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WINTER TIME FLY TYING

There are basically two types of fly tiers; one who ties out of need and one who ties for the hobby of it. I fall into the latter. The bulk of my fly tying is done in the winter usually when the rivers are iced up and it's just plain to cold to venture out. By the end of winter and the beginning of Spring I have completely refilled all my fly boxes and all my tying projects have been completed to satisfaction and all that's left is to simply go fishing. That may not seem much to some anglers but I fish between one and two hundred days a year and between loosing quite a few flies to trees, rocks and branches, I give a lot flies away to other anglers.
When I finally have all my boxes filled and all my surplus boxes replenished then I become the traditional hobbyist. I think I tie my best flies when I'm doing it as a hobby. When I'm punching out one fly after another to fill the boxes I tend to fall into a kind of funk and when I have whip finished my last fly it's done whether it looks good or not. However when I'm tying flies as a hobby I do it more for the pleasure and satisfaction of creating than anything else. I usually have some ideas of new flies that I worked out in my mind while on the river and try to put those old thoughts together at the vice to create a new pattern that I can test the following season.
My success rate on new creations is rather bleak, so bad that most often the new flies fail miserably. However every once in awhile I get it right and hit gold. I create a new fly whose success goes far beyond explanation. Soon other anglers I know are fishing with them and having the same success and the new fly becomes a staple fly. If I hadn't come up with the idea on the river to build a better mouse trap I probably wouldn't have spent the time on the vice during the winter to perfect it. That's what anglers who tie flies for a hobby do. We either create a new fly to be tried or we take an old fly and try and make it better. I would say up to half the flies in my fly boxes can't be bought in a store, they have to tied by me if I'm going to have any flies to fish with

One fly in particular really caught my attention this year, that's the Chernobyl Ant. A big foam bug that can go by other names such as a Freddy but whatever name you call it this fly has really become popular the last five or six years. I never really thought to much about this fly other than I probably should have a few in my box just in case. I may have even caught a fish or two with it, but this past summer was a wild summer for the Chernobyl Ant. It seems every where I fished the Chernobyl Ant that was the clear winning fly. Of course the Chernobyl Ant comes in every kind of color and size you can imagine but once you get past that they are all pretty much the same, a colored piece of foam with a hook tied to it.
It was while I was on the South Fork of the Snake River where I started going crazy with ideas to make the Chernobyl Ant a more effective fly. The Chernobyl Ant has basically only two weaknesses; one it has a tendency to land upside down and you have to constantly mend your line to right it and the fly is fairly large, smaller trout have a hard time taking the fly all the way into their mouths. So that's how new flies are started, right on the river. I took the ideas I came up with while on the river and filed them away for my winter fly tying. After many seasons of fly fishing you can see how experimental flies tend to add up. Fly hobbyist love to tinker with older fly patterns, the thought is it can always be made better but I have found over the years that rarely rings true, but I keep at it and it may be my way of staying busy while at the vice.
After nearly forty years of tying flies I pretty much have this winter fly tying down to a science. I basically have three storage areas for my flies; the fly boxes in my vest, the countless boxes I use for specific rivers that I keep in my reel bag and the surplus flies I keep in large bins at home. The flies I use up on the streams, in theory are replaced when I get home from the surplus bins but I'm lucky if I do that a few times a year. After a hard season of fly fishing on streams and rivers you can see how depleted my boxes can become. So at the end of the season it's really a matter of me taking stock of what I've used up and replacing those flies.
To replace the flies that I've used or given away over the course of a season I have to get my mind into a production mode. There really isn't that much thought that goes into it, just tie one fly after the other until a particular fly is done. It's interesting to talk to other fly tiers and see how their system of tying flies works. Some guys are very pattern precise and others just whip out the flies in no particular order. Whatever the system, the basic outcome should be the same, replace the flies you have used.
