Nick Thomas looks back at his fly tying life
On the shelf behind my tying bench among my fly tying books are a number of plastic sandwich boxes. These boxes contain dead flies. On hooks from 2/0 to 22, they are the ones that never earned a permanent place in a fly box. There are traditional patterns from books or the web I’m not happy with, my own prototypes that have been superseded by better designs and the just plain ugly mistakes. They are all waiting for a razor blade to strip off the materials when I need that particular size and shape of hook again.
I’ve never fished or caught a fish on a fly that I didn’t tie myself. I started fly fishing for trout in Scotland as a teenager. On holiday I’d fish the hill lochs of Sutherland and on weekends and evenings the river Gryffe, Loch Thom and the other lochs in the hills above Greenock. My flies were pretty basic and few in number, roughly copied from the few books available from my local library using my very small collection of tying materials. My favourite flies were black and peacock spiders and some scruffy nymphy things made from dubbed black seal fur ribbed with tying thread. Both could, at a pinch, be fished wet or dry. That small collection of wet flies and dry terrestrials caught plenty of fish. There’s a lesson there, but simplicity doesn’t settle well in the presence of enthusiasm. As I fished more I tied more.
Over the years I’ve accumulated a multi-drawer filing cabinet of tying materials and several shelves of fly tying books; enough materials and recipes to tie a fly to catch virtually any fish on the planet in fact. I’ve tied a huge number of flies, stripped the hooks and tied them again until I was happy. Some got to go fishing, many did not. I tied loads of complex patterns for fish I would actually fish for; ultra-realistic flies that at least had the benefit of taking half an hour or longer to tie. At least this past the time at the tying bench and stopped me tying loads of quicker flies that I didn’t need. I also tied lots of flies for species I’ll probably never fish for. Most of these live in those sandwich boxes behind my bench waiting to be recycled.
Over many years I have progressed through a long and complex evolutionary process leading to the way that I tie today. It’s a journey I would recommend to any fly fisher. Tie your own, know why you chose the materials, know why you tied it that way and know how to fish them. Stick to patterns that you have confidence in so that you give them a chance by fishing them properly, catch fish and gain more confidence in them
A word of warning. Fly tying is addictive, partially because it’s a substitute for fishing. If you can’t get out on the water tying becomes a surrogate displacement activity accompanied by dreams of days and fish to come. You’ll recognise when you have a bad case of addiction when you’ve tied all the flies you’ll need for your future trips and you move over to the dark side; tying flies you don’t need. So if you don’t tie your own don’t start because you think it will save you money. It will if you stick to just a few patterns, but that stage of evolution and enlightenment is usually reached only late in the game. When any one embarks on the journey it’s pretty inevitable that they will accumulate large amounts of fairly expensive materials that are rarely used. If the costs of these materials are amortised over the number of flies tied, or more importantly, the number of flies actually used to catch fish, then home tied flies will be far more expensive than good flies bought from a quality supplier. On the other hand you will have the satisfaction of catching fish on your own creations which gives satisfaction beyond monetary value.
With a reasonably large collection of tying materials and a basic knowledge of different tying techniques a virtually infinite variety of combinations is available and its odds on that every evolving fly tyer will create something that has never been tied before. Sooner or later one of these creations will be ‘The Magic Fly’; the new pattern that never fails and will empty lakes and rivers for them. Some years ago I was fishing a small local lake and was struggling badly. I’d gone through my whole fly box, twice. It was beginning to get dark when I spotted a fly in one corner of the box which I hadn’t yet tried. I tied it on without much enthusiasm and cast it out. The line went tight immediately and a nice rainbow came to the net. Second cast, same thing. Third cast, same thing. That was my ticket limit for the day so I carefully tucked the fly away, picked up the fish and went home.
Of course next time out at a different fishery I put the same fly on. I cast out to get some line out on the water, stripped some more line off the reel ready for a longer cast, only to discover that there was a double figure rainbow calmly swimming off with the fly. Once I’d landed that one the subsequent cast of the fly was snaffled by a big carp.
This pattern was repeated on the next two trips to other lakes. I’d tie on the fly, chuck it out and before I’d even had the chance to sort out the coils of line at my feet there would be a fish on the other end. I’d discovered ‘The Magic Fly’. I tied up loads of then. I had four rows in a fly box ready for certain future success.
