I took up fly tying not so much to fall deeper in love with this awesome sport, but more to scratch a curiosity itch about what it would be like to catch a fish on a fly I tied myself.
It all started, simply enough, with a beginner’s tying kit someone gave me. The kit included an assortment of feathers, fur, yarn, flash, and other materials, all individually packaged. Each package had a label that not only identified the material but also suggested its use: body, hackle, wing, etc. Sweet! What’s a hackle?
To the complete novice tyer that I was, the raw materials were loosely familiar but mostly foreign. I didn’t need my rocket scientist hat to recognize the patch of elk hair and the scrunch of egg yarn as the foundations of elk hair caddis and egg patterns. Most of the materials, though, were shiny and fuzzy oddities only vaguely recognizable outside the context of being lashed onto a neatly tied fly. Those odd bits and bobs made the kit feel like I was receiving ingredients to make an exotic dish from a foreign culture’s cuisine. Like, “Here’s what you need to make a Snickers Salad for a Kenosha potluck, don’cha know.”
My first fly was the humble zebra midge. Seemed simple enough. At least, none of the YouTube tutorials lasted much longer than 5 minutes. I zeroed in on Tim Flagler’s 4-minute, 21-second video. Tim’s fly-tying videos are some of the best, but Oy! He ties that zebra midge on a size 20 hook in that video. I opted for a size 16 just to give myself a fighting chance on my maiden tie.
That fat little Kissinger-finger-sized zebra midge
would have to fool the Mr. Magoo of trout.
My first attempt at fly tying was a true lesson in learning from failure. It started with me not noticing I had installed the bead the wrong way, so the eye of the hook ended up buried deep in the pit of despair that was the larger-diameter-hole side of the bead. Then I used way too much of way too heavy thread. That fat little Kissinger-finger-sized zebra midge would have to fool the Mr. Magoo of trout—if only I could find the eye to sneak some tippet through.
Since I couldn’t fish it, I kept that first failed fly for posterity. It lives in an old fly puck on my tying bench as a reminder to keep trying to improve.
Now, many years later, my fly tying is better—but not by much. At least I’m better at recognizing when I install the bead the wrong way. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped doing it. I just know now to check whether I’ve got the bead on bass-ackwards before I lay down a thread base.
The next zebra midges I tied showed some slightly encouraging improvement. That fat Kissinger-finger zebra midge started slimming down, like it had taken up jogging and stopped eating cookies for breakfast. It didn’t lose weight like a celebrity on the red carpet and Ozempic, but it definitely wasn’t being teased on the playground anymore. And I started developing a little more confidence in my fly tying.
With that newly acquired confidence, I inexplicably got really into purple. Purple thread and purple dubbing started showing up in almost all of my ties. That slimmed-down zebra midge metamorphosed into a midge tied with purple thread, green wire ribbing, and a multicolored bead head. That midge and the other purple nymphs I was tying made my fly box look like I was tying flies for a Prince album cover or a N’awlins fly fishing krewe’s Mardi Gras float. Laissez les bon temps rouler! Set! Set! Set!
It didn’t seem right to call this funky purple fly a “zebra midge,” so I named it “The Purple Schnozzberry,” inspired by that icky scene in the 1971 Willy Wonka movie where the factory visitors (victims?) are licking the lickable wallpaper (ew). When, after Wonka tells the doomed guests to lick a snozzberry, Veruca Salt snaps back, “Snozzberries! Whoever heard of a snozzberry?!” It’s Wonka’s reply that came to mind as I assessed that first completed purple and green fly sitting in my vise: “We are the music makers. And we are the dreamers of the dreams.” In hindsight, I should probably be sure to tighten down the cap on my Hard as Nails head cement, too.
But, Oh! The Purple Schnozzberry caught fish! I remember the first fish it caught—and the three that followed. It was as if each released fish went back and told its friends, “Hey! Lick a Schnozzberry!”
I’m lucky to have experienced the sumptuous surprise of netting a fish and discovering it ate one of my tied flies.
Let’s just say that my funky fly-tying reveals I believe smart fish who’ve seen a lot of flies just might be interested in something that looks a little different. Enter my various interpretations. I’m sure the fish I’ve caught on my ties ate it because they wanted to try something weird. Like when I tried eating a scorpion from a food cart on the streets of Guangzhou. Sure, I’ll put that in my mouth. Once.
As more of a fly-tying hobbyist than a fly-tying artist or innovator, I tie not necessarily to match a particular bug perfectly. My fly patterns spring from a risky mix of creativity, boredom, and laziness. Creating funny little works of fly craft on the tying bench is the fun part. Boredom strikes when I grow weary of tying the same black fly over and over again. Laziness arises because I know my fly-tying game isn’t great, but I’d much prefer spending half an hour twisting up a handful of not-so-great ties instead of meticulously trying to craft one perfect fly in that same time. You know that painstakingly tied fly’s gonna end up in a fatal snag on the first cast, right?
I actually have a lot of confidence now in a few of the patterns I tie on repeat. And really, shouldn’t confidence in your fly be a prime consideration when choosing what fly to fish? I have a lot of confidence in a dozen or so flies that I fish—most of them commercial ties of the fair-trade, shade-grown variety. But I include a few of my own ties in the starting lineup when I’m picking players for my kickball team. I no longer fish my junky ties purely on the hope that they’ll drift into the mouths of nearsighted fish. Although I’ll gladly fish one of my ties to Mr. Limpet if he’s hangry while sitting in line waiting for a chili cheese dog from Pink’s.
So, I’m lucky to have experienced the sumptuous surprise of netting a fish and discovering it had eaten one of my tied flies. The next coolest thing is giving friends my ties and learning that they caught fish on them, too. I don’t know what brain goo gets released after the dopamine rush of hooking a fish, but discovering one of my own ties in the fish’s mouth is the gooiest feeling of them all.
