On Tue, 5 Feb 2008 08:27:23 -0500, cingras53
wrote:

Would you share some off beat equipment tips? Like carrying some small
patches of bicycle tire tube to straighten your leaders

You could damage your leader by using a leader straightener be it a
commercial piece of leather or a home made one. It is better to feel
the heat in your fingers. If it is too hot for your hand/fingers, it
is too hot for the leader.

or using
generic hand cream to float your flies.

Gink hung on my vest does that job. For cdc flies I used Frog's Fanny
desicant. I fill my gink bottle with Albolene a petroleum jelly based
hand/face cleaner.

Even how you fix up you r vest
or pack that might keep things straight or handy on the stream. I keep
screwing up my magnifying glass lanyard with my sunglass lanyard when I
go from one to the other. I happen to see great for distance but need a
lense to tie knots and a different lense to see my small flies. I don't
want to carry 2 different lense just to pick out a midge and then tie
it on. Does anyone else have problems like this that they have solved?

Buy a pair of sunglasses with magnifying glasses built in. Orvis and
others sell them at a reasonable price. They are great glasses and
allow you to see the smallest of flies. I typically fish with nymphs
as small as 24 and have no problem seeing them/tying on the tippet
with my sunglass/magnifying lense combo.

Dave