(Some of) the joys of fly tying

When I was a kid I was fascinated by trout flies. It seemed almost inborn.

It started when I was about eight when my godfather showed me a box of flies that he tied.

There was a sporting goods store in my small home town that sold .22 rifles and ammo, among other things, and I took to shooting at an early age. My dad and my godfather instructed me carefully and well. My dad had the stock of my first .22 sawed off so it would fit a boy. There was a small assortment of flies in the store where dad bought the .22.

I idolized my godfather; he was my father's closest friend and with a houseful of daughters who were like sisters to me, I was like the son he never had. He took me shooting, let me watch at a respectful distance while he reloaded ammo, and took me on my first fishing trip.

When I was about 11 he moved away from our little village to a big city. We wrote letters to continue our relationship. His letters, many of them composed in longhand, contributed to many areas of my upbringing – including criticisms of the flies I sent him.

Early memories

My fly tying started a few years earlier. Shortly after seeing his flies I took a bait hook from a box that my older brother left me, some thread from my mother's sewing basket, and for feathers I carefully cut open the corner of my feather pillow. I wanted to make a fly like the ones in my godfather's fly box.

With those ingredients in hand, and nearly trembling with an excitement that I still recall, I approached my first fly. I managed to hold the hook in my fingers and wrap the thread around it, first the black, and then the yellow followed by more black, and then the feathers for wings – something of a bee imitation on about a size eight hook.

When I showed that fly to my mom, not thinking about what her response more likely would have been, she admired it. Thank God, she didn't come unglued in a fit of scolding about what I had done to my pillow. If she had, my interest in fly tying could have ended right there.

When my godfather saw that fly he immediately gave me a fly tying vise and told me how to use it. The vise was one of his, a high quality tool in its day. I still have it. Its slender jaws enabled me to tie small trout flies. By the time I was 12, with help from his letters and instructions from one book, I tied well enough to sell flies in that little hometown sporting goods store - and the proceeds kept me in .22 ammo.

Fly tying is fun

For everyone who sits behind a fly tying vise for the first time, there is a certain excitement. You don't have to be an eight-year-old to feel it. There is also an uncertainty: Can I do this? Will I like it? And, will something I've made actually catch a fish?

The answers go like this: Fly tying is fun. There is something elemental and satisfying about making something with your hands that is more than a decoration. (Some flies are less than a decoration, but for now we won't go there...)

Yes, you can do this. Over the years I've taught many anglers with little or no handcraft experience to tie flies. For the most part they've done well at it. Fly tying often becomes their creative outlet.

And yes, your flies will catch fish. That first fish on a fly you tied yourself usually comes as a surprise and a delight. The surprise factor may diminish as confidence builds, but the delight factor builds along with the confidence. You never get over it or take it for granted.

And, fly tying fills the void between the end of one season outdoors and the start of the next. A session behind the vise usually comes with memories as favorite flies are tied, and anticipations as new experiments become realities in our hands. In that sense, fly tying tends to make fly fishing complete.

It's as my godfather once told me as: Through fly tying, the anticipations and the memories of fly fishing are nearly as good as the reality.