I'm the type of fly angler who tries to be as minimal as I can when it comes to carrying an assortment of fly boxes. I've really honed the amount of fly boxes I need down to a very cramped three boxes. That's not a lot of flies by some standards but experience has taught me over the years that it's not the number of fly boxes that are important but the right amount of the right flies that are important. With all the different types of flies now available that can be a daunting task. You have bead heads and non bead heads. There are traditional dries and parachute flies. Lead core streamers and non weighted streamers. When you start to add emergers, well you get my drift, winter time fly tying is an important cog in the fly fishing wheel.
When I finally finish refilling all the boxes and have just the right amount of flies I need to cover the coming trout season, it's now time for the projects. Project fly tying is like a reward you get after the laborious task of production fly tying. This is the time for you to start some of the projects you planned during the season such as improving the Chernobyl Ant. I usually have as many as four or five projects that I want to work on but must wait until after all my fly boxes have been refilled. Project tying can take on many forms, from just creating a new fly, improving on an old fly or creating a whole new fly box with an assortment of sizes, colors and types.
I believe the most important thing a fly tier must have when tying flies is quality fly tying materials. Having the highest quality materials in the right sizes and colors can make the difference between success and failure while on the water. By tying your own flies you are saving huge amounts of money so don't scrimp on fly tying materials just to save a little money. Start by purchasing high quality hackle in the right size. A common mistake new tiers make is that they will use a high quality neck hackle but it will be the wrong size to tie a size eighteen dry fly or even worse the reverse, the right size hackle but of poor quality.
After years of fly tying you can imagine I have tons of fly tying materials. Still every year I have to purchase new materials just to keep up. Lately there has been a whole new bunch of new materials that can make your flies better and easier to tie. As for me I will use anything that makes my flies fish better. New synthetic dubbing materials, wing materials and a wide range of foam materials have revolutionized fly tying so much so that winter fly tying can become quite a yearly task both in new flies and the old standards flies. Still there are always the classic flies that still require the hair of rabbit and a tail of moose mane.
Many fly anglers argue that there is just not enough time to sit down and tie all the flies they need for a season of fly fishing so they supplement what they do tie with store bought flies. I'm not a fly Nazi and I'm not about to criticize anybodies abilities or responsibilities but I've always said that if you tie just one fly a day for 365 days a year you will end up with over 30 dozen flies. That's usually enough to get you through the fishing season. Now you may go twelve days without tying any flies but on the thirteenth day you may tie a dozen, the principle still applies.
Many fly tiers spend and exuberant amounts of time trying to tie the perfect fly. What I have learned over the years is the most important thing about fly tying is proportion. As long as you get the size and the coloration of the fly right then most often it doesn't really matter how pretty the fly looks. If you use good quality materials and have the size and coloration right then you are going to catch fish with the flies you tie. I have seen many times a poorly tied fly out catch the perfectly tied fly strictly because the fly was the right selection, size and color. For myself I know that after nearly forty years of fly tying I've pretty well reached a level of competence which I'll probably never improve on. I feel comfortable and confident that the flies I tie will do the trick. Any effort and time I spend to make a fly look perfect in the end won't help me catch fish any better than my run of the mill production Hare's Ear nymph.
For those fly anglers who must purchase their flies in order to refill their fly boxes because they are unable to tie their own or don't have the time or patience to tie their own then I say they are missing out on the most important aspect of fly tying. Tying flies happens to be one of the best means a fly angler has to learning about etymology. Understanding aquatic insects and how they affect trout behavior is the one of the largest hurdles facing fly anglers today. Tying flies or learning to tie flies forces the angler to learn about the insects that live in our streams and rivers. Etymology is the final frontier for the fly angler and once mastered can make the difference between a good day on the river and a bad day.
