Try to tie flies
HOPEFULLY you’re all waking up safe and well with a beautiful snowy vista this weekend.
If you’re hardy and have access you might even be knocking the flakes off your brolly or beach shelter.
I had an few hours on the bank this week, mainly walking to be fair, strolling the path and putting a foot on the ice in the margins to see if there was a fishable spot.
Given the frosty conditions, I’ve been digging out the fly tying gear and settling down with some tying videos online, there’s something very calming about watching someone who’s very good making it look easy.
I’ve not got the finesse quite right and I’ll admit to just merging mistakes into a variant of the pattern but finding a few patterns that you use all the time and working out how to tie them up yourself is a great way to keep you connected to your fishing.
From an outsider’s perspective, fly tying can look an archaic and complicated endeavour.
Keep it simple to start with and you can soon find boxes full of hand-knitted creations. My more discerning fly-tying friends will even off load some patterns that didn’t pass muster, I’m happy to tie on hand-me-downs to fill in the gaps.
The buzzers, pennells, CDCs, hare’s ears, pheasant tails, damsels, F-flys and hoppers that account for a huge percentage of my trout are all pretty straightforward to tie with a little patience and they’ll all catch fish.
Getting it wrong, trying over and over is all part of the process. Repetition is how we get better at pretty much anything and there are still some things I’ve taken far too long to get passable at.
Split wing wets seem to be a blind spot and I’ve given up on trying to knot pheasant tail fibres for daddy longleg patterns. Thankfully lots of other tyers must have given up too as you can buy whole tails with the fiddly little knees tied in already with none of the swearing or frustration included.
As much as I watch one outstanding YouTube video after another, there are some things that cannot be learned without doing.
To get good at something you have to start somewhere and learning the hard way by snapping threads, losing proportions or varnishing the hook eye closed so you can’t get a leader through.
Everyone that’s sat at a vice has something that frustrates the life out of them or a signature error they struggle with but they’ve also had that satisfaction of catching a fish on a fly they crafted and there’s nothing quite like it.