Wow, the last week of genius hour is finally here, and the last blog post as well! Well, technically this is other classmates week 11, but I did a blog post over spring break which was optional, but I must’ve not heard that part. But it is what it is, and it does hurt to get one step ahead with the blog posts either, I’m not complaining. Enough of that, now let's get into the progress that has been made (or progress that needs to be made), I do have an extra week so why not get caught up on work that has not been done that needs to get done to form my final project.
First off, the plan: 1 fly-a-week for the 12 weeks this project. Now I haven't met the one fly a week, every week goal, but I will definitely get 12 flies tied for the weeks that need to get done. This extra week that I have will be spent on by tying flies that need to be caught up to reach my goal. I will also be putting up the pictures of each fly (even though I said I would every week with a new one) I will still be putting those up there to see. In conclusion, this has been a very fun, and very interesting topic that I chose to do my project on. As compared to last years selection on topic, I definitely enjoyed this project a lot more, and I feel as if I got a lot more achieved with this selection compared to mine last year. Tying flies for one is very fun (tedious at times) but mostly fun, and it definitely isn’t for everyone, but it’s a good hobby that I will act upon during the summer. I learned something that I barely attempted on in the past, and acted on it more throughout this project, and I felt as if I enjoyed it greatly. Well, it’s been a fun and good genius hour project, I hope to use this in the future, now onto presentation time!
0 Comments
Welcome to my 11th week blog post, I only got one more week to go so I better make it count. I can’t believe that it has already been 11th weeks leading into my last week on genius hour, I cannot believe how fast time flies when doing this project along with the semester and how effective I’ve been when trying to reach my goal and complete this project, but let's get into my progress on the project so far…
This week I have been using my fly rod like I said I would in the previous weeks, trying to get into it more, but when it comes to tying aspect I’m trying to squeeze a lot of stuff in in order to complete my 12 flies that have been tied at the end of the project. Now I can say that I am trying and I will get 12 tied by the last week of this project, I can guarantee that. I will get this done by the end. For some future plans, I just have to complete this project on time, this includes all 12 of the flies needed that are supposed to be tied, I will be providing pictures on each fly as well as actually bringing in all 12 flies when it comes to presentation time to show my completed progress and completing my goal, even though it wasn’t one fly a week, it will still be 12 flies for the 12 weeks of this project, so I so-so completed my goal for this project, so we will see how that unfolds at the end, I look forward to completing this project and reaching the 12th week of genius hour! Hello, and welcome to my 10th week blog post. This week has mostly consisted of research paper due dates, along with those assignments. So that is what I have been doing besides my genius hour project which I haven’t gotten to do yet. On some good news, I’m with my dad on Monday and Tuesday so I’ll get with him to discuss some flies to tie and I'll get that done.
Not much fishing at all has been done this week and that’s alright, earlier this week the weather hasn’t been exactly compliant with good weather to fish in. I know for a fact that I do not want to fish in some cold rainy weather, especially if I wouldn’t get any bites, that would be miserable. So I’ll put in my schedule next week to try and fit in a day or two to go fish with my fly rod using my own flies. So, setting some ground rule for next week. I am planning on tying flies, either Monday or Tuesday (or both days) like I stated previously. I’m also trying to set aside a day to go and fish using my own flies, on my fly rod. Hopefully, the weather will be nice to me and we’ll have some warm fishing weather in the late afternoons. So summing all that up, I’m hoping to get some flies tied, fish, and get some compliant weather for once. I look forward to the coming weeks! This week has not consisted of fishing like I did last week, but I have gotten more ideas on what flies that I want to get tying. I want to work on more dry flies, which they are smaller in size and they are on a smaller hook. Now that could lead to it being pretty tough to tie considering the amount of space I have to tie on. I’m just glad that I have an idea set so I can build off my idea and start to tying, I’ll be with my dad on Monday and Tuesday so I can get that done.
I want to start fishing with the flies that I currently have tied, but then again, I’m running the risk of losing that flies if I get a bite then I’d have to tie another one. I’m not too worried about it though, but I just wouldn’t want to have to tie the same fly again. Still sticking to the plan, and my plan is set just for all 12 weeks of this project, I’m not wanting to change anything about my plan. I know I can catch up easily, it just depends when I can find some free time to do it. I need to get into habit of tying flies each week, I’ve just gotten lazy with tying. It’s not long of a process at all (depending what fly your tying and the size of the hook) generally it takes about 10-15 minutes at most to sit down and tie. Now, mistakes will be made and I might have to start over on a fly, but that has only happened once and I don’t want it to happen again. This week I will tie, and I will make sure of that to try and find some free time here and there and I will get it done. I’m looking forward to the coming weeks to get some more tying in! This week not much tying was completed. I need to start focusing more on my tying, than actually fly fishing. I’ve been flying fishing this weekend, but it was just in a pond not on the river. I went fishing in Andrew’s pond; I caught 2 fish and lost a wolly bugger on my last cast (it was my dads, so now sometime I’m gonna have to tie another fly for him). But all in all I enjoyed fishing this weekend, next time I go fishing I will use my flies.
A lot of my spring break was spent working, or just being out of the house doing whatever that day consisted of doing. So, me not being home meant that I never got to tie any. I know I should’ve tied more over the spring break because it was a good opportunity to get back on track, but I never got to do that. But no worry, I will still have free time here and there to tie more flies, so I’m not going to stress about that. The future will have more free time for me to tie.