So what, I hear you cry, was this fantastic creation? It was a partridge and orange. Not just any partridge and orange mind you; if this one had shown up at a fly Olympics it would have been given a bottle and despatched to provide a sample in very short order. The body was fluorescent orange micro-fritz over lead wire coupled with a rainbow metallic bead for a head and several turns of yellow partridge for a hackle, all packed onto a size 14 grub hook. About as far from the traditional sparsely dressed spider pattern as you could get frankly. I guess it worked on the first cast those times because it landed with an audible plop, sank quickly and wasn’t so big that it frightened the fish. Chances are that on a first cast into undisturbed water any fish in the immediate vicinity that saw it fluttering down as I sorted out my line would be having it in quick time.
Is it still in my fly boxes? No; the next trip out I couldn’t buy a take on it, or the next, or the one after that. I caught plenty of fish on other flies. It had all been sheer chance of course. Now and again, on river or lake, everyone gets a fish first chuck. That first cast into unfished water has a higher than average chance of picking up a fish before they’re spooked.
Back in those days I used take a huge number of different flies out on a fishing day; two or three large C&F fly boxes were the norm. Prepared for anything; yes. Fishing effectively; probably not. The problem with fly tying with lots of enthusiasm but not much discipline is that you tie an awful lot of flies. And then you need more fly boxes to put them in. And then you carry more flies to the river or lake. And then you spend time choosing and changing them. And you actually spend less time with a fly in the water fishing. Eventually, hopefully, you discover the path to enlightenment.
After years of slavishly tying any new pattern that I found in books and magazines the penny dropped. All of these new flies would spend a brief sojourn in one of my fly boxes and then be replaced by the latest must have pattern. Most of them never even got wet; the enthusiasm with which they were tied evaporated when it came time to tie one onto my leader. My fingers would always return to my small armoury of tried and tested patterns.
I stopped tying all the patterns I came across, cleared out my fly boxes and rationalised their contents into a few small boxes, each with a designated purpose. The fly box below is my day-box for autumn and winter grayling. Simple; 4mm, 3.5mm, 3mm tungsten bead weighted and unweighted flies. There are just four patterns; pink OJOs (ESF#47) with and without beads, a few peeping caddis (ESF#47), Radyr nymphs (ESF#54) and Afterburners (ESF#52) with different sized beads.
These four patterns are all I need. On a good day two of them on my leader will catch plenty of fish and go back in the box for the next trip. If I’m having a bad day I may lose a few up trees or on the river bed, but there’s enough in the box to replenish losses and keep me fishing. I don’t spend ages analysing what flies to tie on when I’m setting up, or wondering what to change to when the fishing gets slow. The only changes I’ll make during the day is to change the weight of the point fly and swap back and forth between a weighted or unweighted pink OJO on the dropper according to the depth and speed of the water I’m fishing.
I had come full circle, from using very few flies out of financial necessity, through having, but not using, thousands of flies just because I could, and back to using very few flies out of choice. Realisation of this cycle brought with it understanding of another cycle; an epiphany of the essential elements. This was a twofold revelation; firstly that the way I fish is governed by three key elements and secondly that these same three essentials also determine how I design and tie the flies I fish.
Location, approximation and presentation; the where, what and how of angling. Where are the fish? What are they eating? How do I catch them? LAP is a very simple philosophy; find the fish, use a fly that looks edible and put it where they can eat it. The same principles apply wherever you may fish; lakes, rivers or in the salt and whatever the target species. All three elements of location, approximation and presentation are cyclically and inseparably linked; successful fly tying requires that any change in one is reflected in changes in the others.
Today any new flies I design have to fulfil the LAP criteria better than existing flies, otherwise they would simply sit in a fly box and not be used. Some fly tiers pursue more and more realistic imitations, others like to tie flies in designs and colours that look pleasing to the eye. Nothing wrong with that, but I like to tie flies that do a particular job better; flies that allow me to fish more effectively. That means designing a fly that allows me to put it in a location I couldn’t previously or present it more effectively. The Blackhawk design for dry flies tied on jig hooks for fishing the duo (Dancing a Jig, ESF #53) is a prime example of this philosophy. I’d fished conventional duo rigs for years putting up with their shortcomings until I solved my problems with a simple change of hook shape. Now I could fish a suspended nymph in places I couldn’t effectively fish with a duo rig and at the same time have a better chance of hooking any fish taking the dry fly.
