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Jim Warner has been one of the most influential fly tyers in New England, especially for those who spend their time trolling and fishing streamers in the many lakes and ponds of the region. The gang of the streamers@ list recently had a swap of his great fly patterns.

There's nothing like a good fly swap to get the fly tying knuckles cracked, the creative juices flowing again. The reasons for joining a swap are many - but for me it's fun to tie flies for something other than my fly boxes, and I truly enjoy the friendship and comraderie that comes with participating in a swap. It's not about who ties the best flies or who has the best feathers.

How small can you tie a streamer and still call it a streamer? The folks on the streamers@ mailing list decided to challenge themselves to a swap of streamers no larger than a size 12. The results were move interesting.

The first swap of the winter tying season, the Arctic Fox Pattern Swap Page hilights the latest creations/conversions by Streamer List members. All of the patterns in this swap utilize Arctic Fox as a major component.

GFF co-webmaster Bob Petti coordinated an effort to share Grizzly Streamer Patterns by members of the Streamer List.

Last spring, the members of the Streamer email list participated in a Flatwing Streamer Swap. This swap, hosted by Ron McKusick, was a very enjoyable affair and a number of innovative and productive patterns were shared amongst the swap participants.

The Hornberg can be cast out upstream and drifted as a dry fly. It can be pulled under the surface and stripped as a streamer. Is it a caddis? Stonely? A minnow? In early '01, a bunch of guys swapped their favorite Hornberg patterns.

This swap has gathered a collection of patterns from diverse sources, including Maine regional favorites, patterns from the wider northeast, regional patterns from the West and from Alberta, and newly created patterns. They all share three things in common - hair wings, small hooks, and a tremendous attraction to brook trout.

The Matuka will always be one of my favorite patterns. The style of tying (lashing the wing to the top of the hook by ribbing through the fibers of the feathers) lends itself to infinite possibilities.

The idea of a swap of patterns originated by Lew Oatman came from interaction by the participants on The Streamer Board on this site. The swap was hosted by Bob Petti.

The second streamer swap to have originated from the forums on this site, Doug Saball's Marabou Streamer Swap was a great success! The theme for the swap was that participants would contribute an original or established streamer pattern which used marabou for the wing material.

It was inevitable that the folks on Raske's "Streamers" mailing list would eventually partake in a swap of Rangeley style streamers.

Undoubtedly, when one thinks of attractor streamer and bucktail patterns, the venerable Mickey Finn comes to mind. More often than not, it's the very first pattern streamer aficionados are introduced to when learning to tie...and rightly so, as it remains a productive pattern in our streamer wallets.

The intent of this swap was for each member to provide a dozen streamers which represented the Rainbow Smelt in casting sizes. Some of the entries were "recognized" patterns, but many were original dressings.

A discussion on the New England Streamer List began on the merits of copper as a material in streamer tying. It seems the consensus was that copper has always been a productive "metal" in the pursuit of landlocked salmon or trout in New England