RS2

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

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

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

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

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