Classic flies, art and obsession

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I have been spending quite a bit of time at the vise this early winter playing around with new and old renditions of classic fly patterns, especially salmon and steelhead flies. I had intended to spend this time filling up missing slots in fly-boxes for trout and bass, but instead kept coming back to the creative and artful flies instead. Then the other day a friend asked a question regarding how long it took me to tie these patterns, and a discussion ensued regarding the ‘why?’ aspect to tying and using these little works of art vs. utilitarian flies, and I began to ponder this a bit.

To me there is a certain elegance to full-dress Salmon Flies, Scottish Spey flies, Dee Flies, classic steelhead and salmon hair wings and feather wings as well as Catskill Dry Flies. They just speak to me. There is an inspiration in tying and fishing these flies that adds so much to the sport for me that they have become an essential part of my approach to fly-fishing and even become ingrained in my identity. Offering the fish a piece of art that took time and patience to create, and that contains a little piece of my soul underlies at least to me the sporting concept. The fly helps to elevate the act of simply fishing to a more profound experience.

This started years ago before I became an accomplished tyer. I remember tying salmon flies out of inappropriate materials and bad hooks right off the bat when I first began fly-tying. I looked at magazines, and seeing photos of Thunder and Lightnings and Silver Doctors, Rusty Rats and Blue Charms, wanted to able to create these myself. It was like running before learning to walk, but I learned a lot in the process. In the passing years, I found that tying on a beautiful fly gave me more confidence even if that was all in my mind. I threw out most of those first flies after a time, because they looked like a cat spat them up.

I produced several segments of the history and tying techniques of these flies on television and began to amass a vast collection of books on the subject. In all, I became rather obsessed. Mixing that obsession and creativity and passion gave me an outlet that along with writing, I never knew was in me before. I guess I fell in love with tying beautiful and complicated flies.

So I wanted to take some time here to share this passion, and examine the world of tying and fishing these flies through my eyes.

In essence, the fishing fly is a creation of fur and feathers designed as a lure to catch fish. They represent things that fly and swim in nature. That clinical definition is just the dust jacket on a proverbial book so big it could consume a person for a lifetime, or in my case… did.
I view the fly as an essential ingredient in the Art of fly-fishing. Imagine standing in a beautiful piece of water and attaching to your leader a fly you invented, one made up of dozens of materials and hours of effort. Think of the anticipation of catching a fine fish on that fly for the first time… Then imagine the fly is instead, a San Juan worm for example and the romance is gone like someone dumped cold water on it.

Sometimes the very pinnacle of the art is not the glory shot of the fish, but the whole journey there including fly-tying and presenting proudly a beautiful thing.

Flies and fly-tying are part of the complete game or art of fly-fishing, as important to our imagery and actual pursuit as casting, beautiful rivers, fine reels and rods, antique equipment, and ephemera. I like to sometimes sit on the bank and take a wee rest while contemplating my rod and reel and fly. I often
then get inspired to place the kit somewhere in the foreground and take a stunning photo of the river. I have been known to place flies on a stump, artfully arranged and try to capture their presence with a camera in hand.

Little touches make all the difference. A finely tied spey-style Green-Butt Skunk, with properly tented wings and proportions; the red tail sitting at a jaunty angle and nearly meeting the humped wing of white goose shoulder, the long hackles stirred by a whisper of breeze. The tinsel tag and ribbing done flawlessly. Fishing with an upright winged Catskill classic during an March Brown hatch and being entranced at the way the little fly bounces and floats just right on the surface.

Someone asked me recently if I had to choose three flies to fish with for a given river, which ones would I choose? I thought about it for awhile, and said “I would choose not to go fishing if that were the case.” Perhaps that may seem a bit much, but the fly itself and how it speaks to me, what it represents, and its aesthetic qualities mean so much to me that to exclude this aspect from my
fishing would be like listening to a piano concerto of Rachmaninov done on a kazoo. Let’s just say that the fly has become for me an essential part of the approach to fly-fishing, and at this point in my life and fly-fishing career, the approach seems more important than almost anything else.

