We’ve mentioned in the past that it’s a great idea to always carry a permanent marker with you on the water. A simple felt-tip permanent marker can be used for everything from modifying flies in a pinch, to camouflaging your leader, to adding contrast to a strike indicator.
At the vise, permanent markers have even more uses, far more than we’re willing to list here.
To the frugal fly fisherman, the uses of a permanent marker are endless. However, for a sport in which our gear spends 99 percent of it’s time either submerged in water, rolling around in the mud, or cooking in the sun, we think ‘permanent’ is a little optimistic.
That’s why we were pretty excited when Sharpie recently released a new marker called the Sharpie Extreme, promised to “resist fading when exposed to harsh UV rays, rain, snow, and even mud.” Call us a sucker, but that sounds like our kind of sales pitch. We’ve hopped on the band wagon and think you should too.
At Bristol Bay Flies, we’ve used Sharpies for years to make eyes on numerous fly patterns (usually bait fish) and to add stripes around spun deer hair fly patterns like the Irresistible. Haven’t used the Sharpie Extreme yet, but, we agree, it looks like we’ll be giving this new one a try as well. It may have just found a new “permanent” home!