I think I’ve stressed my plan enough so I’m not going to explain it this time, and I will continue down the path with my plan. But in terms of fly fishing, I got to go fishing over spring break and I ended up catching 3 fishing, one on a wolly bugger, another on a dry fly (nymph) and lastly a combination of a wolly bugger higher on the line, and at the end a tiny fly (both wet flies and one the same line.) Those were not the flies that I tied, but I did catch one on a wolly bugger (not mine) which I have tied previously. Leading into my next fly that I’m wanting to tie: A nymph (a dry fly.) I haven’t gotten the chance to tie I dry fly yet so I’m pretty excited to tie this fly. I want to see if there is a difference between tying a dry and wet fly, maybe it takes longer? Or maybe it’s more frustrating? There is only one way to find out, and that’s to tie the fly. Now with all of my flies that have been tied, I want to use them next time I go fly fishing again to see how effective they are. I look forward to the coming weeks to see my progression! I’m going to be honest, I didn’t get much done this week as I wanted to get done. I think I was more focused on waiting for spring break to hurry up and get here. I think I have an idea were flying going to time next but I’m also not 100% sure. Since I will have plenty of time over spring break to tie flies, I think I will get a lot of work done. More free time means more opportunity to tie more flies and get caught up on my work. I’m not too behind on my work and should be easy to get done in a quick amount of time.
Like I’ve said in my past blog posts over and over again, I’m still sticking with my 12 week plan one fly week. I don’t think I’m going to be changing that plan a time soon because I’ve already been doing this for awhile so I’m just not going to change it. I’m enjoying the plan that I have set and I think it’s going pretty efficiently, for example, if I get behind I’ll still have another week to make up for the fly that I didn’t get to tie. All in all it’s inefficient plan and it shows my progression well throughout the weeks. Spring break is a great opportunity to get caught up on my work like I stated in the first paragraph. It’s perfect time for me to tie flies that I haven’t got to in the previous weeks because of schoolwork and Spring break is a great opportunity to get caught up on my work like I stated in the first paragraph. It’s perfect time for me to tie flies that I haven’t got to in the previous weeks because of schoolwork or my actual job. I have tons of free time and that’s perfect for me to learn how to time more and to Plan throughout the weeks which flies I will tie, dry or wet flies. I look forward to the coming weeks to see my progression. I’ll see you next week for my updates. This week I did not get the chance to look Into much of my genius hour project but I was hoping I could’ve got some more completed by the end of this week but it just didn’t happen because I was more focused on my schoolwork. But despite not completing one fly for that week I will still be able to come back and complete the ones that I’ve missed, which is only two and it shouldn’t take me too long.
I will still be sticking with my 12 week one flyer week planned as usual and despite that I’m behind some work on my project I will still be able to get it done. The flies usually don’t take too long to tie so I’m not overly worried about that. I still haven’t figured out what flies I’m going to be tying but I will definitely figure that out. My dad gave me a booklet on how to tie flies and what flies to tie so that’ll be a big help. I will try and talk with my dad to see if you can give me some pointers on what to tie. I’m thinking about tying some dry flies this time instead of tying wet flies. I’m not sure if there’s much of a difference with times it takes, like the whole process, but I will figure that out when it comes time to tie. I look forward to the coming weeks and to see how my dry or wet flies will turn out! Welcome to week 4! I have gotten quite a bit done this week so let’s get into more depth regarding that. I have now finally tied 3 flies! I tied a Wooly Bugger, Egg, and a Mop Fly, all of which are wet flies, meaning that they are flies that go underwater (and stay underwater throughout being pulled in) to attract the fish. The tying part wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be, and it went by relatively fast (about roughly 10 minutes each fly.) The only fly that I found to be frustrating was the egg fly, you had to build up this sort of mound with the string onto the hook but you couldn’t cover up the eye of the hook, I found that tedious.
The main instruments that I used was the vice, bobbin, feathers, fine string or spool, other materials, and a little instrument that helped with threading the string through the bobbin (I will provide some pictures of the instruments at the bottom of the page.) My dad provided to me all the necessary materials and instruments to tie. He guided me through it all, step by step and it helped me out big time. Before I started tying I had no idea what to use and what was what, so my dad was a big help. Overall, I found tying to be a lot of fun! It was a big stress reliever, and required a lot of focus and attention which eliminated my surrounding and put me into a “zone” so to speak. It was very enjoyable and my dad being along my side was a big help, I couldn’t of done this without him. There was also some factors about tying that I found frustrating, like I stated previously the whole situation with the egg fly was very tedious, and whenever you mess up on fly, you would just be better off starting with a fresh hook and starting all over again. I look forward to tying a new fly for this week now that I’m all caught up, hopefully I’ll get to tie a dry fly this week. This week, now that we have finished our book and we took our book test, I will now be able to shift my focus more on this project. Even though I may be behind on my project, now that my focus has been shifted, I will continue to get my work done. I will have these next two days as well from today to get my work done so Monday and Tuesday should be good days to work on my project.
Like I stated in my previous blog posts, I will be doing the 12 week, one fly a week plan. Despite me not tying any flies these past weeks, Im confident that I will be able to stay true to that plan. I’m still unsure exactly how long it will take for me to tie one fly, but I’ll be able to find out in the next two days. I’m not worried that I won’t be my work done, because that should’nt be a problem. I’m anxious to tie these flies tomorrow or the following day, it’ll feel rewarding when I get my first one tied. Hopefully my dad will be home one of these next two days so he can help me out because I know I will have no idea what I am doing. So my dad being there would be great help, and I know that I dont want to be depending on videos for guidance. I’m looking forward to the following weeks, see ya next week! |