Tying the Beastmaster General by Jack Gartside

Tying the Beastmaster General The instructions given above are for a chartreuse/white Beastmaster General but I tie this up in many colors. Among my other favorites are all-white, all-black, blue/white, yellow/white, yellow/red, red/white, and chartreuse/grizzly. While I tie this fly mostly using wide neck hackle I also tie versions of it using narrower saddles as well. I should also point out that if you tied this fly without the deer hair head and collar and added a collar of mallard in front of the forward marabou hackle you would then have a fly known simply as the Beastmaster. Hook: Mustad 34001 or any long shank salt water hook, #1-2/0 Thread: Danville's 3/0 monocord Tail Wing: Two matched pairs of wide white neck hackle Tail Flash: Pearl Gartside's Secret Stuff or silver holographic mylar Flashabou Rear Hackle: Two white blood marabou feathers Body: Pearl Glimmer Front Hackle: Three fluorescent chartreuse blood marabou feathers Collar: White deer hair points flared Head: Trimmed white deer hair step 1-2 Tie in Tail wing and overlay of flash. Trim excess. step 3 Tie in two white blood marabou feathers and wind them together taking two or three turns around the shank just in front of the tailwing. Trim excess. step 4 Tie in six-seven strands of Glimmer (you may use another sturdy body material if you don't have Glimmer) and wind forward to form a body. Stop your winding approximately 1/3 the hook shank's length back from the eye of the hook. step 5 Tie in three chartreuse blood marabou feathers and wind them together taking two or three turns around the shank just in front of the tailwing, being sure to leave plenty of room for your deer hair collar and head. (It's important to remember your head will in general be approximately one-third of the hook shank.) Trim excess. step 6 Take a small clump of white deer hair (approx. 3" long), clean it with a brush, and tie it in on the far side of the shank just in front of the marabou hackle, being sure to make the collar points approx. two inches long. Take another clump of the same size, clean this, and tie it in on the near side of of the shank so that these points are about the same length as those on the opposite side. When both sets of hair are tightly secured, push the remaining forward strands of hair back and take a few turns of thread in front of them to keep them in that position (this will now become the rear of your head). step 7 Move your tying thread forward three or four turns in front of the deer hair butts. Now take a larger clump of white deer, clean it with brush or comb--very important!--and tie it in on top of the shank with the butts facing the rear of the fly. With thread pressure move this clump now to the bottom of the shank. Tighten thread with a tap or two of your fingers on the bobbin and then with tight windings to the rear distribute the hairs around the shank of the hook to form the rear portion of the head. Now wind thread forward--again tight turns--until hair is evenly distributed around the hook shank all the way up to the eye of the hook. For more detailed instructions on my unique method of turning hair into hackle, see my book Scratching the Surface. step 8 Trim deer hair head to desired shape.

Fall is upon us

and I was thinking about our pups long gone:

Caffeine (aka Beanie)
Espresso (aka Pressy) and
Scooby (aka knucklehead or dribble-drawers)

here are espresso and scooby

of course, here is Jamin "torturing" Espresso:

9/11

Where were you?

I was driving from my home, enroute to work at AT&T Bell Labs, with a quick stop at the United Teletech Federal Credit Union.

On the radio, I heard the report of "a plane" crashing into the World Trade Center:

8:46:30^[10] Flight 11 crashes at roughly 466 mph (790 km/h or 219m/s or 425 knots) into the north face of the North Tower (1 WTC) of the World Trade Center, between floors 93 and 99.

I thought, honestly, "terrorist" immediately.

It was a crystal clear sky, bluebird day. There is no accidental way to hit a tower like that.

I was standing in line, watching the news on the screen in the CU lobby when the second plane hit.

9:03:02: Flight 175 crashes at about 590 mph (950 km/h, 264 m/s or 513 knots) into the south face of the South Tower (2 WTC) of the World Trade Center, between floors 77 and 85.<sup>[15]

GOD BLESS THE USA!</sup>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8C7i9kdEf8&feature=player_embedded

If The Sun Doesn’t Blast It, Comet ISON Will Soon Light Up The Sky

BALTIMORE (WJZ)— A comet looping behind the sun could emerge this fall as a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, or it may not. Mike Schuh has more on what he calls the “intergalactic snowball.”
Educators have a different take.
“It’s called Comet ISON,” said Jim O’Leary of the Maryland Science Center.
NASA provided an image of ISON (above). It has a small head and a big tail.
“That tail can get tens of millions of miles long, so it’s huge,” O’Leary said.
But in its middle, it’s just dirt and ice three miles across.
Three miles is large enough to comfortably fit between the shores spanned by the Bay Bridge and its approach ramps.
“It could be the comet of the century,” O’ Leary said. “That is what some people are calling it, and we’re not that far into the century you know.”
It’s certain to light up the winter sky. That is, unless it doesn’t. They don’t know if the sun will blast it to shreds.
“It’s only passing through one diameter away from the sun, 700,000 miles, through the hot corona. That might be enough to blast it apart,” O’Leary said.
In that case, it could turn into smaller comets or disappear completely.
And if it doesn’t bust apart it will be visible for weeks, from December in through January.
The Maryland Science Center expects to have special programs if the comet is as visible as they hope it to be.

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2013/09/10/if-the-sun-doesnt-blast-it-comet-ison-will-soon-light-up-the-sky/

9/11 - Never Forget

The Launch

well, I was too young for Mercury and most of Apollo, missed all the Shuttle launches, but finally got to see a live rocket heading toward the moon:

NASA rocket launch to the moon visible to East Coast tonight

The launch of LADEE, NASA's new lunar exploration mission, will take place at 11:27 p.m. ET from the agency's new Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

by Nick Statt

September 6, 2013 1:27 PM PDT

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer will orbit the Moon to gather information on its atmosphere and surface conditions. It launches from Wallops Island, Va., at 11:27 p.m. ET.

Rule 23

Never mess with a manager's coffee... if you want to live.