When I finally went through my fly fishing equipment at the end of this year's fishing season I was surprised to see how beat up some of my equipment was and how depleted my fly boxes had become. After sitting down and physically going through each fly box I now have a plan at hand to bring my fly inventory up to an adequate level for the new season ahead. There will be a few new creations that I'm hoping will be successful in tricking some trout and of course I'll have plenty of flies left over to hand out to other anglers I may run into while on the river.
mgsandifer@gmail.com
Winter Fly Tying
There are basically two types of fly tiers; one who ties out of need and one who ties for the hobby of it. I fall into the latter. The bulk of my fly tying is done in the winter usually when the rivers are iced up and it's just plain to cold to venture out. By the end of winter and the beginning of Spring I have completely refilled all my fly boxes and all my tying projects have been completed to satisfaction and all that's left is to simply go fishing. That may not seem much to some anglers but I fish between one and two hundred days a year and between loosing quite a few flies to trees, rocks and branches, I give a lot flies away to other anglers.
When I finally have all my boxes filled and all my surplus boxes replenished then I become the traditional hobbyist. I think I tie my best flies when I'm doing it as a hobby. When I'm punching out one fly after another to fill the boxes I tend to fall into a kind of funk and when I have whip finished my last fly it's done whether it looks good or not. However when I'm tying flies as a hobby I do it more for the pleasure and satisfaction of creating than anything else. I usually have some ideas of new flies that I worked out in my mind while on the river and try to put those old thoughts together at the vice to create a new pattern that I can test the following season.
My success rate on new creations is rather bleak, so bad that most often the new flies fail miserably. However every once in awhile I get it right and hit gold. I create a new fly whose success goes far beyond explanation. Soon other anglers I know are fishing with them and having the same success and the new fly becomes a staple fly. If I hadn't come up with the idea on the river to build a better mouse trap I probably wouldn't have spent the time on the vice during the winter to perfect it. That's what anglers who tie flies for a hobby do. We either create a new fly to be tried or we take an old fly and try and make it better. I would say up to half the flies in my fly boxes can't be bought in a store, they have to tied by me if I'm going to have any flies to fish with
One fly in particular really caught my attention this year, that's the Chernobyl Ant. A big foam bug that can go by other names such as a Freddy but whatever name you call it this fly has really become popular the last five or six years. I never really thought to much about this fly other than I probably should have a few in my box just in case. I may have even caught a fish or two with it, but this past summer was a wild summer for the Chernobyl Ant. It seems every where I fished the Chernobyl Ant that was the clear winning fly. Of course the Chernobyl Ant comes in every kind of color and size you can imagine but once you get past that they are all pretty much the same, a colored piece of foam with a hook tied to it.
It was while I was on the South Fork of the Snake River where I started going crazy with ideas to make the Chernobyl Ant a more effective fly. The Chernobyl Ant has basically only two weaknesses; one it has a tendency to land upside down and you have to constantly mend your line to right it and the fly is fairly large, smaller trout have a hard time taking the fly all the way into their mouths. So that's how new flies are started, right on the river. I took the ideas I came up with while on the river and filed them away for my winter fly tying. After many seasons of fly fishing you can see how experimental flies tend to add up. Fly hobbyist love to tinker with older fly patterns, the thought is it can always be made better but I have found over the years that rarely rings true, but I keep at it and it may be my way of staying busy while at the vice.
After nearly forty years of tying flies I pretty much have this winter fly tying down to a science. I basically have three storage areas for my flies; the fly boxes in my vest, the countless boxes I use for specific rivers that I keep in my reel bag and the surplus flies I keep in large bins at home. The flies I use up on the streams, in theory are replaced when I get home from the surplus bins but I'm lucky if I do that a few times a year. After a hard season of fly fishing on streams and rivers you can see how depleted my boxes can become. So at the end of the season it's really a matter of me taking stock of what I've used up and replacing those flies.
To replace the flies that I've used or given away over the course of a season I have to get my mind into a production mode. There really isn't that much thought that goes into it, just tie one fly after the other until a particular fly is done. It's interesting to talk to other fly tiers and see how their system of tying flies works. Some guys are very pattern precise and others just whip out the flies in no particular order. Whatever the system, the basic outcome should be the same, replace the flies you have used.
