purpose. AK Best tied flied Pat Dorsey Top Secret midge materialFrank Sawyer flies given to me by Nick SawyerLots of fakes before I found the real Chadwicks 477 wool for Killer Bugs And, here's what I have discovered. I have gone from over 1,000 fly patterns in my fly boxes to just three. These three flies, the RS2 as

By |February 26th, 2019|Categories: Fishing, Fly Tying, Rim Chung, RS2|Comments Off on The Search for the Holy Grail of Fly Fishing

Pat Dorsey Flies

My favorite things about Pat Dorsey flies are that they are generally very simple to tie and they work exceptionally well. I have incorporated those strategies into my fly tying over the past couple decades, after chasing the illusive, you got to have it, hot fly of the week syndrome promoted by many in the industry for much of my youth. Pat Dorsey is a Colorado fly fishing guide, commercial fly tyer, and author of quite a few fly fishing books. He is a long-time acquaintance and his flies include staple patterns of the South Platte River, usually featuring his signature "Mercury Bead head" added to the pattern, with other small improvements. These flies will catch fish and the Mercury Bead seems to improve the flies from their original versions. While Pat's flies are not something I tie or use regularly, you have to admire them. Or at least I do, as I was a commercial fly tyer in high school and the patterns are generally fast to tie and more effective than most. However, a lot of my friends do use these files regularly and Pat's improved versions of the black beauty, buckskin, brassie, and other South Platte favorites such as the Mercury RS2, and his version of Andy Kim's Yong Special, the Top Secret Midge, all catch a lot of fish and are flies that I have experimented with over the years. I post some pictures here from Pat's great books, which are educational in how simple flies can be to still be very successful. He has proven to be a guide who knows how to educate his clients both in fishing and fly tying, and is never one to hold back on

By |February 26th, 2019|Categories: Fishing, Fly Tying, RS2, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Pat Dorsey Flies

The Official Rim Chung Fly Tying Videos

New fly tying videos posted of the official RS2 fly and Avatar fly tying instructions in a video format have been set up on YouTube. Rim Chung Ties the RS2 Video ( shorter version ): http://youtu.be/Js1fwpZ0LVQ Rim Chung tying the RS2 Video ( longer version with more comments ) : http://youtu.be/GUpDpKBwkM4   Rim Chung Ties the Avatar Fly Video: http://youtu.be/sehznI7tjDo Rim’s custom fly tying tools

By |March 4th, 2015|Categories: Fly Tying, RS2|Comments Off on The Official Rim Chung Fly Tying Videos

Light Weight Fly Fishing Rods

Please sign up here for notices about the new site I am launching on Rim Chung’s One Fly methods. I have been asked “What rod is Mr. Chung’s current favorite?,” on this blog. This will be the subject of a soon-to-be released article and a chapter in the book that I am in the works of publishing about his fishing methods. The short answers are that a Sage TZX 0710- #0 Line and the Sage LL 2-weight in 7’9”, are Rim Chung’s current all-time favorites. He also fancies several of his Winston rods and depending on when you ask him he often responds that the Winston Boron IIX 8'6", 3 weight is his all time favorite rod. My all time favorite is a Winston WT 8', 3-piece, 3-weight rod, and I exclusively fish Rim Chung's methods of nymph fishing.   Another student of his prefers the Winston Boron III LS ; 3 WT 8’6", so it may be whatever you get used to becomes your favorite. Asking Rim which is his favorite rod used to be an easy question for him to answer, but now the usual response is something along the lines of "Well, that is a lot like asking a man about his favorite woman when he has the pleasure of so many to choose from in his lifetime.  It becomes hard to compare one to the other.  One might be in love with each one for what it represents and offers, without comparison to the others." I’ll attempt to let you in on an advance glimpse behind the invisible veil to catching more fish with his ultra-light weight fly fishing methods here. Mr. Chung has been fly fishing since the glass and bamboo rod era, when they were the only choices as anglers. Many times

By |November 24th, 2011|Categories: Fishing, Rim Chung, RS2|Comments Off on Light Weight Fly Fishing Rods