Category — Fly Tying

A while back I was musing about the great fly tying problem of `waste stuff’. Every time I tie a deer hair emerger a great plume of trimmed deer hair finds its way down onto my bedroom floor. This is not exactly a universe-ending disaster. However, with my new-fangled portable fly tying system, I know I’m going to be doing a lot more tying on the road. That means my tying bench will be B&Bs, campsites and my car steering wheel. With all that waste, I could end up causing a kind of world war with the neighbors, and that’s definitely not cricket. What was needed was a catcher. A Catcher in the Hookeye, in fact.

Take one coat hanger, one old teeshirt, a little inventiveness and a friend with a sewing machine. Boil together in a large pan with garam masala, tomatoes and a Saturday afternoon. Add a chunk of metal, sprinkle with a little Disney magic and out pops this wee gem.

The Catcher in the Hookeye is my version of the waste material bin. It fits snuggly onto most vice shafts with that wee chunk of metal I mentioned, which I found lying around my lab at work. I’m not sure what it’s called, but I call it `the wee chunk of metal’. The frame is made of a bent coat hanger. Of course, coat hangers are normally bent when you buy them, so the idea of bending one is almost ironic. Bending the bent. It’s like asking a duck to quack with a Swedish accent. It’s a bent idea that.

The catching bit is the back of one of my oldest teeshirts. My mother tried for about five years to get me to chuck it, but my line was always “Ma, there will be some use for it eventually, I’m just not sure what it is yet.” Well Ma, here it is. The catcher of the Catcher in the Hookeye.

I like the fact that all my waste gets trapped now. I’ve always found that waste fly tying material is a bit like a dream: if you don’t grab it whilst it’s fresh, it’s lost forever. And that, my friends, is a little sad. Now there’s a right and proper place for waste, and it’s in the Catcher. Every now and then I’ll delve into the bowls of this humble servant, and it’s amazing the bits and bobs of old material that can be used for other flies. As I am an ethnic mix of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Scotland, I’m about as tight as they come. So don’t blame me, it’s genetic.

The Catcher falls nicely in line with my increasingly obsessive policy of home-made fly tying paraphernalia. It functions perfectly well, and cost -£2.50 (that’s the money I saved by not wasting time and petrol on taking my old teeshirt and coat hanger to the recycling joint). I tried for about three months to find something similarly decent in the fishing tackle shops, and the cheapest thing I found was almost a tenner. Ridiculous. Get yourselves a flaming coat hanger and a good old fashioned chunk of metal. Take half an hour on a Saturday afternoon (other days are less reliable) and churn one out for yourself. Then get down to the local newsagent and spend your saved cash on 250 penny sweets. Glorious.

Long hours of quiet meditation. Days of ingesting inordinate quantities of super-curry. With-holding toilet use for three days. There are many things we can do to try to change ourselves. I tried to change, I tried to be a Tuesday-night-tier. I tried to set targets and to stick to them. Ten muddler heads a week, how hard can it really be? Sadly, it just doesn’t work.

I’ve since come to accept that my erratic fly tying behaviour is probably a reflection of something rather unchangeable and hard-wired into my brain. I’ve heard it referred to as ‘personality’, and it ain’t half an arse at times. My newfound zen-like self acceptance means that some kind of permanent solution has had to be found for the issue of fly tying gear transportation. The Stand of Majesty just wasn’t going to cut it on the road, not with all those bobbin antennae. What was needed was a way to transport everything I could possibly need for any possible situation. Fluff, feathers, bobbins, the whole shebang. The system needed to be hardwearing, reliable, small and most importantly, easily transportable. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you… the Far-reaching And Ridiculously Tenacious fly tying System (FARTS to you and I).
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Whilst studiously working to write up some recent work I came across a really nice set of video clips. They are of the famous Gary Borger, and as far as I can tell they date from a few decades ago. A particular classic is the nymphing video series, which starts here. You can find the rest of the clips here. They are well worth a look.

I have a strange relationship with fly tying. On the one hand it has helped me to get more out of my fishing. I love seeing a trout sup down a little sherry spinner tied by my own two hands. It’s a special kind of satisfaction that just doesn’t exist with shop bought fluff. I have also found, however, that it sometimes has a tendency to drive me into a kind of unhealthy obsession. The most bizarre thing of all is that the obsession isn’t actually about tying flies.

Organisation. Where would we be without the simple joy found in sorting stuff out, finding a proper place for every last widget? Fly tying is an absolute class A activity for those of us with a ’sorting out’ fetish. The endless packets of dubbing, the myriad feathers and capes, the insane variety of hooks. Oh what joy! I am certain that I have a problem. I’m becoming the kind of fly tier that spends more time, a lot more time, sorting out fly tying paraphernalia than actually tying flies. Perhaps the worst thing of all though, the real bottom clencher, is that I rather suspect that I spend even more time just thinking about sorting out fly tying gear than even sorting the damn stuff out.

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There’s something strangely voyeuristic about losing your hair. It’s like watching a car crash in extremely slow motion. You know what’s coming, and it’s not pleasant, but it is somewhat fascinating. For a time you quietly pretend it’s not happening, as if looking away will solve the problem. But gradually, as the cars get closer and the sink gets increasingly clogged, it’s harder and harder to ignore.