I'm the type of fly angler who tries to be as minimal as I can when it comes to carrying an assortment of fly boxes. I've really honed the amount of fly boxes I need down to a very cramped three boxes. That's not a lot of flies by some standards but experience has taught me over the years that it's not the number of fly boxes that are important but the right amount of the right flies that are important. With all the different types of flies now available that can be a daunting task. You have bead heads and non bead heads. There are traditional dries and parachute flies. Lead core streamers and non weighted streamers. When you start to add emergers, well you get my drift, winter time fly tying is an important cog in the fly fishing wheel.
When I finally finish refilling all the boxes and have just the right amount of flies I need to cover the coming trout season, it's now time for the projects. Project fly tying is like a reward you get after the laborious task of production fly tying. This is the time for you to start some of the projects you planned during the season such as improving the Chernobyl Ant. I usually have as many as four or five projects that I want to work on but must wait until after all my fly boxes have been refilled. Project tying can take on many forms, from just creating a new fly, improving on an old fly or creating a whole new fly box with an assortment of sizes, colors and types.
I believe the most important thing a fly tier must have when tying flies is quality fly tying materials. Having the highest quality materials in the right sizes and colors can make the difference between success and failure while on the water. By tying your own flies you are saving huge amounts of money so don't scrimp on fly tying materials just to save a little money. Start by purchasing high quality hackle in the right size. A common mistake new tiers make is that they will use a high quality neck hackle but it will be the wrong size to tie a size eighteen dry fly or even worse the reverse, the right size hackle but of poor quality.
After years of fly tying you can imagine I have tons of fly tying materials. Still every year I have to purchase new materials just to keep up. Lately there has been a whole new bunch of new materials that can make your flies better and easier to tie. As for me I will use anything that makes my flies fish better. New synthetic dubbing materials, wing materials and a wide range of foam materials have revolutionized fly tying so much so that winter fly tying can become quite a yearly task both in new flies and the old standards flies. Still there are always the classic flies that still require the hair of rabbit and a tail of moose mane.
Many fly anglers argue that there is just not enough time to sit down and tie all the flies they need for a season of fly fishing so they supplement what they do tie with store bought flies. I'm not a fly Nazi and I'm not about to criticize anybodies abilities or responsibilities but I've always said that if you tie just one fly a day for 365 days a year you will end up with over 30 dozen flies. That's usually enough to get you through the fishing season. Now you may go twelve days without tying any flies but on the thirteenth day you may tie a dozen, the principle still applies.
Many fly tiers spend and exuberant amounts of time trying to tie the perfect fly. What I have learned over the years is the most important thing about fly tying is proportion. As long as you get the size and the coloration of the fly right then most often it doesn't really matter how pretty the fly looks. If you use good quality materials and have the size and coloration right then you are going to catch fish with the flies you tie. I have seen many times a poorly tied fly out catch the perfectly tied fly strictly because the fly was the right selection, size and color. For myself I know that after nearly forty years of fly tying I've pretty well reached a level of competence which I'll probably never improve on. I feel comfortable and confident that the flies I tie will do the trick. Any effort and time I spend to make a fly look perfect in the end won't help me catch fish any better than my run of the mill production Hare's Ear nymph.
For those fly anglers who must purchase their flies in order to refill their fly boxes because they are unable to tie their own or don't have the time or patience to tie their own then I say they are missing out on the most important aspect of fly tying. Tying flies happens to be one of the best means a fly angler has to learning about etymology. Understanding aquatic insects and how they affect trout behavior is the one of the largest hurdles facing fly anglers today. Tying flies or learning to tie flies forces the angler to learn about the insects that live in our streams and rivers. Etymology is the final frontier for the fly angler and once mastered can make the difference between a good day on the river and a bad day.