Classic flies are not always the ‘best’ flies, but what is ‘best’ is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, the purpose is to catch a fish, but then that can be accomplished with worms, spinners, crank-baits, or just a hook with some Christmas tinsel and troll-doll hair on it. I think that utility in the modern
materials and synthetics had added a ton to the tyer’s art, and the possibilities at the vise and in the water. In some cases the modern fly can and will outfish a classic. But what classic? Take an egg-sucking leech, a ubiquitous fly if there ever was one, and essentially a woolly bugger with an egg as a head, and effective as hell. Yet, if look hard enough in books we find a classic called the Beauly Snow-Fly, a more complicated and elegant dressing designed to do the same thing. Often these old flies are over-looked in importance and usefulness.

I once read an article where the author poised the question in his title, “Is the Catskill Dry-Fly dead?” The obvious answer is No. Indeed, the newer thorax ties perform better in certain waters, and give us a new and better profile of the bug to a fish’s eye. They are simply another choice for us as anglers. That does not mean that the history of everything from Thaddeus Norris, to Theodore Gordon through Marinaro and Flick can be tossed out the window. No sir!

Look at a photo of flies tyed by Syd Glasso, Dave McNeece, Warren Duncan, etc. Ponder what went through their mind as they created each one for a specific purpose. Those flies shine through history and are as bright and worthy today as the day they were conceived. Stare at an original Quill Gordon in the American Museum of Fly Fishing in Vermont, and wonder at the segmentation effect the
quill has, and wonder how Gordon managed to get the hackle to stand up perfectly given the poor feathers he had to work with compared to today. Look at an original mounting plate of American wet flies by Mary Orvis Marbury and behold the colors. I find this stuff fascinating. These flies speak to you. These are icons to our sport.

Fly-tying is an art. Yes, the repetition of tying can be defined as a craft, but the technique and inspiration are an art. After all, we don’t frame these pieces of fur and feather for nothing. Since the beginnings in the foggy mists of the history of this sport all flies have been handcrafted: tied by human hands with only a few essential tools. Man has not devised a machine sensitive and precise
enough to tie a fly. It takes soul. Machines have no souls. It takes the dedication of years of learning, experience, study, and experimentation with technique and materials to become a good fly-tier. Medieval journeyman and attic tiers with a bottle of sherry and an idea. Experimenters and dreamers. Setting wing proportions on a Hendrickson, the body and wing construction on full-dress salmon flies, dying and spinning your own wool dubbing, working with materials, mounting jungle-cock so that it does not twist, etc. all learned over countless hours and applied to perfection to produce a fly worthy of the fish we pursue. The time taken in finding just the right Plymouth Rock feathers to allow the perfect Rusty Rat to be formed. It weaves a thread of labor and love throughout the casts, rivers, and fish.

Buying utilitarian flies at a shop can be like eating fast food. Chances are the tier probably has no real clue as the intended use of the fly other than “Fishing.” Tying a finely crafted fly is like cooking a fine meal. First, the procurement of ingredients, then the assembly under carefully measured conditions, and finally the delight of tasting and enjoying the home-cooked meal. An epicurean delight vs. a fast food burger. Time spent laboring and learning, and the food tastes better for the labor involved, as the fly has more value to us for the sweat and time we took to learn to tie it properly. Not to denigrate store-bought flies, but they will never compare in inherent involvement and immersement in the little game of chase and catch with the fish than using a fly we tied ourselves.

This sacrifice of time and energy at the vise is part of the game too. So is offering the fish a beautiful fly. Not only have we paid our dues in time preparing for the fishing, but also we respect the fish we catch by presenting the best fly we can tie. This takes time. We all go through a process of learning in tying that has to consist of pure time at the vise: like practicing the piano. Repetition and perfection combine with inspiration and passion when we finally get that fly right after so many failed attempts.

