It's funny what becomes of things during their off season. It really doesn't matter what it is. For me, and many others, fly tying season is a winter thing. So it's no surprise that my fly tying desk and fly tying room morphs into something more like a store unit. Maybe I should try and make fly tying something I do year-round.
If we start the year of fly fishing the salt in the fall then it starts around September when the first albies, bonita, Spanish or bass show up. I dig through my wallets, bins, and bags looking for the tiniest flies I can find. Most of them have been used and the tails are beat up or missing from being shreaded by fish or rubbed away from where the material meets the resin. And then there's always the flies that have changed color over the years. Next up is the mullet run and the need for Snake Flies. These can be a mess when I dig them out. Rusted hooks, matted deer body hair, or discoloration from the materials bleeding into one another.
When the peanut bunker show up it's usually unannounced and I pick out shitty flies that I used and caught with last year. These can generally be a mess to look at but tossing them into blitzing bass usually gets at least a dumb one to grab it. And by the time the fall run starts its too late to sit down and tie flies.
It's in the fall when the other season starts. It kicks off with the International Fly Tying Symposium, which is November 16 & 17 this year, and then The Fly Fishing Show. We'll see if Stock the Box returns this year and if The Long Island Fly Fishing Expo continues to grow. Those shows get the tying juices moving and the cash flowing.
Fishing ends around the last days of the year either when I'm not catching, just catching micro bass, or it just is too cold. It's then when I turn the portable heater on and get busy tying. For me it's mostly larger Squimpish- Hollow tied flies for the spring run. But there's also my small mummichog patterns that I tie up for the non-migratory baits in some of the northern rivers in the spring.
During the fall of 2022 I brought my fly tying stuff up out of the dungeon of the basement into a small room on the second floor. It was refreshing to have natural light and oxygen from an open window when I decided to spend some time tying. You can see above how nice and organized it was from the jump. That's the way it should have remained. But over the course of the next two years I shitted it up with a large display case, things for the wall that were never hung up, and more tying materials that I purchased that I didn't need.
You know, I am pysch. I'm a Psychiatric-Nurse Practitioner. I can diagnose psychiatric disorders, prescribe medications, and run therapy sessions. It's all in my scope of practice and falls under my board
certification. Luckily, I remembered to renew it at the last minute just a few weeks ago. Of course that's the way I roll. Chaos, last minute, a hot mess. So it wouldn't be wrong to look into if I have a touch of a hoarding disorder. They say people who hoard, or are disorganized, have those characteristics due to trauma or loss. Something, someone, or a part of them has been lost or taken, and they compensate or over-compensate by holding onto or increasing the things around them. It offers comfort, but it also adds distress when the possibility of losing those things occurs, because the original trauma then gets released from a part of the brain called the amygdala. If you're ever looking for a good read about trauma, or know someone who needs to process there own "stuff", then the book "The Body Keeps the
Score" by Bessel Van Der Kolk, is the Bible on all things trauma and what we do with it, how it becomes part of our DNA, and how it can get released when things like triggers occur in our lives. So yes, I'm psych, both as a provider and probably a patient as well. It has become evident to me as I have started to try and get organized while peeling away the layers of the onion that is my mind and life.
So I pulled out yet another contractor bag and got to work. My bins, both on wheels and stand alone, with and without lids, are mostly empty as the contents are more outside of them than in. Materials I'll never use, more hooks that will never see any thread, and used or poorly tied flies that won't ever get wet. Stepping into the Captain's seat to tie is like trying to step through a child's playroom, with Lego's and toys under feet. Why is acceptable to have things that way?
In giving myself a little break most fly tyers let their place get out of hand from time to time. There are those super organized tyers, usually who have a touch of OCD, that have things organized and at the ready for a fly ting session. and that's more so for those that production tie. I'm not saying they're all normal, or right in the head, but when you have a visit and see how a fly tying room should look you see how dysfunctional of a tyer, and a person, you are compared to them.
More isn't always better, and in fact, more can actually deter you from success. Trying to find the right material, thread, hooks, dumbbell eyes, and glue or resin that isn't petrified, just gets in the way of taking some time for yourself and healthily sitting down and banging out some flies. Fly tying should be relaxing and the challenge is to tie good flies, that don't foul, and that catch fish. The challenge shouldn't be "getting in" to your chair and trying to find or reach for materials that are never where you thought they were.
So the bins on wheels went to Goodwill. The bags were full of all things fly tying. I picked things up, once, and made the decision right there, stay or go? The stickers went, molded up bucktail went, and even things like the below poster went. That poster was from a talk I did some 13 years ago. Why am I
holding onto that? It's old, it's faded, and it was one of my early talks, that probably wasn't all that good. So I took a picture and folded it in half and felt good in doing so. By the end of the afternoon I had two bags full along with a popcorn trail of feathers, plumes, and bucktail leading from the second floor of the house to the garbage cans outside. I didn't touch the books, oh the books, why, why, and why. For years I searched for them and bought them and am now ready to put them together as a lot on Facebook Marketplace and get rid of them. And what's funny is, or sad, when I look at them, there's more than one copy. During the search, or the get, I didn't even realize I had already owned it. I was easily fooled by a later edition with a different cover.
I can't think about all of the money I've spent and wasted over the years on everything from Pyrex dishes to fly tying and fly fishing stuff, and everything else in between. I also went through my clothes and added a few bags to drop off with the bins on wheels over to Goodwill. Clothes that will never fit, never worn, and won't be needed in the more tropic weather down in South Carolina.
This purge, done during the summer break from school, is a healthy one that was much needed and long overdue. So many people I know have done, or need to do the same. These things and all this "stuff" become immovable objects, almost like concrete, that weigh us down and keep us from moving forward. They say, "You can't take it with you", and "The kids don't want it" and as I get older I'm starting to really see and believe it.
