Fly Tying

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So much to know; so many questions to ask...

I love learning, and teaching.

As a result, I’ve always tried to ask lots of questions, seek plenty of answers and learn how to clearly communicate information while continuing to learn. (It seems to me, after over 35 years of teaching that teaching is often how we learn.) Learning begins with curiosity and desire and continues with both, combined with patience and perseverance. I don’t think anyone learns much of anything apart from patience, other than, perhaps, that without patience we don’t learn much at all. So, in the end, we still learn something.

Alexander Graham Bell, the man of the telephone, said he learned by following a basic tenet: Observe, Compare, Remember. I don’t recall precisely when I first read this - I do remember it was a very long time ago - but it stuck. And I think the tenet is just right for learning about fly tying and fly fishing. Often, we spend way too much time fishing instead of, well, fishing. Too busy casting, changing flies, watching feeding fish and so on, a manner of greed sets in, combining with the frustration of not “succeeding” - something that has to be thrown out at some point in time as fly fishing is relief from competition rather than another form of it, even though the observation of many so-called fly anglers would contradict such a thing. All of this activity impedes learning because there is too little time invested in observing what is going on. To observe, one must listen - too often another lost art - and to listen, one must be still. The lack of doing so makes humor of fly fishing being called the “quiet sport”, fly fishing not being a sport anyway, even though playing the piano might be considered a sport by some, especially parents trying to track down their budding pianist who is outside playing baseball instead of practicing the piano. (That was my mother and I when I was 11 or 12 years old and she thought she could contain me.)

To compare, we first must observe in order to gather information that we can compare. An excellent comparison, when learning to tie flies, goes like this. Start the thread. Hold the thread in the bobbin hand and the hook in the other, then pull on the thread until it breaks. Repeat this at least six times. Start thread; while holding hook, pull until breakage, times 6. At the end take note: DON’T PULL THAT HARD EVER AGAIN! And guess what? The comparison of how hard the thread was pulled six times running to make it break, to how hard to pull in order to keep the thread from breaking works, and thread is not broken very often again! (The first time I tried this in a tying class - in response to the time spent in earlier classes waiting for someone to rethread their bobbin after the tread broke - worked. For the remainder of that class not a single of the six students broke their thread one time! Amazing, eh?)

While fishing the comparison might look like this, when we observe and remember what we just saw or experienced. I tie on a size 14 caddis while caddis adults are fluttering around, and cast the fly near a pocket where a seam defines the connection of run to pool. Along the seam, the water is flowing a little faster than the water in the pool - which, from previous fishing I recall trout like to hold - and a little slower than the water in the adjacent run. The fly hits the spot and the current carries the fly merrily along. As long as I keep the line under control the fly continues to drift with the current. And then, of a sudden, a trout slashes the fake! I hook the fish, play it fairly and as fast as possible, revive and then release it. I’m ecstatic! I love hooking a trout! As I consider what’s just happened - placing this event, along with others, into my memory bank, where it is certain to gain interest, may be withdrawn at any time for pleasurable recollection but will never fade - I look at the stream and see a similar spot. Aha! Caddis are still fluttering in the air; a pocket has a seam along its edge. I wonder if...and then make the cast. More often than not, I hook another trout! It also slashes out of the pocket to attack the fly and we repeat the dance, similar but not the same. I’m happy, the fish is sad - at least that’s how I anthropomorphize the event - and I have learned to make good casts with a fly similar to what I see in the air along a seam that is downstream from a rock that creates a pocket where a hungry trout might be holding between bites.

And so on.

While fly fishing there are certain things, such as the one described above, when we suspect something can be repeated. Of course nature, the trout, wind, currents, sunshine, our ineptitude in casting - too often an issue, but one that causes enough frustration to sometimes demand attention - and so on have a distinct influence on the possibility of actually repeating something ala the scientific method. Of course the conditions are always changing, so it’s not very scientific at all, even though we can study all of the differing items and aspects in order to attempt to learn and know more. It’s art that makes fly fishing, at some point in time.

But in tying more of the elements are controlled. We can tie in the same spot, provide the same amount of light while sitting in the same chair that’s set to the same height, use the same tools, hooks, threads and so on and so forth. Still, there is the human aspect of it - and we are, after all human, and endeavoring to be even more human, more complete while engaging in all things fly fishing. It’s not all that technical, after all, even though technique is involved, as in almost all of our endeavors. Funny, that.

When teaching piano, at some point along the way while I tried to isolate certain things - and this happened concurrently with learning to tie flies, which is interesting: there are life stories in music and fly fishing that are at one time simple and profound simultaneously. Funny, that one, as well. I realized that all that I could teach initially were basic skills: play the right note, at the right time, with the right finger, in the right place, at the right volume, with the right attack and hold it for the right amount of time. Of course for the most part this happened in the blink of an eye, this single right event, and eventually it had to be combined with many other similar but distinct items to make music. And I could only encourage the art of the thing; ultimately it had to come from the artist. For the most part, all I could do was teach proper technique.

And so, concurrently, I realized this about my own tying. I could use the right hook and materials, and put the right amount of materials on said hook with the right amount of thread and so on to make a fly. Well, like playing scales in order to isolate the rightness of all of the aspects of playing the piano, tying certain recipe flies helped me learn technique. And technique is invaluable to the artist in making art - in doing art. One of the differences in making music at the piano and tying a fly - and this saved my bacon many times, the difference being so profound - is that the music making was fleeting. I played a work, practiced it for many, many hours, working out the technical aspects and so on in order to perform it, and then it was gone. Played, the sound flowed through the hall - or practice room - was heard, responded to in one way or another, and would never be repeated in the same way. Kind of like golf shots and fly casts, I suppose. A fly, on the other hand, was right there. It was tangible, could be seen - but not heard - and would remain as it was until eaten by a fish, torn up, lost in a tree or cut off the hook in order to reuse the hook because it wasn’t quite...right.

In other words, it might take days, weeks or months to learn a piece of music, while I got to the point that I could tie two dozen Adams in an hour. I liked filling fly boxes with pretty flies - actually, I love tying flies. And, I love playing the piano.

Anyway, the idea for this page on this particular web site is to teach fly tying technique while answering fly tying and fishing questions in order to encourage fly fishing freedom. The freedom to have fun. To thrive in life and learn important life lessons.

Like how hard to pull the thread.

Learning, and learning to learn.

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