I recently realized that I had sacrificed my entire dining room to tying space, and the mess I have created in the past years may never be equaled or undone. My clothing is often festooned with stray bits of feather and fur. Just add some tinsel and I could masquerade as a Christmas Tree. I was talking to a wife of a customer of mine who has taken up fly tying, and she was commenting on the mess he makes when tying. I reflected out loud, “Every man needs to have a private place where he can be creative and make a mess. Besides, it could give him an excuse to buy you a new vacuum cleaner…”

It has been said that more words and books have been written on the sport of fly-fishing than any other sport (This author apologizes to be included in the guilty verbosity), and perhaps more books regarding flies and their tying and use have been written than any other subject within the sport of fly-fishing. After all, only so much can be written about casting, even if I believe it is an
art with endless possibilities, it is inherently three dimensional, and notoriously difficult to describe without resorting to props and analogies. Flies, on the other hand offer an immediate visual and aesthetic reward. The grace and sweeping curves of a speyfly, or the perfect set of wings and proportion on a married wing Salmon Fly can be appreciated by anyone. It is this universal appeal that leads the classic fly to become the visual symbol of our sport.

Anglers have collected books on flies and tying for ages. Copies are treasured and read and re-read from Art Flick to Kelson. Famous and classic flies have taken on a kind of ‘lore’ all by themselves. Authors such as Chris Mann have spent hundreds of hours researching and drawing salmon flies. Artists such as Jeff Kennedy spend hours just drawing and painting flies. These works adorn wine labels now. Collectors have saved and treasured old turn of the century catalogues from Hardy Brothers showing all the flies tied in their factory in England. A framed plate of flies by a Salmon Fly tyer can fetch thousands of dollars at auction. Students of the sport study the history of flies, the  history and biography of those that tied and or documented them. They fill their time off of the rivers and streams with the non-physical pursuit of fur and feathers. Some people I know spend all their time in tying flies, and no longer really fish at all. It can be that absorbing. We aficionados of the classic fly could almost be classified as suffering from a kind of mild asperger’s syndrome akin to train watching. I recently acquired a few treasured fly history books from a used book store. The proprietors thought I was nuts as I giggled and danced, holding the books to my chest and smiling benignly but foolishly.

( I have to take a break from that last run-on paragraph to peruse my own meager collections of books on flies and discover that I have far more than I thought, especially focused on Spey, Dee, and Salmon flies as well as ornithology, history, and a lot of dust, bookmarks with cryptic notes, and pieces of tying materials creeping out of their spines. I find them on the couch, the coffee tables, the book-shelves, lost among the bins of materials, and on top of the refrigerator for some reason. I note that nowhere is there a book on the wooly bugger. I guess one could write a book on the poor lowly wooly bugger, which would be interesting for the first few pages, and then begin to read like…well,
like a book on a wooly bugger. Kind of like a three-volume set on the history of the ping-pong ball. Charming, but if you checked it out of your local library you might want to check behind you for men in white coats carrying a straight-jacket and being followed slowly by a short yellow school bus.)

Back to that comment about the classic fly and symbolism, it strikes me that it is a testament to how important the fly is as a symbol of our sport. The image conjures a certain elevation of fishing from pure recreation to the lofty world of aesthetics. It is as if the very image adds some verisimilitude or weight of substance to an otherwise bland offering, as when an article on loch fishing in Ireland begins with a fine photo of a Jock Scott Salmon Fly followed by the author describing mooching techniques with bait. The beautiful fly is a badge of refinement, and something to catch the eye. It also can be a symbol without substance behind it. I can’t even to begin to think of all the outfitters,  shops, guide services, etc. that use a classic fly on their logo but never on the end of their line. (Knowledgeable angler to guide… “Wow, is that a Gray Fox Variant in your hat?” Fly-Fishing Guide…” Huh -- Whatsa?” Now why is that?

Perhaps it lies in the inherent difficulty in tying these flies, as well as the need for innovation to not just add to, but eclipse. Perhaps it is ignorance. Who knows? But when that guide wanted to place a fly in his hat to cement his identity as to what he believed a guide on said river should look like, he reached into the past and pulled out a gem that would be as much at home on the end of his line as in his hat.

There is a certain inherent pride in ownership and craft when a fish is brought to hand on a fly one tied oneself. It is kind of similar to the icing on the cake. I vaguely remember in the mists of my past that first feeling, and remember when flies that I was so proud of at the time (which to my eye today show a sort of embarrassingly sophomoric innocence like a copy of a Vermeer portrait done in crayon) were mounted with a photo of the fish and treasured on a wall somewhere.

