Tying Without a Vice

 I decided to give a try at tying a few kebari without using a vise. I know that it's a pretty common practice by some Japanese tenkara practitioners, but I've never had a go at it. I've been tying for decades and the thought of tying without a vise has intrigued me for some time. 

My main reason for trying this way was to see if I could pull it off. Sure, I could probably throw a feather on a hook, but I wanted to do the thing handsomely and see if I could produce a well proportioned fly. Since learning about pesca a mosca Valsesiana a number of years ago, and learning that the flies used in this Italian fishing technique are often tied without a vise, I wanted to give it a go. 

So, with that in mind, I tied up a couple of kebari last night. One was a jun style and the other sakasa style. These flies were not in the style of pesca a mosca Valsesiana, where usually silk thread and  feathers harvested in the wild are used, but they were more like the kebari I tie for my style of tenkara. 

To control the hook, until I get more practiced, I used some old needle drivers. These held the hook well, and gave me better control as I applied the materials onto the hook. 

For the sakasa kebari, I used black multi-purpose sewing thread, some black peacock Ice Dub and Whiting Brahma Hen soft hackle. For the jun kebari, I used red YLI Silk thread, gray Jamieson's Spindrift wool yarn, peacock herl, and the Brahma hen hackle. I tied them both on #10 Firehole 315 hooks. As I get better with this technique, I'll try different materials and hooks. 

I found that tying the flies was not that hard, but a different approach needed to be taken. There was certainly a different approach to thread management, and whipping the heads was interesting. But it all worked out. Here is what I came up with:

I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. I'm sure these two flies will fish well and I enjoyed the process a lot. This method won't replace my vise, but it was fun and I'm going to keep at it!