Location
Location. Location. Location. In buying and selling houses and fly fishing everything starts with location. It’s a self-evident truth that if there are no fish in front of you, you’re not going to catch any. It also follows that if you have fish in front of you but your fly and presentation are wrong you’re not going to catch many.
Location is the first key element in fly design; where the fish are and what they are likely to feed on both influence how a fly should be designed, tied and presented. Deep water, shallow water, still water, slack water, slow water, fast water, clear water, coloured water, warm water, cold water; all of these influence where fish will be feeding and what they are feeding on. Catching them requires appropriate presentation of a suitable approximation with the location of the fish and the method of presentation both being taken into account when designing a suitable fly.
Approximation
Approximation, not imitation; there’s no need to go all Oliver Edwards. You can if you like, but nowadays life’s too short for me to spend half an hour tying on fly legs individually and then lose the fly first cast under a rock or up a tree. The aim is to tie something that looks roughly like something the fish would expect to see and tie it in a way that it can be fished at the right place, depth and speed that the fish can see it and want to eat it. Approximation and presentation are inseparably linked; if your approximation is too heavy or too light, too bulky or too skinny you won’t be able to achieve the optimum presentation.
For me designing a new fly for a new purpose all starts with the hook. It’s important to get to know your hooks. Dry, nymph, grub, jig, fine wire, heavy wire; they are the foundation of a good fly and determine how well the fly will look and fish. Any fly is only as good as the hook it’s tied on; too light or too heavy, too soft or too brittle, a badly formed eye or point, all will make a poor fly that won’t perform well. Fish recognise food primarily by size and shape, so understanding what size, weight and shape will work for a particular approximation is a key part of designing a new fly.
Once the foundation is sorted out the rest of the process of building a good fly should be simple; putting the right materials together in the right order. Getting to know what the right materials are is a key stage in every good fly tyer’s evolution and can take a long time and many flies discarded to sandwich boxes. With the huge amount of natural and synthetic tying materials available today it’s easy to succumb to the temptation to continually build new flies without thinking through what a new material is really contributing, if anything, to the effectiveness of the fly. Flies tied as approximations rather than imitations should be fairly minimalistic using a limited number of robust materials to form the desired shape, texture and translucency. These flies should be quick to tie, are selected from your fly box with confidence, don’t fall apart after catching their first fish and most importantly, are constructed to fish effectively.
Presentation
Presentation is the final arbiter of a good fly design; it’s what ultimately differentiates between an academic design activity and tying an effective fishing fly. It has been said that a poorly tied fly presented well will outperform a well tied fly presented poorly. That may be true, but it’s also true that it can be difficult or impossible to present a poorly designed fly well.
When I’m tying a new fly I’m always thinking of how I’m going to be fishing it. Will it be fished on the surface, subsurface, at an intermediate level or hard on the bottom? Will it be fished as a single fly, the dry or nymph in a duo, bouncing off the bottom or wafting along on a dropper? Will I be casting it a long way, lobbing it on a French leader or dropping it under the rod tip on a braid rig?
Being able to be presented correctly is what makes a fly fit for purpose. To my mind there is little point in tying a fly to approximate a particular life stage of a chosen insect and then not be able to put the fly where it should be. A nymph that looks great in the vice, but is too light and bulky is never going to get down through the flow to where the fish are in fast water. A dry fly tied on a heavy hook with insufficient buoyancy is never going to work suspending a nymph.
Today for me the essence of fly tying is understanding how to tie a robust effective fly with a minimal number of materials and know it will catch fish. It doesn’t matter what the quarry or where it will be found, the aims of good tying are the same; a fly tied with confidence, tied on with confidence and fished with confidence. Fishing with confidence means you’ll spend more time completing the most fulfilling cycle of fly fishing; hooking, landing and releasing a wild fish.
Nick Thomas lives in South Wales. He started fly fishing on Scottish hill lochs many years ago and continues to design, tie and fish flies for trout, carp, bass and anything else that’s going.