The fly-fishing outfit I work at held a photo contest recently called “Slammin Salmon”. A tongue in cheek light-hearted contest based around the best angler picture of spawning Great Lakes King Salmon that often resemble rotting corpses. The only rule was that it had to caught on a fly. We had already juried the contestants when at the 11th hour, someone dropped off a last photo. Here was a
teenage boy holding up a bright salmon, and sporting a smile so proud with accomplishment that it would make any parent’s heart melt. He was awarded the 1st prize. When posing for a picture with his winnings, a fly-box stuffed with salmon and steelhead flies, he said, “What was the best of all was that I caught the salmon on a fly I tied myself!” There it is. He had handcrafted a dream from
various bits of marabou, chenille, bucktail and hope in his basement seated at a little table in the washroom. He won the prize, but the most exciting aspect of the whole experience to him was that he caught the fish on a fly that he himself tied.

There is one drawback to using finely crafted beautiful flies: losing them in bushes and trees. This happened to me this past October when I miss-judged a cast, and placed a nice Blue-Bear salmon fly into a tree on the Brule’ river while swinging classic flies for ghosts. I finished the run with a different fly, and wading up to meet my friend Joe, mentioned with chagrin the lost fly while pointing it out to him. “What a great place to lose a fly! he said” I looked at the bejeweled speck of blue and gold and black hanging off a low branch in the Nipponese hole on the Brule’ and smiled agreeing. He was right of course. Like an ornament meets a burnt offering I had left a colorful sacrifice to the beauty of fly-fishing in one of the finest pieces of water I have ever swung a fly in Wisconsin. It might hang there still, but nevertheless, I will always see it there in my memories like a monument to the river.

Thus, I raise my glass in a toast to art. “May your flies be as beautiful as the places you fish!” Ars Longa, Vitae Brevis!

Copyright 2014 Erik Helm

Production salmon and steelhead fly dressing

Cooped up in the Midwest winter, I decided to practice a bit of production tying. The aim was to produce a set of sample flies to display at shows, and barter for dog-food sell.


First off, I discovered to my dismay that this kind of tying can be tedious. In a production or commercial run of flies, every fly must be almost exactly the same. That means heads must be uniform, hackle and wing lengths measured and trim, and proportions correct.


Until one tries this for real, it seems easy. Take ten flies and look at them separately, and they look fine. Then place them close together and voila! we see differences. The old Sesame Street game of “One of these things is different/not quite the same” comes to mind.


I frowned and scratched my head. When I examined the ever-so-slight differences in the flies, I discovered that often it was related to selection of materials. One wing was tied denser than another due to a few too many black bear hair fibers, or the hackle lengths were not uniform. There was also the human factor at work, but the pre-selection of materials, and laying things out properly solved the issue of my mind wandering when reaching for fur or feather while contemplating Mahler’s ninth symphony.


So here is what I learned:


Choose the hook sizes first and lay them out.

Pre-select the winging material and collar or throat hackles. These are the two material areas where careless prep work can sink a fly.

Place a piece of cork or Styrofoam near the vise, and place the completed flies there before lacquering. This will allow one to check exact proportions.

Dress at least half a dozen flies of the same size and pattern at the same time.

Do not answer the phone or get distracted.

Too much sniffing head cement coffee leads to errors.


From the left: Rusty Rat, Will Taylor Special low water, Silver Doctor low water, Laxa Blue varient, Unnamed winter fly, and the Blue Bear. The last two are winter dressings, while the others are intended as summer flies.

Feathers, Asian bugs, and fevers

There are bugs, and then there are BUGS…

I received a package of hackle the other day, among other fur and tinsel type stuff, from a reputable mail-order materials company. I sat down to tie some salmon and steelhead classics, and lo and behold, I needed the very color of hackle that I had just received. I opened the package, ran my fingers through and noted the excellent quality of the feathers, and began to tie flies.

