Vital Flies & Killer Brews 25Aug23

I've been procrastinating retying mayflies since losing my lot of 1000s to the Eagle before Ireland; this probably because it is a daunting task. I finally started today with bugs I need rolling into fall. I started with some competition weights, the Perdigons. This is a short and inefficient "run" for me but I need to get some mayflies loaded on each line. My Perdigon ties employ 2.3/2.5mm slotted tung bead on a #18 comp X barbless jig hook in mylar green/root beer, mylar black, and mylar purple. The purples are tied with copper colored beads and the others with silver; don't ask me why, I just like them that way. I use 140 denier white to make the bodies pop but I use a Sharpie to blacken the thread for the whip finish at the head. On the way I tie in 5 speckled Coq de Leon natural fibers for a tail as well as the body wrap. Keeping the thread underbody thin & smooth by unraveling the thread is advantageous ~ think slick with a slight taper. Then, after wrapping the mylar up and tying it off, I coat the body with clear UV epoxy, spreading it thin, before hitting it with UV. Touch up with dobbin if needed before lighting. Finally I dab the top, especially the slot of the bead, with black UV epoxy and cure it. These drop like a bomb and are FOMO for fish moving in fast water.

The 2nd part of this entry is about beers discovered over the last 10 days. Specifically a new brewery collaborating with a couple of my favorites. I'm in COS and these are distributed to "my guy" locally because of the collabs. I'm talking about Tripping Animals out of Doral, FL... not what I ever expected ~ born in garages in Venezuela. They have somethin' going on as they scored colabs with both ORB & Cerebral ~ yeah and the brews are what you'd dream to find: DDHs of stellar taste and feel. No weird hops combos just fantastic citra, simcoe execution: Frisco Screams & Great Run (displaying the respect for the Nugs). Great job, if not a smidge pricey. I also scored the Extra Extra Juicy Bits, a nice DDH DIPA from Weldworks ~ I still wish the project in COS had worked out.

Yeah... these guys are very capable. I'm glad the collabs got them into CO so I could enjoy.