Desk Dump: 5 for Summer

5 Materials for Summer

Desk Dump: 5 for Summer

I know it may be disappointing, based on the title here, if you were expecting to see my dog taking a dukey on my desk, but no we'll save that for a later post. However, if you've been around the social media and interweb channels long enough, you might be familiar with a very popular style of photo and blog post called "Pocket Dumps" (Google it if you're not). We've toyed around with the idea of doing something similar that would revolve around tying, so this is the first in a series of pocket dump style posts we're going to name "Desk Dumps". These posts will feature materials we have on our desks a lot lately and how we're using them. In terms of pocket dump jargon, this would be called an EDC (Every Day Carry) type material. And while our EDC materials will vary throughout the year, we'll try to stay on top of what we're tying.

So in this inaugural post, I'm going to stick to some of the materials that have been on my desk the longest this summer. (click each material heading for a link to see more info on each material)...

Nature's Spirit Select Cow Elk

Out of all my materials, I'd say the Cow Elk from Nature's spirit, in pretty much all colors, has been on my desk the longest for the past few months. It's been used on caddis patterns, Fripples, foam patterns like the Moodah Poodah, the Project cicada pattern and a few others. Check out the colors here.

Speckled Badger Hackle

I don't think my speckled badger has been back in its bag since the time we got it back in April or May. The nice thing about this versatile hackle is that it's got enough variation in the colors and hues in one cape or saddle, you can literally use it for a bunch of different patterns.  See more here

Partridge Czech Nymph Hooks

Once we started to carry Partridge hooks, my hook choices for  tying sessions have changed quite a bit. And my favorite, probably most versatile in the mix, is the Czech Nymph hook. I use them for everything from emergers to nymphs to soft hackles (see the biot nymphs below). Sharp as can be and stout quality hooks. They come in a bunch of sizes here.

Nature's Spirit Wild Turkey Biots

These Wild Turkey biots might get my vote for material of the year. I'd seen them in the past, but never tied with them. What you get here is a natural segmented coloreffect similar to peacock quill, but with the ridge effect you get from biots. And these ones come in a sweet variety of colors to tie anything from Callibaetis to Caddis and everything in between. The biot nymphs shown here are tied with the Callibaetis color:

Danville 140 Denier Thread

We sell a lot of different threads on our store and I really find myself tying with a pretty wide variety of threads for different purposes. But when I got a couple of sample spools from Hareline, I knew right away this would be a go-to thread for bigger patterns like streamers, big foam jobs and most of my stillwater patterns. If you haven't tried this particular size of Danville's you owe it to yourself to at least try a couple or three colors.