Tying Flies

Red Tag Coachman.

     There are few things you can do indoors that tie you as closely to the outdoors as tying flies. You can be tying flies to imitate the insects that hatched last week or the ones that are prophesied for next week, it doesn’t matter. Fly tying can get you through the cold of winter or a rainy stretch any time of the year. The flies can be for trout, the bonefish down on that flat down in the Florida Keys, or striped bass up in the rip outside of Boston Harbor.

     Right now it is August. Most of the time it is on the warm side for trout fishing. The hot sticky temperatures take the fun out of it and catching to release in heated streams stresses the trout. Small back country creeks, where the water is still cold, provide about the only real trout fishing around. The big river is fickle, depending on the weather.

     Outside it is pouring. A front is moving through to wipe away the hot sticky weather of the last few days. If we get two or three chilly nights in a row and the river will fish well.

     So it’s a prefect night to tie up some hopper patterns. A few of the live ones are huge, almost as big as a grown man’s pinky finger. We’ll hope for a cool stretch and then flop some of those enormous flies in the water. Maybe a few of those giant old brown trout will wake up hungry.

Tomah Jo

     Last winter an urge to tie the old classic wet flies hit me. There’s a whole box full in my vest now. Sometimes I fish them and they seem to catch as many fish as anything else I toss. I love history and those flies are history

     For much of February I tied Clouser minnows, dozens of them. No, dozens of dozens of them. I haven’t fished them much and I’ve given away many. Then I finished out the winter tying my favorite dry fly patterns. You can’t have too many, not the way I catch tree limbs.

     Down in the basement is a Wheatley fly box full of salmon flies, just in case someone invites me along. They are all nearly thirty years old and never have been wet. I can dream, can’t I? There’s boxes of saltwater flies too. Some of those have been fished. Did I ever tell you about the day where I caught six striped bass over thirty inches long? I'm allowed to dream about doing it again, aren't I?

     Maybe that is what tying flies is all about. Dreaming. I think both hunters and fisherman spend a lot of time dreaming.

Dreams.