Freckles got me a fly-tying kit for Christmas, and I've learned to tie several patterns. Usually, my flies turn out very different from the finished products in the videos and websites that I've scrounged. But since Hope & Change came to my industry, I have plenty of time to practice fly-tying, as opposed to actual "paying" work.
So, for the past few months, I've been tying Pheasant Tails, Adams, Hare's Ears, Caddis (Caddisses?...Caddi?), Beetles, Wooly Buggers, and so on, and experimenting with things around the shack. I even used some of the synthetic "guts" from one of the stuffed dog-toys that Maggie mutilated, for the post material on some Parachute Adams.
It's always just an exercise in mimicking the conventional or professional standards, until you get to do some first-person R&D, or I should say, the "R" part...that on-stream research. That's what this is all about.
A couple days ago, after stopping by Dave's place to get some materials for tying some of his world-famous creations, I spent some time on a Delayed Harvest crick with my own renditions which were making little, inaudible "try me, try me" whimpers from my vest-pockets. Gotta love the research part of this.
Standard (and very talented, I can say without being boastful) Caddis and Adams flies in a variety of sizes, produced no action. A Hare's Ear and similar nymphs went unbitten. Too early for terrestrials, but I tied a few "experimentals" on to see how they'd float: nothing.
Then, I tried the Parachute with the "guts"-post as basically a strike-indicator with a nymph dangling below.
Wham! This guy hit my fly like it was the tastiest bug he'd seen in weeks.
And I mean he hammered it! There's nothing like landing a fish on a fly you've tied, especially if it's a design or material-usage equation that you had dreamt up. What could make it even better? Well, glad you asked.
At first, I'd thought this was an average (about 14") Brown trout. But I showed the pic to some folks who corrected me. That's a Brook trout, and at 14" is a very, very nice Brookie.
Right after photographing this bad boy and returning him to his pocket of habitat, I proceeded to hang that trophy-catching fly in a tree. Which is the main reason anyone gets into tying his own flies, anyway. So I tied on a store-bought version of the fly I'd gotten the materials for tying on the trip out. 2nd cast landed a braggin' rights Rainbow in the 20" range, but of which there are no photos. This was a case of the photographer/fisherman/fly-tyer having fumblina syndrome, and it was either drop the fish or drop the camera. How much fish porn could you take, anyway?
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