Flash forward to the next evening.
An itch in my throat quickly turned into a cough. The cough in turn turned into a full-blown old-fashioned fifteen-round full-monty Midwest late-winter cold; the kind of cold that I have not experienced since childhood; the kind of cold and fever that finds one sitting on the bed attempting to read a passage by James Joyce and drooling on the page.

Oh Good.

Well, since I needed my rest, what activity, other than sleep, is so relaxing and sublime as fly-tying? My addled and Nyquil saturated brain sat down at the vise for an hour or two and turned out the most incredible array of fouled-up rejects I have yet produced. I forgot whole steps. Wings were mounted to my nose, I sneezed on the teal feathers, scattering them all over. I dropped spools of tinsel and floss, rolled around on the floor trying to corral them, and ended up covered head to toe with fur and feather clippings.

Then, while reaching for that wonderful new Chinese rooster hackle dyed just the right color, I read (or hallucinated) a small label attached near the bottom of the plastic zip-lock bag. It read “New and improved! Now with 20% less Asian bird-flu germs.”

“Aha!” I thought, as I wrapped a piece of popcorn on the hook, and chewed on some soft-hackle.
Makes sense now.

(Mis) adventures with fur and feathers

Top: Hmm...

Middle: Um...

Bottom: A wee bit better

When I began fly-fishing, it was inevitable that I try my hand at fly tying. It was not just the creative aspect that drove my decision, but the fact that I am notoriously cheap. Store-bought flies were expensive, and it seemed that I could save money by creating my own patterns. It also might have been some sort of karmic fate or curse. I am still kind of divided on this. At least being a fly-tier has given me an excuse to be enigmatic, as in “Don’t talk to Erik over there, he is kind of weird. You know…he ties his own fishing lures…”

Every journey begins with a single step. In my case, I tripped and fell into the river.


To begin with, I did not have a vise. I also had no proper materials. I used old yarn and cotton sewing thread and attached them to inappropriate odd hooks using my hands. I wanted them to look like the few flies pictured in my book The Big Book of Fishing, which must have been tied by the three-year-old daughter of the publisher. Mine were not even that good. For some reason, I failed to grasp the simple concept that the thread belonged under the materials. My first flies looked like something the cat choked up.


I fished with them anyway, but was puzzled when, after a dozen casts, all the materials fell off. It didn’t matter though, any fish retarded enough to give my tying abominations a second glance, would be just as likely to eat a bare hook. I added glue in an attempt to secure the materials better. I lacked head-cement, so I used five-minute epoxy. This solved the problem, however the flies now lacked any motion at all, being entirely stiff with glue.


Then one Christmas, I received a vise and toolset. Santa must have a sense of humor. Either that or he’s a sadist.


I began the process of acquiring some actual fly hooks and inexpensive materials. What I should have done at this point was visit a fly shop and buy a book. Instead, I went to a craft store and a shop that sells lure-making supplies. I bought colorful craft yarn, plastic pony beads, ostrich herl, a package of various feathers intended to decorate masks, some hackle, three thousand yards of black chenille on sale, peacock herl, brass wire, and a single spool of tying thread. To this I added several packages of Mustad hooks. I returned home with excitement, brewed up a pot of coffee, put on some Bach, and arranged all my various acquisitions and the vise on the dining room table.

The first step in this gloriously creative day was to place the hook in the vise. This was far more difficult then it looked. The vise was one of those Indian import jobs, based very loosely on a Thompson classic (or perhaps on a Medieval thumbscrew). It sported an adjustment handle in the rear and a screw knob that one turned in order to, in theory, hold a hook securely. All I really required of the vise was to hold the hook. It did even that poorly. After a few minutes of fiddling, adjusting, pricking myself with the hook, more fiddling, and a good amount of freeform cursing, the hook sat in the jaws of the vise. It stayed put as long as I didn’t touch it. As soon as I attempted to wrap it with thread, the hook popped out with a loud “SPRONG!” and flew across the room to be located later by the vacuum cleaner.


Then the cotter pin that held the adjusting lever broke.


Undaunted, I fixed it with a bit of old wire, realizing all the way that one gets what one pays for.