Going au naturel when young is perhaps the cruelest way. The teenage years are only just gone, and finally you’re getting a little more comfortable with the carcass God gave you. Every now and then you notice what it’s like to be an ‘adult’. Feelings of responsibility, guilt and an increasing desire to go fishing 24/7. You realise time does move on, some things do change and you do grow slowly older.

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A few weeks ago the Lanyard of Power caused quite a stir here in fishy blogdom. Some folks unkindly questioned my sanity. Others, those in the know, saw the power and marveled. The Lanyard will prove to be the ultimate accessory for light weight fly fishing. I also have a sneaking suspicion that it will work rather nicely in conjunction with a small rucksac for the hill lochs.

The Lanyard did many things for me. Perhaps the most important was the sense of satisfaction that with just a wee bit of effort I had made something on my own. Twenty five smackers were saved, but the smile I experienced as things came together was the real reward. So, I’ve been inspired. Call it DIY fly fishing, call it madness, but I think I’ve found a little bit of the craftsman in my pathetic, modern skill-less life. This is going to be good.

I have something of a split personality. At times I’m incredibly scatter brained, listlessly ambling through the day with little regard for organisation or precision. Every once in a while it all changes and I become psychotically obsessive. Having recently moved flat (again) I’m currently in an obsessive phase. An ongoing source of annoyance to this obsessive side of my brain has been the organisation (or disorganisation) of fly tying kit. Somehow I’ve amassed an incredible amount of the stuff and I’m perennially trying to organise it all. For the last few months now most of it has been living in a number of plastic boxes. The only problem here is that when I eventually try to get some fly tying done the whole place becomes a bomb site, and I immediately revert back to the scatter-brained personality. This state remains for several weeks until I finally get pissed off and tidy everything up again. Lather, rinse and repeat.

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This week it has mostly been…raining. It’s also been rediculously windy. Right now I can hear the wind howling outside, the clouds wizzing by on the great motorway in the sky. I’m hoping the rain stops now for a week or two, long enough for the rivers to drop. I’ve been balsing on about fishing for grayling since October but the oppertunities to do so have been shockingly limited.

My flies are ready though. I’ve got enough bomb flies to destroy West Linton. Some of them even have huge tungsten beads in them. It’s going to be savage.

The Czech style nymphs are beginning to look pretty good, if I dare say so. Here’s a simple olive version, together with the sedge pupa it’s supposed to resemble. Not too bad. I think I’m ready to say that if grayling are not caught, it’s because I’m shite, rather than the flies.

It seems the weather here in the UK is throwing a tantrum at the thought of leaving another year behind. Driving wind, pouring rain, all things that are terrific for getting the grayling going. I’ve been staying with family for the past week or so, and have finally got into tying up some flies. Actually, that’s possibly stetching it a little, because these fellas are serious bomb bugs. When grayling bugging I quite often use a very heavy ‘nymph’ on the middle dropper which acts like an anchor, taking the whole cast down quickly. These things don’t resemble any kind of traditional fly fishing creation. They’re big and nasty, and are likely to cause mild concussion if your casting’s a bit off.

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Ok folks, you’ve got to check this out. Nearly wet myself just now as I checked some of the referring links to my blog this week. Turns out, one of my posts is *NUMBER 1* in google when you search for ‘butt rotation fly casting‘. Yes, you heard me right: *NUMBER 1*. (Do I need to say that again?). Late butt rotation is of course one of the corner stones of good loops, so there’s no way to belittle the significance of this search phrase. In fact it may be the most important thing in not just flycasting but peace and love in the entire known universe. At the time I thought I was just making a typical post about my crappy casting. Little did I know what a phenomenon would ensue.

The best bit though, is that the bastion of fly casting knowledge, the place where the best of the best hang out, yes of course I mean Sexyloops, can only manage second place. This is possibly the most exciting thing that’s happened in blogland for old Tamanawis, at least since the crucial 1000 visits landmark was past. Personally, I don’t remember feeling this excited since 6.45am this morning when I sunk my teeth into a cracking slice of toast covered in chocolate spread. Tasty folks, tasty!

Almost as good is that searching for ‘Hare’s Mask Fly Tying‘ gets a link to another post of mine about making your own dubbing mixes from a hare’s mask. Holy shit folks, this is deep.

In recognition of my own recognition of google’s recognition of this blog, I’ve now created a Special Category called The Phenomenon which, from this moment on (oh Shania), will archive all the bigups we receive here at Tamanawis. It might be a short list, but it’s still a flaming list.

The weather has been angry the last couple of days. Hopefully things will calm down a little tomorrow and I’ll head to the hills once more.

In the meantime, I’ve been sorting through some of my winter bugs. I don’t know when my first trip out for grayling will be, but I’m going to be ready for it. I reckon a couple nights tying up some ammonite nymphs and scruffy tungsten bead hare’s ears and we’ll be cooking.

Most of my winter bugs are of Czech and Polish origins. The Czech nymphs I tie are just like the typical ones described ad infinitum in all the fishing mags. The Polish ones are pretty nice though, and you don’t see as many of these around. They are the ones in the second group down (left side) in the first photo. You need to learn a bit of cross-weaving to tie them, but with a little practice you have a way to tie nymphs that sink faster than you would belive possible.. Last winter I caught a 3lb grayling on a small one of these, so they do work

Extra points for anyone spotting the slightly less-traditional contributions to my selection.