Fly Tying

All posts tagged Fly Tying

That New Gear Smell

Posted by thosnut on February 25, 2013
Posted in: Life, Trout. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 5 comments

My vice

Remember the joy of being a child and opening that one Christmas present with the toy you really wanted. Some kids go hysterical, some start crying, and some just freeze up. I remember that joy and I have seen that same emotion in my own kids.
“Look Dad, I got the BATMOBILE. THE BATMOBILE. I can’t believe it. I got the BATMOBILE,” from my son.
“I’ll never ever throw it away. Not ever ever. I‘ll keep it forever. When I‘m old and gray, I still have it forever,” from my daughter.

I think as adults, we get a similar joy when we see a UPS or FedEx box that we know we ordered. You know what’s in the box, but deep inside that excitement still comes to the surface. When you know that box contains new gear, SOMEBODY GET ME A BOX CUTTER NOW! Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but in adult terms, that’s as good as it gets.

The hard part of getting something new is when you can’t use it. You’re forced to look at it over and over, and maybe imagine using it. If there was a way to use it, you would. I’ve seen videos of people fly casting in their backyard in snowdrifts to just try out their new rod. If you have no way to try it out, it’s torture. Right now, my workshop is filled with that new gear smell. Not just stuff I purchased, but gear I made or constructed. It’s bringing me to a new low.

I walk into my workshop and turn on all the lights. I look around at my bags, my rods, my nets, all my fly tying stuff, my fly boxes, and my vice…I just stand there staring at my vice like some kind of zombie. I want to tie some more flies, but I just can’t get myself to do it. The inner conflict goes back and forth. Should I make one more? Then I think maybe I have too many flies already, so I just can’t do it. Shutting off all the lights in my workshop, I shamble out in my zombie form- leaving the new gear smell behind me.

I think fly tying is supposed to ease the pain of not being able to fish, and it did for a while. Now I need something else to fill that void. Thank goodness that there are only five more days until the catch and release trout season opens in Wisconsin.

 

Simple Fly Boxes

Posted by thosnut on February 15, 2013
Posted in: Create. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

These are some very simple magnetic fly boxes that I just finished making. They are made from scrap red oak that I had lying around waiting to be used for some project.

boxes 2 small

I made some last year, but they were very plain and had no picture on them. The one with the fish and two rocks is for my daughter. She saw me making them and quickly asked if she could have one.

Here is a close up of one of the other fish patterns.

Boxes closeup small

Old Notebooks, Before the Internet Boom, and Library Cards

Posted by thosnut on February 2, 2013
Posted in: Life, Trout. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment
Old notes and drawings

Old notes and drawings

In the early to mid-1990′s, I got my first fly fishing rod and went to it with little to no idea of what to do. My vehicle was a city bus pass or my mountain bike, so much of the practice that went into my learning fly fishing was in my head. No fly fishing opportunities existed on any of the bus routes or within biking distance. I wrote down notes and sought out any information that I could find. The internet was fairly new and I didn’t have it on my old black and white Mac Classic. Living in a big city had one major advantage- lots of libraries and I had a library card.

An old notebook of magazine and newspaper cuttings

An old notebook of magazine and newspaper cuttings

Circa 1993-1995, I was constantly checking out every book that I could find on the subject of fly fishing and fly tying. Being an anti-social learner, I dug deep into those books and any magazines that I could find. I cut up magazines and newspapers with any hint of fly fishing in them, and I pasted them into notebooks. When the opportunity came about I was going to be ready.

The opportunities did come. I frequently visited my parents and requisitioned their car or I planned out small trips and rented a car. On my first car requisition, I went not far from my parents house to a small swampy pond in the middle of nowhere. The wind was horrible, and my casting not much better. I struggled and had a hard time focusing, but I kept trying. The good news was that even though I was a stranger in strange land with this bad outing, I managed to catch a  12” northern pike.

My brain soaked up a lot of information in those first years. Most of the notebooks are lost- only one remains and a few of my drawings (shown here). Now I live within biking distance of trout streams, and I own a car. I use the internet almost everyday to get my fly fishing fix of videos, gear reviews, or anything fly fishing related.

This season will mark my 20th year of owning a fly rod, and it amazes me how something so simple can change and direct your life. I was changed and maybe it brought out part of me that was always there too. Back then, it was a radical decision to buy that fly rod, and I’m sure some of my friends thought I was a little crazy and obsessed. However after 20 years, the fly fishing fire still burns stronger than ever.

Old drawings from a notebook. I think that the top image was a free hand copy of a Dave Whitlock drawing.