I finally got the thread on the hook. Champagne all around! Then the thread broke for the first of ten thousand times, and I sliced open my fingers on the hook. I noted on the grocery list on the refrigerator that I needed to restock band-aids. The yarn I was using for the body was by now kind of claret colored by blood. I added some peacock herl, wound in a saddle hackle and some tinsel, and ran out of room at the front of the fly. Lesson #1: Don’t crowd the head.



I began to attempt to use the tools that came with the vise. These consisted of a pokey thing, a strange curved springy thing, something with two prongs on it, and some sort of pliers. These tools were obviously designed and made by Pakistani orphans, who had as little idea as I did as to their intended use.



Everything that could go wrong did. Materials that seemed secured mysteriously unwound themselves after the fly was completed. My heads unraveled. I tied in feathers upside down and backwards. I forgot steps. I had a blast.

I persevered and continued tying. Out on the water, I showed off my small collection of flies to others, who politely nodded and smiled. The common consensus was that “Those flies will catch a fish,” which is the stock courteous reply when unable to think of anything positive to say.

One of the first materials I collected were several packages of marabou. These I tied in as a tail. I liked the effect, so I added more colors. The first Wooly Bugger I tied consisted of thirty Marabou blood quills, a whole lot of thread, and a plastic pony bead. It floated.

The only solution to this, as I reasoned it, was to add more materials. More marabou would make the fly heavier, and thus it would sink faster. Right. The resulting monstrosity was nearly impossible to cast. After two or three hours of fishing, the fly became saturated with enough water to allow it to sink. Once it was waterlogged, it weighed around a pound or so, and became impossible to use. Back to the drawing board.


At a local fly shop, I found a giant grab bag of deer, caribou, antelope, and elk hair clippings dyed in wild colors. This collection of floor-sweepings, end-pieces, and mangy fur set me back only eight bucks. Man was I pumped. I had begun to collect some fly-fishing magazines, and was fascinated with what one could do with spun deer hair. Talk about running before learning to walk…


I created, in order, a succession of mutations that could only be appreciated by a person on an acid trip, and a huge mess in my apartment. Wherever I went, deer hair of various colors fell off my clothing. Lacking the proper razor blades, I employed an old pair of dull scissors in trimming my creations to shape. The results looked like a near miss by a hedge-trimmer with the shakes. Several neighborhood bass actually ate the things, proving that bass are just not that bright. Adding to the difficulty of working with the hair was the fact that most of the pieces were in effect unusable, which was something that never occurred to me.


After a few months of tying some Polar Shrimp that looked like rejects from a pre-school craft fair, some Dahlberg Divers that sank backwards, and a set of Double Egg and Sperm flies made from non-colorfast materials that bled into a sort odd pinkish-white mess, I found a picture of a Thunder and Lightning in an English magazine. Aha!


By now the reader may realize that I lacked completely in the needed skills or the proper materials to even think of tying a full-dress salmon fly. Nevertheless, I forged blindly ahead. My motto seemed to be “Enthusiasm will make up for skill.”


All sorts of colorful feathers and furs were used to create this first salmon fly. It actually looked pretty cool, especially compared to the other crimes against nature that emerged from my vise. I proudly gave several of the flies away as Christmas gifts. My father placed his in an Irish hat, which was a bit too much of an honor. (To the fly, not the hat)


Then one day I ran into a strange character in a local flyshop. He had suitcases of flies he tied, all mounted expertly in small plastic boxes. He seemed to be an unlikely candidate for a fly tier. He spoke with a deep hillbilly accent, made wild claims and exaggerations, carried a bowie knife, and smelled like mothballs. I figured that if he could tie nice flies, I could too. Besides, I had one major advantage; my father and mother were not cousins.


Few flies remain from that early era. My wet flies floated, and my dry flies sank. Most were discarded or mercifully lost in trees.


Slowly, my flies began to improve. I broke the thread less often, bought a vise that actually held a hook, purchased quality materials, and began to practice technique.


So, where was I?

Oh right; the original goals of creating pretty flies and saving money. I guess I am mostly successful at the former, but failed miserably at the latter. I expect I am not alone in this. There should be a warning label on fly tying materials and tools.


