Theresa snapped this shot of me in bed last night, "Oh with this fly fishing already". 'Theresa, in a month the striped bass will be passing our house, 250 feet away from where I lay right now", her reply "Whatever". Ok, and then after I sent Leif the below video I sent him a follow-up text "I know, who cares, I tied a fly", which may true, but I don't care, its my journey and its my blog. What, hopefully, this is, is the journey of an average fly fisherman trying to tie both beginner and advanced flies, key words related are , correctly and consistently. Now that perfect, textbook, beautiful fly that you see below that took me two hours to tie.....I'm not sure actually what it is- it's over 10 inches, Hollow tied throughout, so is it a Hollow Fleye?, a Beast?, should we just call is the Horrible Fly?
But, while it may not look like an Andrew, Ian, Scott, Ben, Andrew from down Under, Jason, or even Bob's tie, there might be something right in there, and I need to disect it, find the correct tie in, and try and replicate it. The head is olive and not yellow, the pink and purple inside is hideous. The tapers are off. And lastly, that does not look like a river herring, well maybe in the eye.
I know guys wet them in cold water, then dry them, and then stroke them. I put them in the Fly Men Fly Tester, and with the speed the motor creates I fear any mop in there will look decent. You couldn't strip fast enough to replicate that water flow. It's good for the ego though. With the air temps in the mid 40's and the water up to 37 degrees I thought I'd take a ride to Lambertville to test a fly out. Just click on the tab to make it full screen for better viewing,
I believe this one comes in at just over 8 inches, and you know what, maybe not too shabby. I can see the disconnect in the middle section, where the mono joins the hook bend and while the white flies stand out, I would prefer to have something in the silver, olive, purplish, pink, with a darker back look. That'll be in the quiver before next month.