DIY floatant

I took a couple of spoons worth of Outback reproofing cream and
dissolved the stuff in white gas. The test flies keep on floating

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 07:16:48 -0800 (PST), Al Klamps wrote:

I took a couple of spoons worth of Outback reproofing cream and
dissolved the stuff in white gas. The test flies keep on floating

Even while they were burning...?

IAC, why in the hell would you pollute and potentially poison with this
concoction when there are safer DIY alternatives and inexpensive commercial
products? Go buy some Gink - whatever George may have done 'round here, by all
accounts his wife is good people and the stuff does work.

HTH,
R

wrote:
Al Klamps wrote:
I took a couple of spoons worth of Outback reproofing cream and
dissolved the stuff in white gas. The test flies keep on floating

Even while they were burning...?

IAC, why in the hell would you pollute and potentially poison with this
concoction when there are safer DIY alternatives and inexpensive commercial
products? ...

There is something in most fly fisherman's DNA which makes them
cheap to the point of absurdity. They have some sort of compulsion
to do something clever in order to save a few pennies.

I remember the great quest for the Frog's Fanny substitute. Now
Frog's Fanny is $5 a bottle and you'd have to fish a *lot* to
go through more than one bottle a year so a year's supply is no
more than $10. Good lord, you'd have though these guys were searching
for the Holy damn Grail. To save ten bucks !! LOL !!

I figure some guy somewhere figured out this stuff was good, went
to all the trouble to put it into nice little containers, market
it and so on, so the least I could do is reward his enterprise
and my local fly shop with a measly ten bucks a year.

--
Ken Fortenberry

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote

I remember the great quest for the Frog's Fanny substitute. Now
Frog's Fanny is $5 a bottle and you'd have to fish a *lot* to
go through more than one bottle a year so a year's supply is no
more than $10. Good lord, you'd have though these guys were searching
for the Holy damn Grail. To save ten bucks !! LOL !!



I don't disagree with your overall assessment of the cheapass FFer,

but

I used 1 1/2 pints of FF last season, give or take

look at the size of the commercially packed stuff and you'll see that is one
hell of a lot of those little bottles A new bottle of the commercial stuff
won't last me more than a couple long days, usually.


The substitute saves me a pretty good amount of change, over time


As for other floatants, I happen to be fond of two of the most pricey brands
.... Hydrophobe from France and Tiemco's Dry Magic depending on the fly
type, and I don't begrudge the $$ for either since they work so well

Larry L ( a cheapass who fishes one hell of a lot of CDC patterns with their
touchy floatant needs and who demands the functional quality he wants but
still tries hard to keep cost/day as low as possible .... and thinks of that
quest, like choosing and using tackle in the most efficient manner, as part
of the 'art' of FFing ... )

Larry L wrote:
"Ken Fortenberry" wrote:
I remember the great quest for the Frog's Fanny substitute. Now
Frog's Fanny is $5 a bottle and you'd have to fish a *lot* to
go through more than one bottle a year so a year's supply is no
more than $10. Good lord, you'd have though these guys were searching
for the Holy damn Grail. To save ten bucks !! LOL !!

I don't disagree with your overall assessment of the cheapass FFer,

but

I used 1 1/2 pints of FF last season, give or take

look at the size of the commercially packed stuff and you'll see that is one
hell of a lot of those little bottles A new bottle of the commercial stuff
won't last me more than a couple long days, usually.


The substitute saves me a pretty good amount of change, over time


As for other floatants, I happen to be fond of two of the most pricey brands
... Hydrophobe from France and Tiemco's Dry Magic depending on the fly
type, and I don't begrudge the $$ for either since they work so well

Larry L ( a cheapass who fishes one hell of a lot of CDC patterns with their
touchy floatant needs and who demands the functional quality he wants but
still tries hard to keep cost/day as low as possible .... and thinks of that
quest, like choosing and using tackle in the most efficient manner, as part
of the 'art' of FFing ... )

CDC notwithstanding that is a *lot* of Frog's Fanny. A whole bottle
every two days ?!!? Have you ever tried an Amadou ? I find if I gently
squeeze the fly with an Amadou I don't need near as much Frog's Fanny.

I can't find them in the US, only the synthetic substitute Samadou, but
it's available overseas.

--
Ken Fortenberry

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote


CDC notwithstanding that is a *lot* of Frog's Fanny. A whole bottle
every two days ?!!? Have you ever tried an Amadou ? I find if I gently
squeeze the fly with an Amadou I don't need near as much Frog's Fanny.

I can't find them in the US, only the synthetic substitute Samadou, but
it's available overseas.



No, but I bought some type of thingy suggested to me by Rene Harrop late
last season, I believe it's Elk hide tanned a certain way by the Shoshone.
It did seem to make the whole 'keep floating' thing easier, and it dangles
permanantly from my vest now.

Another thing besides the CDC that I face on my preferred waters is a huge
amount of biological gunk in the water because the streams are so super
rich. The later you go in the season the greater this is true, late in the
year it's hard to keep any fly line or fly floating for any length of time,
even a few minutes. It clings to flies and makes them sink in the same way
you might rub a wet fly with weeds to intentionally sink it. When I fish
freestones with less algae(sp?) and whatever suspended I always notice how
easy it is to keep flies clean and floating ( lines too ).

