The experimental life of a fly flsher

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.

If I get a case of fly vanity -- and occasionally I do -- I smooth the head with a few wraps of colored floss to pretty up the wad of thread.

Another thing that works against my becoming an efficient fly-tying machine is I have the attention span of a kindergartner who has tapped into his dad’s Red Bull.

On a good day, I can tie about three copies of a fly I am trying to mimic before I lose interest and move on to something else.

That’s one reason steelhead flies are my favorite to tie. I’m not trying to imitate an insect, so I can amuse myself with weird creations that can actually catch fish.

Another reason I like steelhead flies is because tying them on a size 1/0 hook is like wrapping rope round a cleat compared to those diminutive dry flies.

I rarely attempt those. My double whammy of impatience and incompetence gets the best of me.

And some of my steelhead patterns, if I may brag, even look like they were tied by someone other than me.

I credit the graceful, shiny black hooks and the cool feathers like golden pheasant and Spey hackles that look gaudy and classy at the same time.

When I tie a good one, I call my wife, Shelley, into a spare room where I converted a small closet into a fly tying/reloading bench.

“Blow on this,” I say, holding my feathered creation in front of her face.

“Why,” she asks suspiciously.

“I want to see how the feathers move,” I explain.

She complies with an eye roll, and the feathers shimmer and dance. I proclaim the fly absolutely irresistible to steelhead, even though I know it’s more likely to end up rusting in the bottom of my drift boat without ever hooking a fish.

Then I sit down to tie a few more. If I am lucky, I end up with a couple that sort of resemble it.

Sometimes I can’t even get the colors right. I end up replacing a tuft of calf tail with some metallic Krystal flash to give it a little more flair.

Then I decide I need a different color of hackle to get better contrast with the Krystal flash. Then I wrap some dyed mallard flank in front of the hackle to class it up a little.

Another mutant fly is born.

But if I may brag again, almost all of the steelhead I have caught were on my own hand-tied flies.

But before I glow in my accomplishments, I have to admit that my most consistently successful steelhead pattern is (drum roll please) an egg pattern.

Yes, that small wad of yarn that looks like a tiny red cotton ball skewered on a hook. Except my egg patterns are usually more oval or oblong.

I haven’t figured out how to make them perfectly round.Oh well, I guess I have all winter to learn how.