MIY – MAKE IT YOURSELF!

ere’s possibly only one way to get any more enjoyment out of catching a fish on the fly, and that’s to catch it on a fly you’ve made yourself. Of course, there’s absolutely nothing to stop you buying flies; there’s lots to choose from, the quality is good and, they are rarely more than a couple of quid at the most, so you can certainly build up a great collection. But I have to be honest, after a while you’ll find that the range of patterns you come to rely on is actually pretty small, and they can be disarmingly simple. So, why not ‘tie’ them yourself? e basic clouser, deceiver, rays mullet fly, and DNA baitfish are really easy to reproduce, even for someone with bad eyesight and fat thumbs like me. Heck, my fishing buddy Steve even manages it with half an index finger missing! Fly tying vices can be stupidly expensive, but you can also pick up basic ones which are perfect for saltwater flies for as little as £15, and that’s all you’ll need. ere are a few other tools (scissors, a bobbin for thread, a tool for ‘whip-finishing’ the flies) that you’ll need but again, the cost is minimal. e actual material required to tie every fly imaginable are freely available and you can build up your range gradually as you get just what you need for each style of fly one by one, and you’ll get stacks of flies from each lot. In terms of how, there are books, courses and clubs, but YouTube offers a myriad of accessible instructional videos to follow, which makes learning very easy.

At the end of the day, tying your own flies is fun in its own right, and allows you to experiment almost infinitely with creating flies of your own design. It’s fantastic when a variant of your own design starts to outfish other flies (the first fish you catch on a fly you’ve tied yourself is always a special moment) and then other swiffers will curiously peer over your shoulder to see what you’re using. Plus, you get to name it! What a buzz when you ‘invent’ a fly, word gets around, and before you know it, the little creation you christened is being published in magazines and sold on the shelves – it happens all the time.

Finally, the biggest buzz of all is the one you get from stringing all of the above together. Five compelling reasons to try the fly – give it go. It really will transform the way you think about all of your sea angling in one way or another.