Hum, other floatant factors that are relative to water type
.... I very often fish down stream using a Fall River twitch and that
causes the fly to be pulled under and get waterlogged as it swings out of
the fish's lane before you can pick it up to recast
..... the flat water and spooky fish teach one to avoid drops of water
splashing on them and avoid false casting as much as possible, period
so I'll often re-dry by hand when a few strong false casts would flick the
water out in less touchy situations
..... I can think of a few more, but one thing I notice on this and other
FFing forums is that water type fished leads directly to angler opinions and
what is truly 'expert' on one type will barely work on a different type ...
all inquiries and answers should probably touch on the water type involved

...... as in all of life, point of view determines what you see G

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:48:11 GMT, "Larry L" wrote:


"Ken Fortenberry" wrote

I remember the great quest for the Frog's Fanny substitute. Now
Frog's Fanny is $5 a bottle and you'd have to fish a *lot* to
go through more than one bottle a year so a year's supply is no
more than $10. Good lord, you'd have though these guys were searching
for the Holy damn Grail. To save ten bucks !! LOL !!



I don't disagree with your overall assessment of the cheapass FFer,

but

I used 1 1/2 pints of FF last season, give or take

look at the size of the commercially packed stuff and you'll see that is one
hell of a lot of those little bottles A new bottle of the commercial stuff
won't last me more than a couple long days, usually.

Um...WHAT?!


The substitute saves me a pretty good amount of change, over time


As for other floatants, I happen to be fond of two of the most pricey brands
... Hydrophobe from France and Tiemco's Dry Magic depending on the fly
type, and I don't begrudge the $$ for either since they work so well

FWIW, Hydrophobe appears to be "the powder that must not be mentioned" (based
upon my _quick_ Googling of "Hydrophobe mouche") and I'd imagine the Tiemco
stuff is, as well. Whether it is or it isn't, if you weren't around for one of
the "Frog's Fanny"/Cab-o-sil wars, and you really go through THAT much floatant
and you want to save some real money, get some Cab-o-sil _HYDROPHOBIC_ or other
fumed silica product.

Larry L ( a cheapass who fishes one hell of a lot of CDC patterns with their
touchy floatant needs and who demands the functional quality he wants but
still tries hard to keep cost/day as low as possible .... and thinks of that
quest, like choosing and using tackle in the most efficient manner, as part
of the 'art' of FFing ... )

HTH,
R

wrote

FWIW, Hydrophobe appears to be "the powder that must not be mentioned"
(based
upon my _quick_ Googling of "Hydrophobe mouche") and I'd imagine the
Tiemco
stuff is, as well. Whether it is or it isn't, if you weren't around for
one of
the "Frog's Fanny"/Cab-o-sil wars, and you really go through THAT much
floatant
and you want to save some real money, get some Cab-o-sil _HYDROPHOBIC_ or
other
fumed silica product.



thanks, I buy fumed hydrophobic silica by the quart here

http://www.epoxyproducts.com/f_mixin.html

a link that came out in the FF sub thread of a few years back ( think rw
posted it ) notice the page mentions the unexpected demand from FFers G


Hydrophobe is the trade name ( might be spelled a little different, I'm too
lazy to dig it out and check ) of a paste floatant from France, that I have
seen it only in Blue Ribbon Flies ... pricey as heck but will float a
quarter through a riffle ;-) comes in a tiny tube and you use very little
.... I like it so much I buy several at a time and start to get scared when I
get down to only a couple in stock ... I use far less than a tube/year


Dry Magic is a very new product that I have only seen at TroutHunter ... it
too is a 'paste' but not the least bit gooey .. put a dab on your fingers.
rub them together and it's like there is nothing there, no goo, no sticky,
no nothing ... now brush those fingers lightly over a CDC ( no it doesn't
paste the CDC to itself and ruin it ) fly and it will float great until you
catch a fish or encounter too much weed and gunk ... treat it, at that point
with FFanny and it works FAR better than the FF alone ( don't treat with FF
at first because it sticks to the otherwise impossible to detect 'Magic" and
you have to brush like hell to avoid fishing a white fly The Magic/FF
combo is the best CDC treatment I've found, to date .... the Hydrophobe the
best traditional hackled fly treatment ... gads I'm a fanatic, I sometimes
also carry one of the Ginklike gooey pastes while nymph fishing to goo up my
yarndicators


Larry L ( who watched a video on New Zealand last night and watched the
'star' squirt about a teaspoon of Gink on a Cicada pattern then rub it in,
the poor thing was damn near glued to itself in a glob when he finished,
especially the fibers of the wing .... I might do that to a yarnbobber but
to a fly ... no way ;-)

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:48:11 GMT, "Larry L"
wrote:

I used 1 1/2 pints of FF last season, give or take

look at the size of the commercially packed stuff and you'll see that is one
hell of a lot of those little bottles A new bottle of the commercial stuff
won't last me more than a couple long days, usually.

I used four containers of FF last year. You can not beat it when it
comes to CDC flies, and it works better than any other powdered stuff,
including the bulk containers of the powder. I think, but am not
sure, that FF is not only a desicant, but it also has a floatant added
to it, because I have tried other commercial desicants and they do not
work nearly as well, especially on CDC.

Floatant? Gink is the best.

Dave

"Dave LaCourse" wrote


I used four containers of FF last year. You can not beat it when it
comes to CDC flies, and it works better than any other powdered stuff,
including the bulk containers of the powder. I think, but am not
sure, that FF is not only a desicant, but it also has a floatant added
to it, because I have tried other commercial desicants and they do not
work nearly as well, especially on CDC.



I've run into several people that had gotten regular fumed silica or
something as a "desicant" and it sucks, actually attracting water unless you
get it all off the fly before fishing some more

The FF is "hydrophobic" and actually repels water ... try this to see if
you've got the right stuff

treat a fly, then hold it under water ... the good stuff will repel water to
the point that the fly will have bubbles of air around it, and stay that way
for a good long time ... an untreated fly will hold bubbles too, for a
while, as will one 'desicated' with the bad stuff ... it's how long the
bubbles last that is the key.

I'm sure most here in ROFFland know this, but try treating a nymph with FF
and fish it with weight near the bottom .. if you don't already know this
'secret' happy Valentines Day G