We will be meeting on Saturday May 16th at the King County Library Annex building at 9am, those wanting breakfast will meet at the Egg & I in Gillman Village, Issaquah at 8am.

This month we will have Steve Gobin lead the meeting tying The Popham, from Kelson. Steve has been a member for as long as I can remember, his work speaks for itself, his sleek, low racy look is the hallmark of his tying. I noticed right away when I joined that the flies tied by Steve and others were different. They flowed, low and lean, and had such a distinctive look to them, one I worked hard to emulate. They looked that good! I know many of you have not seen Steve’s work, so you are in for a treat. Steve is very low keyed, not showy, or overly talkative, but has a lot to say, so ask questions and listen to what he has to say. When I asked Steve if he would like to demonstrate for the Guild, he didn’t hesitate on bit! Thank’s Steve.

The Popham I believe, follows the idea we have followed all year with the premise of tutorials built into the fly picked. Here you have a multi sectional body, using body tapering, and you get to use the body section tool produced by Don Maddox to create a nice uniform look. Don’t forget that each section has Crow above and below as well as Black Ostrich Herl as a butt, so figure that in when sections are marked out prior to tying. Remember, it’s the little things! In speaking with Steve, he also recommended as I do to tie in the underwings before the throat! Hale’s book highlights this. We will also use Jay, if you hesitate using Jay, get over it and jump in, nothing looks as good. Sometimes you can use 2 feathers to get a nice full throat, with a nice tapered flow! For me, when tying a fly without a body hackle, you can extend the throat length a little to compensate for not having a body hackle, think about that as you build your fly. You will have to leave a little more room though, Plan it out! A low tail will set you up for success too. If you are having trouble splitting Jay, Mark is very good at it and has shown me tricks he uses to accomplish a nice clean strip. This will be a great fly to finish off our yearly meetings, many things we have learned this year is packed into this fly, so it’s time to step up and put your skills to use. It will be fun!

When I look back at our year I think we have accomplished a lot as far as techniques and how to think your way through a Classic Salmon Fly. Many of our seasoned members stepped up and agreed to showcase their skills to the Group, I can’t thank them enough, something we will continue to do. I feel it brings a fresh, new look into watching others technical application of materials and their interpretation of a pattern or recipe. Remember your in control of your tying the end results are in your hands. So try a new idea, or application of materials you have watched someone do while demonstrating. It might just become something you use on a regular basis.

That being said I will just highlight the things we did and the flies we tied this year. We attempted the Gordon in October, muti underwing pattern using peacock herl and a nice main wing over it. In November we tried a meeting dedicated to explaining the many ways to tie a “Mixed Wing”, at least how I interpret it anyway. We tackled the Standard Married Mixed Wing, The Kelson Mixed Wing (a royal pain in the ass) but just stunning when done! The Hale Mixed Wing utilizing bundles to create the wing skin, and finally the Irish Mixed Wing, where we sandwiched materials and brushed them out prior to tying it in. To be honest, I didn’t expect this meeting to have much traction, but had so much positive responses to it. Then in December we tied the Yellow Doctor, using a nice tapered underbody and a clean silk body with a body hackle. In January, Dareld tied the Butcher from Pryce-Tannett, a complicated fly with many parts and all the bells and whistles, Thanks Dareld. In February, Hunter opened the world of Blacker to us all with his historical explanation and background information helping us understand how to tie his patterns true to that time. Quite a meeting, thanks Hunter! March had us attempt a multi sectional seal fur body fly called the Rainbow, again using Don’s body sectional tool to create a beautiful body. And we had Kevin Nadeau come in for our April meeting tying up several patterns over a weekend. From what I have heard, it was a huge success, my thanks to everyone who took up the reigns to make Kevin’s trip a hit. Ringo, I can’t thank you enough my friend to not only made a friend in Kevin, but your kindness and willingness to put Kevin up made his trip, as well as helping out the Guild. I owe you brother! Mark, my right hand man, took over not only the meeting but all the video productions and securing the locations for Kevins visit. Steve Brocco for getting the Firehouse location for us on Sunday. Hunter and Linda for always thinking of the group with food and goodies we all look forward to, thank you! And we will close the year with the real OG, Steve Gobin tying the Popham for our May meeting. So, as you can see we have covered a lot of ground this year, we will continue to try to improve our meetings and the content we bring to you all this coming year. That level of commitment can only be achieved with the help of our membership each and every month. As you see it’s not something any single person can do alone, I am grateful to have so many positive and talented people around to make this stuff happen each month. When you take a moment to really think about it, we are without a doubt, the most active, and the largest Salmon Tying group in the world today. That’s something!! We have increased our membership to almost 80 members thank’s in part to Mark for making our meeting content available to our members online, and his dual camera setup. It sure makes our meetings come to life, we ain’t perfect, but we are on a really good path forward.

Sorry about being long-winded but I have so much to be thankful for, this Guild means the world to me, and making it better will be our mission as we head into next year. So think about what you still might need to see or hear as it pertains to your tying, let me know how we might cater to bringing you the most informative and clear information possible, as we see it. Again, no one in our group is a professional, nobody claims to know it all, we all just tie flies, but the key is to share anything we know with each other. That is the key to our success I believe. I can say that because as I sit either in the peanut gallery or in front of you, I see on a regular basis, members helping each other, lending sound advice to those who seek answers, or sharing materials to help someone move forward. How cool is that?

Hope to see you all on the 16th in Issaquah for our final meeting of the 25-26′ year, should be a blast!