Scratching the fly tying itch

Alvin looked like he could have stepped out of an old-country Weiner schnitzel or biergarten commercial: rotund body, big features, big frame, distinctly Germanic features set in a jolly countenance, and big strong workingman's hands with calloused fingers the size of bratwursts.

He wanted to learn how to tie flies. He enrolled in a course I was teaching. He was the nicest guy in the world, and we became good friends, but my first thought going in was that it would be a challenge for him to become a decent fly tyer.

He wanted to learn, practiced, didn't get discouraged, and eventually prevailed. He enjoyed his sport more from that course forward. He experienced the deep satisfaction that comes from catching fish on flies he'd designed and tied for himself.

Our first class assignment was to tie a simple pattern: the Wooly Worm. Al went along with it, but asked, "This is just for practice, right? When are we going to get to tie some real flies, like the Royal Wulff?"

A Royal Wulff is a demanding fly tie. I'd watched the thread chafe and sometimes break as Al pulled it through his rough calluses. I spent extra time coaching him through some simple basic hand skills.

He wanted to tie Royal Wulffs? I groaned a little inwardly, but tried not to let it show. I encouraged the simple Wooly Worm as a neglected pattern that was every bit as fish-worthy as the fancier more delicate patterns.

Al went along with it, but still couldn't wait to tie some "real" flies.

Later that spring he took his boxes of painstakingly tied Wulffs and whatnot to Pyramid Lake in Nevada, where cruising cutthroats ran up to eight pounds or more – if you could hold them. He was full of enthusiasm but didn't know that he was poorly equipped.

The hot fly, on that Paiute Reservation lake, was a #6 Black Wooly Worm – the first fly he tied in class a few months ago. He didn't have any with him.

He had to open his wallet and reluctantly buy two from the tribal members who were selling them lakeside for about double the going rate.

Al came back beaming with a couple of frozen trout that weighted between six and eight pounds apiece, but still fuming over the price he had to pay for the flies.

For the next two weeks the bite at Pyramid remained on. Al spent every non-working hour in that period tying #6 Black Wooly Worms. I asked, "What are you doing, Al? Don't you have enough flies to fish with?"

He showed me, before he left, a shoebox full of Wooly Worms. He wasn't going to run out this time, and planned to pay for his trip by selling his flies to the other anglers who crowded the shore of Pyramid at what he considered a fair going price.

The tribe put a quick stop to that. Al stammered his way out of a harsh interview with a tribal warden and escaped without having his gear confiscated, being fined or arrested, but had to return home a little early with most of his shoebox full of flies.

"What am I going to do with all these things?" he asked.

"Fish 'em," I said. "You know they work, and look at the bright side: Now you have a lifetime supply."

When I teach fly tying courses these days the first fly we tie is a Wooly Worm. That fly utilizes some basic skills that are used in any fly to follow. And a Wooly Worm will catch fish.

For this area we start with a #8 wooly with a yellow body and brown hackle.

My grandkids, when they were boys, tied their own Yellow Wooly Worms at grandpa's bench and took them up Mill Creek Canyon the following day and caught trout on them.

The boys discovered that a Yellow and Brown Wooly Worm looks like a bug when it gets wet. You can fish it when it floats, and when it sinks. You can let it lie still, or jiggle it just a little bit, and the trout in Mill Creek and other small streams all over western Montana will eat it.

Catch a fish on a fly you've tied yourself, and you're hooked. The urge to do that again and again gets people into fly tying. You might say it's an itch you can scratch.