And thus continue my WTF musings…
In the three previous ‘Why Tie Flies’ jottings, I hope I made the case for fly tying.
It is a fascinating hobby that brings a lot of enjoyment: you can appreciate and admire your own handiwork, make as much of ‘joining the club’ of fellow tiers as you want to (dip your toe or plunge in headlong), but best of all, you will be so thrilled when you, or someone else, catches a fish on a fly that you tied—whether a version of an established pattern, or your very own creation!
Do not let that bit about my own collection of flies (approximately 7,500 and rising) daunt you! Plenty of anglers get by with just a handful of favourites, old and new, and quite deliberately. It really isn’t a numbers game. I have so many mainly because when I’m not actually fishing, the second-best thing to do is to think about the fishing, while at my tying vice, and the infinite possibilities of experimentation and innovation, or to try something I’ve seen or heard about.
Some come to fly-tying through the attraction of tying as a stand-alone hobby, rather than it being an addition onto an existing fishing pastime. This is exactly what happened with two individuals who became Wessex FDG members; both took up fly-fishing after taking up tying, one of them had never tried fishing before at all. It is relatively easy to tie a fly which can be relied upon to catch a fish; fly-tying only becomes a quest for perfection if that is where you want to take it.
It isn’t expensive to start, basic equipment and materials are relatively cheap, particularly second-hand, or on eBay. If you try, then decide that tying flies is for you, you can budget for what you can afford; thus gradually building up your tying kit.
Then further down the line, you can exercise your creativity for your benefit, and that of friends and loved ones.
For example, the image used on this blog is a pattern I created and baptised the ‘Wild Thing, variant number one’; it’s a white and green version of my original black and green tying.
A friend and I used these for a field test, and the results were tremendous.
We caught fish very quickly using both variants, indeed it was so successful that this pattern became my buddy’s ‘go to’ fly from February to early May each year.
So, go ahead and give it a go! You will never know if you don’t try!