Old drawings from a notebook. I think that the top fish image was a free hand copy of a Dave Whitlock drawing.

My Daughter’s Summer Bucket List

Posted by thosnut on June 13, 2012
Posted in: Life. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 7 comments

School ended here not long ago, and with it came backpacks and bags of left over supplies and school papers. My nine-year-old daughter had several bags all by herself. One of the items that she brought home was an art project in the shape of a bucket with “My Summer Bucket List” written on it.

The first thing listed on her bucket list was “tie flies better than I do.” Nothing my daughter does ever surprises me because in a lot of ways, we think alike. She loves animals and nature, and I have always thought that she would love fly fishing. Also, fly fishing can be a deep sport by learning about habitat, entomology, and the skill needed to catch different fish, and my little girl is a deep deep thinker. Still, I was a bit surprised that it was her number one on her bucket list.

A few days later we decided to tie some flies, so we headed to my work shop. I have a big stool there and she quickly claimed it and sat upon it.

“What kind of fly do you want to tie?”

“Anything but foam Dad.”

She decided it would be a woolly bugger, so we both tied one side by side. She worked on my first tying vice and I worked on my rotating renzetti. She worked slow and methodical. At first she said that she didn’t want the fly we were tying, but as we got deep into the project, she declared that she wanted it.

After finishing a few flies, she ran to her room to get her fly box. Her fly box is one of my first attempts at making a wooden magnetic box. When I was unhappy with my creation, she quickly snagged it up for herself.  It mostly contains flies that her brother made, and she acquired them by purchasing them from him.

Upon opening it, she started to reorganize them according to type. I was shocked at her ability to categorize them by sinking or floating or body shape. There were of course woolly buggers, some nymphs, and some floating flies. She quickly made a spot for her new flies, shut the box, and ran back to her room.

Her fly box and the fly she
really liked tying in front

A few days later, I asked to see her fly box and she let me. When I was done admiring all the little flies, she took out the first fly that we made the other day and said, “I really like this fly Dad.” The smile on her face just warmed my heart. She put her fly box back in its home in her room, a room that contains Barbies, too many stuffed animals, her piano keyboard, a picture of a horse, and lots of notebooks filled with many things. Ultimately, she will decide if she becomes a fly tier or fly fisher, but it’s wonderful to see her enjoy something that she created.

 

My wife and I have talked and agree that she should have her own fly tying set, so that will come next for her.

Seeing Through His Eyes

Posted by thosnut on April 20, 2012
Posted in: Life. Tagged: , , , , , , . 8 comments

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I am not sure if I should write this story or how I should write it or what I should write it about, but I decided to just put it out there. So here goes…

I saw an interview on television with an older woman named Maya Angelou and she had a great quote that describes beliefs that I have. She said “If you learn, teach and when you get, give”. So it should be no surprise that last year I started teaching my son how to fly fish.

He has a lot going on in his life with school and friends and having type 1 diabetes. He’s almost 11 now, but when he was six and a half, he caught a normal cold and it attacked his pancreas. This changed his life forever. Now his pancreas no longer works and he is completely insulin dependent to stay alive. He is a survivor, but he doesn’t survive, he lives. Things haven’t always been easy for him. Other parents are sometimes afraid to have him over for play or for parties because of his diabetes, but that doesn’t stop him from having a big heart.

It’s not always easy to get out to some of the places to fly fish, but we try. We need to have extra food and extra devices that don’t mix to well with getting wet, but he has fly fished a few times since last year.

His first time out, he wore a pair of my waders and boots with extra socks. He was drowning in those waders, but they got the job done. There was such amazement in his face when he first walked out into the river. We turned over rocks and I showed him a whole new world that was alive and moving in this fast moving stream. He was so happy when he caught that first trout.

I have given him the first fly fishing rod that I had to start with, and I bought him a pair of waders. Since I have started Tenkara fishing, he has expressed wanting his own Tenkara rod, but I’m not quite ready for that on the tight streams we fish. Besides, I have a surplus of old western rods collecting dust from lack of use.

Some of the first flies my son tied for me

I also bought him a small fly tying kit and he opened his own Fly Shop. He used everything he could find in his flies- a piece of a pine tree and you name it. He ties flies and sell them to everyone in the family. Even his little sister has a collection of some of his flies that she paid him for.

I love my son and he is a great kid, and nothing is better than seeing him in the river with a BIG smile on his face. When I see that smile, it always rekindles the love I have for rivers and nature and fly fishing.