When I finally went through my fly fishing equipment at the end of this year's fishing season I was surprised to see how beat up some of my equipment was and how depleted my fly boxes had become. After sitting down and physically going through each fly box I now have a plan at hand to bring my fly inventory up to an adequate level for the new season ahead. There will be a few new creations that I'm hoping will be successful in tricking some trout and of course I'll have plenty of flies left over to hand out to other anglers I may run into while on the river.
mgsandifer@gmail.com
Winter Fly Tying
There are basically two types of fly tiers; one who ties out of need and one who ties for the hobby of it. I fall into the latter. The bulk of my fly tying is done in the winter usually when the rivers are iced up and it's just plain to cold to venture out. By the end of winter and the beginning of Spring I have completely refilled all my fly boxes and all my tying projects have been completed to satisfaction and all that's left is to simply go fishing. That may not seem much to some anglers but I fish between one and two hundred days a year and between loosing quite a few flies to trees, rocks and branches, I give a lot flies away to other anglers.
When I finally have all my boxes filled and all my surplus boxes replenished then I become the traditional hobbyist. I think I tie my best flies when I'm doing it as a hobby. When I'm punching out one fly after another to fill the boxes I tend to fall into a kind of funk and when I have whip finished my last fly it's done whether it looks good or not. However when I'm tying flies as a hobby I do it more for the pleasure and satisfaction of creating than anything else. I usually have some ideas of new flies that I worked out in my mind while on the river and try to put those old thoughts together at the vice to create a new pattern that I can test the following season.
My success rate on new creations is rather bleak, so bad that most often the new flies fail miserably. However every once in awhile I get it right and hit gold. I create a new fly whose success goes far beyond explanation. Soon other anglers I know are fishing with them and having the same success and the new fly becomes a staple fly. If I hadn't come up with the idea on the river to build a better mouse trap I probably wouldn't have spent the time on the vice during the winter to perfect it. That's what anglers who tie flies for a hobby do. We either create a new fly to be tried or we take an old fly and try and make it better. I would say up to half the flies in my fly boxes can't be bought in a store, they have to tied by me if I'm going to have any flies to fish with
One fly in particular really caught my attention this year, that's the Chernobyl Ant. A big foam bug that can go by other names such as a Freddy but whatever name you call it this fly has really become popular the last five or six years. I never really thought to much about this fly other than I probably should have a few in my box just in case. I may have even caught a fish or two with it, but this past summer was a wild summer for the Chernobyl Ant. It seems every where I fished the Chernobyl Ant that was the clear winning fly. Of course the Chernobyl Ant comes in every kind of color and size you can imagine but once you get past that they are all pretty much the same, a colored piece of foam with a hook tied to it.
It was while I was on the South Fork of the Snake River where I started going crazy with ideas to make the Chernobyl Ant a more effective fly. The Chernobyl Ant has basically only two weaknesses; one it has a tendency to land upside down and you have to constantly mend your line to right it and the fly is fairly large, smaller trout have a hard time taking the fly all the way into their mouths. So that's how new flies are started, right on the river. I took the ideas I came up with while on the river and filed them away for my winter fly tying. After many seasons of fly fishing you can see how experimental flies tend to add up. Fly hobbyist love to tinker with older fly patterns, the thought is it can always be made better but I have found over the years that rarely rings true, but I keep at it and it may be my way of staying busy while at the vice.
After nearly forty years of tying flies I pretty much have this winter fly tying down to a science. I basically have three storage areas for my flies; the fly boxes in my vest, the countless boxes I use for specific rivers that I keep in my reel bag and the surplus flies I keep in large bins at home. The flies I use up on the streams, in theory are replaced when I get home from the surplus bins but I'm lucky if I do that a few times a year. After a hard season of fly fishing on streams and rivers you can see how depleted my boxes can become. So at the end of the season it's really a matter of me taking stock of what I've used up and replacing those flies.
To replace the flies that I've used or given away over the course of a season I have to get my mind into a production mode. There really isn't that much thought that goes into it, just tie one fly after the other until a particular fly is done. It's interesting to talk to other fly tiers and see how their system of tying flies works. Some guys are very pattern precise and others just whip out the flies in no particular order. Whatever the system, the basic outcome should be the same, replace the flies you have used.
