.. Well the cold has returned and we note that 18 degrees seems chilly to the folks in salubrious and sunny Northern California. It's a mere 40 degrees colder than that here, and the flies are dancing all over the bench.
.. One of our neighbors stumbled through the door and after a brief bit of resuscitation, exclaimed that there were probably many better ways to spend the winter than shredding the pelts of long dead critters and plucking the feathers from fowl with unpronounceable names. 
We strongly disagree, and ultimately the discussion turned to both fine malt and fine feathers... The gist of it was that the real professionals can always do it better than just the casual fly tier. We than wondered just where it was that all those flies come from.
..So, with Swarovski tumblers in hand we began to shred commercial tiers instead of pelts. We spent far more time than is justifiable looking at feather pages and fly shops online, and talking about "BLOGGING." 
We even compared the merits of single malt to blended libations... He wanted to know how blogging was done, and just what is was. We demonstrated. There are tons of electrons out there - we exercised many of them. This is the result.
.. We talked, cruised, surfed, clicked, compared, and conversed. And, we finally decided that the folks that gather up gobs and gobs of dead critters and turn them into fish catching art were doing a pretty good job of enhancing everyone's fishing pleasure, and - - - contributing mightily to the world's economy.
.. A pleasant way to avoid both the cold and tying flies. Our only clear conclusion - "The reason that there are so many flies is that they all work!"..The Internet provides some very interesting resources - if you can keep the Scotch off of the keyboard. Here's a few of them.
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.. Have $13,000 +/- in inventory? Weigh them!.. Five story tall fly factory? You better believe it!
.. Advocate for independent fly tiers? Of course!
.. Custom ordered flies? Easy enough!
.. All USA suppliers? You got it!
.. Interview with Jim Watson? Why Certainly! Well worth a rereading at High Country Flies. This is an excellent review of Umpqua Feather Merchants and the quality in their flies.
.. What does the USA Fly Fishing Team think of Umpqua? Read it here!
.. Want to get into the importing of foreign feathers and other gear? Try this!
.. The House Of Harrop? Just click!
.. Craig's place? For sure!
.. English-tied flies? Right here!
.. Materials on sale? Save here!
.. Bargains on used equipment? You won't believe it!
.. Exceptional Salmon Flies? Visit Wolfgang!