I actually didn't think the perpswap would work for long, as the turnover rate on the vfb has been pretty severe over the 7 years or so that I've been on it. If it was going to work at all, then the meister would have had to track all 4 boxes continually, and then there would still be no guarantee. The core group of faithful followers of Brother Byard the Beneficent seem to be here year after year, but that leaves many to roll over. Other than for those core members, the boxes were in danger.
As for the quality of flies, the same goes for the regular swaps. There are tiers that put out a worthy effort in the swaps, and there are tiers who don't. Is it fair for one tier to put in the effort to trim wings, add eyes and legs and feelers- and another to submit a fly with 3 wraps of chenille and a hackle-tip wing? I personally feel that if someone is such a beginner that the flies they submit will become throw-always, it would only be fair to go down to the local shop and buy the flies required for the swap, and just let the meister know. This is not unfair, and the step-up in quality would serve everyone, and the swapper would still get nice different patterns in return. They would thus still progress in their skills until they felt confident in submitting their own. Plus, better tiers would sign up for swaps if the reciprocation was better. If we all exhibited the conscientiousness that Nick and Rodney do in their approach, the step-up in the swap flies would be drastic. It's not that all swap flies are poor now, as a whole, actually it's the opposite. It's just that a certain % of flies of each swap could use some more effort. Flame me if you wish, but I think that it would be fair for swap-meisters to ask for submissions of photographs of swap flies from participants. This would serve two purposes. 1st it would weed out the throw-away quality flies. 2nd, and even better, the meister could offer constructive criticism for the tier to improve his entry for the swap. Now how cool is that? Now I'm not advocating that all flies for fishing have to be exotic artwork flies. Far from it. Simple flies catch fish. But there should be an equality of effort to make things fair for the tiers who put forth great efforts in their entries. An hour's effort per fly (or more for some) should not be traded for 2 minute's effort on the parts of others. I'll respect everyone's opinion in this. I've had comments made to me in the past about the quality of the flies in swaps, and maybe now's the time to address it, with the comments on the perp box. Sine the vfb is the forum for swapping flies, I'll give the floor (screen) to Byard and let him comment on my thoughts and give his. DonO
