Stages of A Fly Tyer
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I
started tying flies before I started fishing.
This peculiar reversal has affected my entire attitude
towards fishing. In a
sense, fishing is a testing ground for my fly-tying creations as
much as it is an activity I do for its own sake. When I was in college, my desk was permanently set up for fly-tying and I'd study sprawled across the bed. When studying became tedious, I'd stop and tie a fly. |
Seldom the same one twice;
I had pages of flies from the Orvis catalog hung on the wall
as samples, and well-worn copies of pattern books and Fly
Fisherman magazine. I'd
pick one that caught my eye and tie it.
My fly boxes were filled with classic
streamers, attractor wet flies, scaled-down steelhead flies, and big
bushy dries. This is
what I call the Standard Pattern Stage of fly-tying, when every fly
in the box has a name.
Of course, tying such a wide variety of fly types was a
wonderful excuse for buying materials.
And in every order, I'd have one item that was just a whim.
Who could resist that striped chenille?
Or the sparkly yarn stuff?
Oddly shaped hooks touted as weedless?
"Floss grab bag, ten spools for $1",
They pick the colors, but who can pass up a bargain like
that? So, I had to do something
with the royal purple chenille and the school-bus yellow deer hair.
I call this the Wild Pattern Stage.
"How would this Adams look with a bright orange body?
How 'bout I tie a Black Ant, only make it Kelly green?"
I seldom actually fished with the results of these
experiments. I was
confident any self-respecting fish would levitate out of the water
to avoid any one of them. Oddly,
I retain this attitude, despite the fact that some of these
pop-art-sculptures-on-hooks have been amazingly successful
fish-catchers. Sadly, I tied flies far more often than I fished with
them, or I would have learned to appreciate the value of these
attractor patterns.
And I read books and magazines, and gradually became aware
that there was a phenomenon called Matching the Hatch.
Now, that sounded really interesting.
I love puzzles; I
enjoy tying flies. Here
was a grand puzzle: Figure
out what the trout are feeding on and tie a fly to match it.
At first, I fell back on the Standard Patterns, carefully
studying the succession of hatches and tying classic Catskill dry
flies. A few jaunts to
well-known waters during peak Mayfly hatches, and I realized I was
on to something a whole lot of fun.
I expanded my knowledge (and bought more fly boxes),
including terrestrials and nymphs.
This is the Hatch-Follower Stage.
At that time, nymph-fishing was a fairly new technique and
there were few standard patterns.
Instead, there were "styles" of nymphs, each with
the same basic parts but using different colors and proportions to
match the desired insect. This
made me aware of a whole new challenge:
Observing my local insects and designing my own flies to
match them. At first it
was variations on Skues-style or Rosborough-style nymphs.
Then one day I observed a nymph hatching on a rock, and it
wasn't really shaped like either one.
I went home and tied a shaggy grey cigar-shape ribbed with
maroon floss, and caught a brook trout on it the next day.
What a feeling of accomplishment!
This began the Hatch-Matcher Stage of tying.
I had found an art I could truly immerse myself in.
I studied the works of the masters, not for specific
patterns, but for tying techniques.
I laboriously sounded out the Latin names of insects as I
studied their colors and proportions in heavy tomes full of enlarged
photographs. I set up
my tying desk next to a window so I could view my materials under
natural light. I'd pick
a pinch of dubbing from my palette of colors, squint at it as I held
it with the sun behind it, adding just a bit of another color, a few
fibers of a third, until the blend satisfied my artistic
sensibilities. I
cultivated a sparse hand at tying, to make my creations seem more
fragile and insect-like. I
lauded the virtues of natural furs and feathers, with their
variations of colors, so suggestive of the illusion of life and
motion. I tried to
evoke
As Life imitates Art, and Art imitates Life, my art-on-a-hook
has molded my fishing methods.
When I cast a fly, my aim is to introduce it delicately to
the water, present it to the fish with the subtlety and savoir-faire
of a waiter placing the specialte-de-maison before a discerning
diner. Any great chef
knows that fine food deserves proper presentation.
I serve my flies on
Just as I attain this artistic Nirvana, invariably, some far
more practical angler comes along and lobs an attractor fly into the
pool: A Royal Wulff, an
Irresistible, a Woolley Bugger, or, heaven help us, a Green Weenie or
San Juan Worm. The
trout turn on like they've been waiting all their lives for this
thing. It's like a
brick heaved through my work of art.
I feel disillusioned, betrayed, insulted.
How dare these creatures with their pea-sized brains spurn my
masterpiece, and crawl all over that...
that... neon
sign! It's like pushing
aside a Filet Mignon to devour a Big Mac.
The angler moves on, having caught and released more trout in
ten minutes than I have all morning.
I sigh, cut back my leader to 5X, and start rooting through
my fly boxes. Now where did
I put those black-and-chartreuse wet flies with the hot pink hackle?
--Rabbit
Jensen--
Winter 2002 Issue
