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So You Want To Take Up Fly Tying . . .

By Steven J. Meyers

Found in: | Outside | Fishing | Fly Fishing |

Take the urine-stained belly fur of a mature, male, red fox . . .

Bet that got your attention!

Fly tiers who have been around for a while probably found themselves thinking, "Oh no, not that again!" The rest of you were probably thinking something else; maybe, something on the order of, "Well, there you have it, old Steve's finally lost his marbles.

Yes, back in the day when East coast fly tiers were creating a whole new set of fly patterns for a whole new set of rivers (i.e., American not British), one of the popular recipes called for body dubbing material that came from, well, no need to repeat it. Other recipes created in that time (especially salmon flies) specified feathers from endangered birds who live in out of the way jungles across an ocean or two or near a vine-covered Mayan ruin. Lest you think the days of fly tying recipes requiring exotic materials are over, the original recipe for a fly that hit the fly bins a few years ago asked for the middle layer of rubber-like foam from a discarded pair of hundred-dollar river sandals. A clue, for those of you who are trying to guess just what fly that was: it was named after a reactor that blew up in the Ukraine a while back - possibly, because the fly was so gaudy it practically glowed in the dark.

I begin my fly-tying introduction this way because I want to quickly disabuse beginners of the idea that a good reason to begin tying flies is to save money. True, a well-tied, store bought trout fly can easily run a couple bucks these days, steelhead and salmon flies cost even more (fully dressed salmon flies can cost a lot more), and saltwater flies sometimes require small business loans to procure. But, as you might imagine, that patch of urine-stained fox fur is pretty small and hard to come by. It isn't cheap. Those feathers from the jungle do not come cheaply either (in fact, they're really expensive now that selling or buying them is illegal, and you might have to factor the cost of legal representation into your fly tying expenses). Even here in Durango, where there are more Tevas exposing toes than cordovan wingtips covering them, scrounging for that foam is no simple matter and taking apart a pair of river sandals to get it is something you might want to wait a while to do. Maybe row a few hundred river miles before even considering it.

Every time you sit down to tie a new pattern, you'll discover at least five required materials you don't have, and you'll have to drive into town to procure them. The fly shop, by the way, won't have three of the items in stock, and you'll ignore the salesman's sound advice to use substitutes (because you're hopelessly anal or you wouldn't be tying flies in the first place). You'll have to drive back home to order them online.

All of this is assumes you already have a complete compliment of good fly tying tools - you don't, of course, because you're just getting started. You'll need to buy a vice (not what your thinking). Some thread bobbins. Several pairs of hi-tech, specialized scissors.

A whip finisher (at the risk of repeating myself, not what you're thinking). A lot of shiny little tools that have names I can't pronounce and perform tasks I've forgotten how to do. These tools will set you back another few hundred bucks.

Don't even think about teaching yourself to tie. Every procedure involves a handful of tricks passed down from fly tier to fly tier, and you can only learn them from somebody who has learned them from somebody (in secret rituals involving blood).

You'll need to take a beginner's class.

After your beginner's class, you'll be able to tie a profoundly disheveled and ill-proportioned wooly worm (you can get a perfectly tied version for 49 cents at any rural hardware store). You'll need to take several advanced classes in order to learn to tie anything you really need.

After that, you will be able to start practicing all the new skills you've learned! A well-known fly tier from the Front Range has written that it takes him about a hundred dozen tries with a new pattern to really get it down. A dry fly takes a beginner about an hour to tie. Do the math. The stress and rage involved in having a fly that took you an hour to tie ruined with the last snip of the scissors is difficult to imagine. Yet another wonderful new experience for the neophyte tier.

I hope my brief introduction to fly tying has whetted your appetite for this wonderful and relaxing pastime.

Soon, I will be accepting applications for the advanced fly tying course I plan to begin teaching next month. Please bring with you evidence of having passed the blood initiation and stacks of hundred dollar bills. We do not accept credit cards, checks or any form of payment that can be stopped after the first class.

And please complete a brief essay in which you discuss: "Why I want to learn to tie flies." (Hint: a simple, "I'm crazy," will suffice.)