“Music House” was the name of this old, used bookstore I frequently visited in Cebu City. While doing my usual browsing one afternoon, I noticed a few fishing magazines that seemed out of place in a shop filled with mostly old novels and other worn out books. On the cover of this one particular magazine, there was a picture of a prawn, only it wasn’t a real one.
It was some sort of hairy thing, yet there it was, hanging from the side of the mouth of a big fish; it was quite an odd sight! Needless to say, it did capture the attention of this 13-year-old kid; who happily went to the lady behind the counter, gave his 10 pesos in exchange for a couple of those old magazines. Unbeknownst to him, those two magazines he brought home that afternoon would be the start of a life long journey.
Tying flies isn’t rocket science. It’s magic. A clump of animal hair, a couple of feathers, a few strands of sparkly stuff and a few winds of thread will catch you a fish. Although this is totally alien to a lot of anglers the world over, this time honoured tradition of fur-and-fluff wound on a hook, is arguably, the oldest lure fishing method this world has ever seen, yet remains one of the most technical and the most challenging (and expensive) form of fishing.
Fly fishing isn’t simple. From the rod, reel, line, leader and finally the fly, each and every single part of the whole system need to work together – perfectly. There are schools dotting the world for this sort of thing and each year, the number of people that get into fly fishing is increasing.
In fly fishing, you have two choices for stocking your fly box. You either buy them or you tie them yourself.
I tie my own flies because I like the activity, it relaxes me and I like experimenting with each pattern until I find one that suits my needs.
What you need
To tie your own flies, you will need a few things:
Fly tying vise
The fly tying vise is a special type of vise that holds your hook. These vises range from 10 USD for an “AA” vise to a few thousand dollars for an Ekich Damasteel custom. It has one single purpose; to hold your hook firmly in place while you tie your fly. There are a few types around, but I found the one kind that suits me the most, the onethat’s called a “rotary” vise. This vise allows the hook to turn so you can flip the hook upside down when you tie or dress the hook.
Bobbin holder
A bobbin holder holds the bobbin, or the spool of thread.The simple ones cost anywhere from 4 USD to the 100 USD “automatic” bobbin. The bobbin acts like a handle of sorts so it would be easier for you to wind the thread and bind the materials to the hook.
Scissors
Materials used for dressing or tying a fly requires you to cut or in some cases, shape them. I have a few pairs to do specific jobs, from cutting material to doing detail work. Fine-point scissors are used for close in work, while bigger ones are used to cut off pieces of fur from the hide.
Other tools
Two other tools I use are a bodkin and sometimes, a whip finisher. The whip finisher is used to make the whip knot, a knot that hides the tag end of the thread so it won’t unravel. The bodkin is used much like a needle, from applying nail polish to the heads to glue the thread in, to separating the materials to give way to the hook point.And in some models, the handle doubles as a half-hitch tool, another knot used to finish the head of the fly.
Materials
Materials can be classified as either natural or synthetic. Natural materials can be anything from fur, feathers or hair from animals.
Synthetic materials are strands from man-made fabrics like nylon, fake fur, tinsel and other man-made materials
Putting it all together
The most exciting part of the whole thing, of course, is putting it all together. This is entirely up to your creativity.However, there are already proven patterns that work, instructions of these patterns are all over the internet.
While working with these materials, your creativity will dictate your masterpiece, or your latest abortion.
It takes practice to perfect the flies you tie and it will take even more time and patience to be consistent and tie “clones” of each fly; the result however is something you will carry with you for the rest of your life – the flies you tie will fool fish, nothing is more satisfying than that.
I am not an expert in tying flies, what I do know is that, what I tie has caught me some nice fish over the past few years and I enjoy everything; from tying them to fishing with them.
Here are some flies I tied for the summer’s fishing:
Baitfish patterns are queenfish killers.
Multi-purpose flies such as the surf candy and the clouser minnow are two flies that I don’t leave home without. They are some of the most versatile flies that can be tied to mimic baby eels or small fish. Just trim the tails to suit your needs.
22 years later…
The old man was watching intently while I tied a few strands of DNA flytying material on the hook, explaining how to fold the material to create the tail. I stacked more of the synthetic material to form the body, folded it back and repeated the process to form the belly, I repeated the steps with shorter strands of the material and finally, put in a different colour on top of the hook, folded the material to create the darker colour for the back, pausing to check and see if the video camera is focused on the fly that’s slowly taking shape on the vise. “Papa Bepe”, when you are at this step, make sure you comb the material back so they blend with each other, I stated. Papa Bepe nodded. I comb the material back, put on a pair of sticker eyes on each side just at the back of the hook eye, then mixed some epoxy to finish the head taking care not to create air bubbles, and then proceeded in covering the thread wraps and the eyes gingerly with the glop. Slowly turning the fly to keep the epoxy from dripping, I explained to him why I was doing it. Once the epoxy was set, I showed him the finished fly. A look of bewilderment stretched across his face, and then a smile and he said just one word in amazement – MAGIC!
Till next tide change,
Kit
Published in July 2012