I'm the type of fly angler who tries to be as minimal as I can when it comes to carrying an assortment of fly boxes. I've really honed the amount of fly boxes I need down to a very cramped three boxes. That's not a lot of flies by some standards but experience has taught me over the years that it's not the number of fly boxes that are important but the right amount of the right flies that are important. With all the different types of flies now available that can be a daunting task. You have bead heads and non bead heads. There are traditional dries and parachute flies. Lead core streamers and non weighted streamers. When you start to add emergers, well you get my drift, winter time fly tying is an important cog in the fly fishing wheel.
When I finally finish refilling all the boxes and have just the right amount of flies I need to cover the coming trout season, it's now time for the projects. Project fly tying is like a reward you get after the laborious task of production fly tying. This is the time for you to start some of the projects you planned during the season such as improving the Chernobyl Ant. I usually have as many as four or five projects that I want to work on but must wait until after all my fly boxes have been refilled. Project tying can take on many forms, from just creating a new fly, improving on an old fly or creating a whole new fly box with an assortment of sizes, colors and types.
I believe the most important thing a fly tier must have when tying flies is quality fly tying materials. Having the highest quality materials in the right sizes and colors can make the difference between success and failure while on the water. By tying your own flies you are saving huge amounts of money so don't scrimp on fly tying materials just to save a little money. Start by purchasing high quality hackle in the right size. A common mistake new tiers make is that they will use a high quality neck hackle but it will be the wrong size to tie a size eighteen dry fly or even worse the reverse, the right size hackle but of poor quality.
After years of fly tying you can imagine I have tons of fly tying materials. Still every year I have to purchase new materials just to keep up. Lately there has been a whole new bunch of new materials that can make your flies better and easier to tie. As for me I will use anything that makes my flies fish better. New synthetic dubbing materials, wing materials and a wide range of foam materials have revolutionized fly tying so much so that winter fly tying can become quite a yearly task both in new flies and the old standards flies. Still there are always the classic flies that still require the hair of rabbit and a tail of moose mane.
Many fly anglers argue that there is just not enough time to sit down and tie all the flies they need for a season of fly fishing so they supplement what they do tie with store bought flies. I'm not a fly Nazi and I'm not about to criticize anybodies abilities or responsibilities but I've always said that if you tie just one fly a day for 365 days a year you will end up with over 30 dozen flies. That's usually enough to get you through the fishing season. Now you may go twelve days without tying any flies but on the thirteenth day you may tie a dozen, the principle still applies.
Many fly tiers spend and exuberant amounts of time trying to tie the perfect fly. What I have learned over the years is the most important thing about fly tying is proportion. As long as you get the size and the coloration of the fly right then most often it doesn't really matter how pretty the fly looks. If you use good quality materials and have the size and coloration right then you are going to catch fish with the flies you tie. I have seen many times a poorly tied fly out catch the perfectly tied fly strictly because the fly was the right selection, size and color. For myself I know that after nearly forty years of fly tying I've pretty well reached a level of competence which I'll probably never improve on. I feel comfortable and confident that the flies I tie will do the trick. Any effort and time I spend to make a fly look perfect in the end won't help me catch fish any better than my run of the mill production Hare's Ear nymph.
For those fly anglers who must purchase their flies in order to refill their fly boxes because they are unable to tie their own or don't have the time or patience to tie their own then I say they are missing out on the most important aspect of fly tying. Tying flies happens to be one of the best means a fly angler has to learning about etymology. Understanding aquatic insects and how they affect trout behavior is the one of the largest hurdles facing fly anglers today. Tying flies or learning to tie flies forces the angler to learn about the insects that live in our streams and rivers. Etymology is the final frontier for the fly angler and once mastered can make the difference between a good day on the river and a bad day.
