Local anglers lured by the art of fly tying
He opens a silver box about the size of a thin paperback book to reveal several rows of neatly displayed flies.
The yellow-and-black imitation bugs are lined up side-by-side. There’s a row of crane flies — fly fisher Paul Furminger called them mosquito hawks as a kid. There are blue duns, an old fly-tying pattern that imitates a mayfly nymph and beside them, the tried-and-true despairs. “You don’t leave home without it,” he says.
Next to them, there’s the wood ducks, mayfly imitations. “I’ve tied them as long as I’ve tied flies,” he explains.
His large fingers carefully extract one from its home and he places it in the palm of his hand for closer inspection.
Barely visible to the eye is a tiny hook protruding from its read end.
Furminger has been fly fishing since the 1960s and tying his own flies for almost as long. On this night, he joins a group in the basement of a St. Catharines church. They sit in a horseshoe of tables, all facing a TV screen. A few feet above them, bright fluorescent lights illuminate their workspace. On the screen they watch the fingers of Morgan Stanford, magnified for their ease of viewing with a GoPro camera placed close to a small imitation bug held in the grips of a pedestal vice.
He is guiding the group step-bystep through the creation of a mayfly nymph replica. Or in fly tying vernacular, a filoplume hare’s ear.
One day, it might just catch them a nice trout.
After the hour-long meeting they will add it to their personal repertoire of bugs and other creepy crawlies.
Tying flies is an art form. The motivation is not only to a land a fish but to experience the camaraderie and creativity that happens when a bunch of fly fishers get together.
“You don’t save any money by tying your own flies,” says Carl Hensler, who has been tying flies for a quarter century and joined the group a year ago. “It’s about creating something.
“And what’s really nice is when you catch a fish with something you’ve created.”
The idea is to make a bug that looks yummy enough for a fish to eat.
It’s not as simple as it might seem.
Understanding fish behaviour is part of the challenge. Fish might be attracted to a specific size, colour and shape of bug, all dependant the time of year.
Indeed, there are books, blogs and websites stocked with fly designs.
On a table next to the group is a collection of books. 365 Trout Flies. Favourite Flies and their Histories. World Fly Finder: All the Flies You Need to Fish All the Rivers of the World.
Oftentimes, a fly tier will create a conceptualized bug — one that’s not meant to imitate any bug in particular but that looks yummy in general.
“There’s almost an infinite variety of bugs,” says Brian Green.
Many fly fishers have become experts in entomology. They learn to recognize bugs in all stages of development, from larvae to adult, and like aquatic detectives they carefully observe what the fish are biting at a moment in time.
The universal truth among fly fishers is this: “Match the hatch,” he says.
“Whatever is hatching at a given time, that’s what we’re trying to imitate.
“That’s part of the fun.
“We go on a river and wonder, what are they feeding on? What is that fish coming up for? Is it a little green mayfly or is it a big black stone fly? Or is it a deltawinged caddis fly?
“You see a fish rise in the stream,” he says. “You see him rise in the same spot all the time because he’s found a nice place behind a rock and he can come up and take a bug off the surface.
“You see him there. You look through your fly box. You say, ‘Is there anything I have like what he is eating?’
“When he comes up and takes it, it’s quite an achievement. You really feel you’ve worked for it and accomplished something. “It’s a thrill.”
Green has fished since he was a young boy. When he was gifted a fly reel and rod in his 30s, he tried it for an hour, got frustrated and gave up.
Then he heard this advice: “Leave your spinning gear at home and give fly fishing one season.”
“I did that,” says Green. “And I have never picked up my spinning gear again.”
“It’s more challenging. It’s more interesting. It’s more artistic. And it’s more active because you’re doing something instead of waiting for the fish to bite.”
The club started in 1976 when late St. Catharines surgeon Earl Hunt was so intrigued by a demonstration by Furminger, that he offered a place to meet in his Yates Street office. A small group met in the records room.
These days, the group has grown so large that there is a wait list to join.
However, some of the members are part of the Niagara chapter of Trout Unlimited Canada, and offer lessons to scouts and other groups.
On this night, Furminger has his workspace set up with the requisite Game Fish of Canada mug and a Corona mild cigar box filled with his tools.
Fly tiers are known for their ingenious scrounging and use of materials. The whiskers of Furminger’s mouse flies are plucked from a whisk broom. “I bought one 20 years ago and I still use it,” he says. Ears and tail were cut from scraps of leather.
Feathers and fur are placed to simulate kicking frog’s legs or to produce copious quantities of bubbles to attract a fish’s attention.
Some fish are particular. Others, like musky, are opportunistic. “They’ll eat anything that looks like it’s alive,” he says. “You take something inanimate and make it alive.”
Green remembers a day when he was fly fishing with his idol, the late Len Yust. They were on a small pond fed by the Credit River in Caledon.
“We knew it had trout, but we could not catch these trout,” says Green.
Frustration often breeds creativity. “When you exhaust all possibilities, you try something a little off the wall.”
He pulled a small black fly from his box of bugs and tied it on to the end of a foot-long length of fishing line. Then he tied the line to a dry fly, designed to rest on the surface of the water.
When he cast out, the dry fly floated on top and the black fly dangled below the surface.
“Almost immediately I got a beautiful fish,” says Green. An 18-inch rainbow trout. Green released the fish. And came home with the best story ever.