A couple of other rather unexpected things happened too. The dining room table, and in fact, the entire dining area somehow slowly morphed into a tying area. I never intended this to happen, but one day I walked past the piled-up mess, took a sip of tea, and muttered, “Well, there it is then…”


The second and even more unexpected thing was that I found myself enjoying the creative process and beautiful finished results of tying flies almost as much as I did fishing.

It was a heck of a fun journey.

So, as I type this with an old Lady Caroline embedded in my sock, a piece of tinsel stubbornly caught in my hair, and surrounded by dozens of fly boxes, I can honestly say that it was worth it.


I just need to get a better vacuum cleaner.

Some tips from the tying bench

There are so many good books out there on tying that I am reluctant to add my mediocre voice and skills to the chorus, but most articles and books focus on patterns and materials and are light on advice.



I am not a great fly-tyer. Period. However, I do spend a bit of time at the vice, and over the years have learned much from my own mistakes. In do tie enough that friends often pick errant pieces of feathers and fur from my clothes. I now smile ruefully at the flies I tied in years past, and showed to colleagues. Some were good, some bad, and some downright ugly. Some very accomplished tyers looked at my flies and said, “Hmm… this fly should catch fish.” As time went on, I realized that this was a catch-all response to avoid tearing the fly apart and discouraging the tyer. As an obsessive perfectionist, I am rarely satisfied anymore with results, but do realize that to ere is human.



So, permit me to bore you with a few select generalized tips from the vice and bench. (Far from definitive…)



1. Know your skill level, and do not attempt to tie patterns that are far beyond your skills. Trying to tie full-dress salmon flies when you are struggling to get a pheasant-tail nymph down can lead to frustration.

2. Use a vise that you are comfortable with. No need to break the bank, just use what you have until your skills outgrow the vise.

3. Use good tools. Your wife’s old craft scissors just won’t (pardon the pun) cut it. Good tools make tying a joy. Bad tools just lead to more frustration.

4. At the beginning, practice with cheap hooks and second-grade materials. Practice technique. Don’t waste that floricon bustard until you know what you are doing.

5. Have a plan when you sit down at the vice.

6. Try to tie four or more of the same pattern at one sitting. Try to make each one a carbon copy of the others. This builds consistency and proportion.

7. When tying a fly, work for correct technique at each step. If you are having trouble mounting wings, then practice the wing until you get it right. Don’t just tie six flies with bad wings. This teaches nothing.

8. Learn about thread tension and length of thread. This is an overlooked and critical aspect.

9. Learn about materials: how to work with feathers, wrap hackle, fold collars, mount the feather without a bulge, etc.

10. Study proportion in your flies. Divide the hook into halves, thirds, and quarters as necessary. Start the fly in the proper place and finish it without crowding the head.

11. Learn to tie in materials with a minimum of thread wraps. Using thirty wraps where four are needed leads to unsightly bulges.

12. If you make a mistake, undo it, and start again. Since the canvas of a hook is so small, mistakes tend to domino on each other and end up as a mess at the front of the fly.

13. Tie with a picture of a perfect completed fly in front of, or near you. Refer to the picture often.

14. Use the correct hook for the fly. Learn about different hooks and hook terminology.

15. Learn to dub properly with different materials.

16. Instead of using pre-made body wraps, make them yourself. Spin a dubbing loop of flashy seal substitute. It is amazing what one can do with a dubbing loop and blended materials.

17. Challenge yourself by tying flies just a bit harder. This is how you get better. Don’t go too far though. (See #1)

18. Take a tying class. However, first make certain that the instructor is not just a good tyer, but also a good teacher. Otherwise, the class is just a tying demo.

19. Fish with your flies. See how they move in the water. See how they float or sink, test the durability. If they fall apart quickly or unravel, something is wrong.

20. Once you have some competence, be creative. All the flies in existence started this way. Let inspiration be your wings.

21. Tie a bit every week. Long dry periods tend to decay skills.



If I had to pick one thing to tell new tiers, it would be to develop solid technique with materials and thread. Solid technique builds a foundation. Once that foundation is built, one can look at a fly in a book and instantly duplicate it.



Above all, have fun. Catching a fish with a fly you tied yourself adds a new dimension to the sport.