Bob Jacklin

I just saw Bob Jacklin do his fly tying show again, today. This time at the Bozeman Troutfitters store. Wow. I've been going to a lot of these shows this spring. They're all good. But nobody ties as fast and as accurately as Bob. Amazing stuff. You can't get that good unless you spend a liftime doing it--no matter what it is. I've seen Bob's show before. I'll go again the next time. Among other things, Bob tells a damn good story.

What I noticed:

This time I noticed Bob almost always ties a bit of dubbing onto the rear end of the hook first, before mounting the tails. Then he mounts the tails. The dubbing makes it easier to spread the fibers and position them however you want. Good stuff.

I also noticed that for all nymphs and dryflies, that have ribbing of any kind, Bob winds one wrap of body dubbing underneath and behind the ribbing, before winding the dubbing forward. Then the ribbing seems to dissapear into the body, at the rear end of the fly. Nice touch.

I also noticed Bob use a peacock herl technique I've never seen before. In order to make the green body of a medium sized green drake nymph, Bob got four peacock herl strands tangled into a dubbing loop. Then he spun the dubbing loop to make what looked like a yarn strand, made from herl. And then wound that. Also a nice technique.

Bob made a little grab-out-of-a-box ticket lottery at the end of the show. I won a copy of his latest tying DVD plus another March Brown Nymph. That was an an afternoon well spent.