Print  email 

The experimental life of a fly flsher

By Roger Phillips | The Idaho Statesman • Published January 13, 2009

• Comments (0)

During winter, I try to restock my fly boxes by tying a bunch of flies. Then I look at the calendar and think about my upcoming fishing trips and think, “Wow, I’ve got to get busy tying.”

I vow to buckle down at the fly-tying vise and crank out a bunch of patterns, but deep down -- okay, maybe not so deep -- I know I am lying to myself.

My first step is a trip to a fly shop for materials, which usually turns into an hourlong BS session with whoever is working. I eventually leave with a box of hooks, some chenille and a few packages of feathers.

When I get home, I find I already had them. They were hidden under piles of feathers, spaghetti tangles of chenille and hooks shoved into unmarked containers.

“Great,” I think. “Now I can tie even more.”

I turn on the stereo and put it on shuffle so I get the full gamut of hard rock, metal, punk or anything else that’s fast and loud.

I put a hook in the vise, start wrapping it with thread, and my inner Picasso takes over.

I usually end up with a weird hybrid, bastardized version of whatever pattern I intended to tie.

I can’t even tie two black woolly buggers that look the same, much less complex fly patterns.

It has caused me to create my own simple styles, like the maggot fly, which is a nymph tied with a thin slice of chamois wrapped on a scud hook with a wrap of peacock herl near the head.

I guess it’s a caddis imitation, and it works surprisingly well, but I call it like I see it, and it looks more like a maggot to me.

I won’t claim to have invented the maggot fly. One of my pet peeves is tyers who claim they invented a certain pattern.

C’mon folks, thousands of people have been tying flies for centuries. Do you really think you’re the first person who thought of it?

But who am I to judge? I am admittedly a pretty unskilled fly tyer, but I am a pretty clever cheater.

I don’t even know how to do a whip finish, which is how you get the smoothly tapered head near the eye of the fly.

A bunch of thread wraps, two half hitches and a dab of Krazy Glue is my substitute, and the fish don’t seem to mind.