wrote in message
oups.com...

Why make flies and lures?

I made my first attempt at fly tying somewhere around the age of ten. I had
somehow gotten hold of a book or magazine that contained instructions, and
managed to cobble together what I presumably thought at the time was a
suitable approximation of the materials called for. I secured a hook in my
father's workshop bench vise and after a couple of hours of bemused
twisting, wrapping, tying, unwrapping, etc., ended up with something that
looked, even to relatively uncritical ten year old eyes, like a pretty
distant relative of the thing pictured in the book. All of this is a rather
vague memory, and I don't recall for sure whether I ever actually tried to
use the fly, but I think probably not. Most likely it languished for years
in a little steel lock box in which I stored other important mementos until
it disappeared a long time ago.

A vague memory, I said, but it nevertheless stuck with me. Twenty-five
years later I happened to fall in with of group of guys who were avid
fishermen....fly fishers as a matter of fact.....and one of them (the oft
mentioned Malignant Dwarf) was also an exceptional fly tier. Over the
course of a few months I learned a LOT about how to make bugs in exchange
for being a source of very cheap labor. For the next ten years or so I tied
flies like a demon, both to support my own habit and to earn money
to.....well, support my own habit.

These days I don't do very much tying.....just enough to keep myself
inadequately supplied with the few patterns I use regularly. But every once
in a while I sit down at the bench for half an hour or so of twisting,
wrapping and tying, at the end of which I hold up a beautiful little bundle
of fur, feathers and steel......and a little boy's eyes light up with glee.


Wolfgang