Notes on Fly-Tying

You care more than the fish care

I enjoy the act of fly-tying as much as I do the self-sufficiency of making nearly all the flies I fish with. But refilling the picked over fly boxes from last year and tying the new flies I'll need is a daunting job, and there's always something else that has to be attended to, like earning a living, for instance. So I've settled on a trick that always works. Every year a guy from a fly shop in Fort Collins calls and asks if I'll do a tying demonstration. Every year I say yes. Then, as soon as I hang up the phone, I realize that I haven't tied a fly to speak of since last October, and although tying flies really is like riding a bicycle, you can still be a little wobbly if you haven't done it for a while. Read more – offline – from the current issue; subscribe to FRR.