When I finally went through my fly fishing equipment at the end of this year's fishing season I was surprised to see how beat up some of my equipment was and how depleted my fly boxes had become. After sitting down and physically going through each fly box I now have a plan at hand to bring my fly inventory up to an adequate level for the new season ahead. There will be a few new creations that I'm hoping will be successful in tricking some trout and of course I'll have plenty of flies left over to hand out to other anglers I may run into while on the river.
mgsandifer@gmail.com
Winter Fly Tying
There are basically two types of fly tiers; one who ties out of need and one who ties for the hobby of it. I fall into the latter. The bulk of my fly tying is done in the winter usually when the rivers are iced up and it's just plain to cold to venture out. By the end of winter and the beginning of Spring I have completely refilled all my fly boxes and all my tying projects have been completed to satisfaction and all that's left is to simply go fishing. That may not seem much to some anglers but I fish between one and two hundred days a year and between loosing quite a few flies to trees, rocks and branches, I give a lot flies away to other anglers.
When I finally have all my boxes filled and all my surplus boxes replenished then I become the traditional hobbyist. I think I tie my best flies when I'm doing it as a hobby. When I'm punching out one fly after another to fill the boxes I tend to fall into a kind of funk and when I have whip finished my last fly it's done whether it looks good or not. However when I'm tying flies as a hobby I do it more for the pleasure and satisfaction of creating than anything else. I usually have some ideas of new flies that I worked out in my mind while on the river and try to put those old thoughts together at the vice to create a new pattern that I can test the following season.
My success rate on new creations is rather bleak, so bad that most often the new flies fail miserably. However every once in awhile I get it right and hit gold. I create a new fly whose success goes far beyond explanation. Soon other anglers I know are fishing with them and having the same success and the new fly becomes a staple fly. If I hadn't come up with the idea on the river to build a better mouse trap I probably wouldn't have spent the time on the vice during the winter to perfect it. That's what anglers who tie flies for a hobby do. We either create a new fly to be tried or we take an old fly and try and make it better. I would say up to half the flies in my fly boxes can't be bought in a store, they have to tied by me if I'm going to have any flies to fish with
One fly in particular really caught my attention this year, that's the Chernobyl Ant. A big foam bug that can go by other names such as a Freddy but whatever name you call it this fly has really become popular the last five or six years. I never really thought to much about this fly other than I probably should have a few in my box just in case. I may have even caught a fish or two with it, but this past summer was a wild summer for the Chernobyl Ant. It seems every where I fished the Chernobyl Ant that was the clear winning fly. Of course the Chernobyl Ant comes in every kind of color and size you can imagine but once you get past that they are all pretty much the same, a colored piece of foam with a hook tied to it.
It was while I was on the South Fork of the Snake River where I started going crazy with ideas to make the Chernobyl Ant a more effective fly. The Chernobyl Ant has basically only two weaknesses; one it has a tendency to land upside down and you have to constantly mend your line to right it and the fly is fairly large, smaller trout have a hard time taking the fly all the way into their mouths. So that's how new flies are started, right on the river. I took the ideas I came up with while on the river and filed them away for my winter fly tying. After many seasons of fly fishing you can see how experimental flies tend to add up. Fly hobbyist love to tinker with older fly patterns, the thought is it can always be made better but I have found over the years that rarely rings true, but I keep at it and it may be my way of staying busy while at the vice.
After nearly forty years of tying flies I pretty much have this winter fly tying down to a science. I basically have three storage areas for my flies; the fly boxes in my vest, the countless boxes I use for specific rivers that I keep in my reel bag and the surplus flies I keep in large bins at home. The flies I use up on the streams, in theory are replaced when I get home from the surplus bins but I'm lucky if I do that a few times a year. After a hard season of fly fishing on streams and rivers you can see how depleted my boxes can become. So at the end of the season it's really a matter of me taking stock of what I've used up and replacing those flies.
To replace the flies that I've used or given away over the course of a season I have to get my mind into a production mode. There really isn't that much thought that goes into it, just tie one fly after the other until a particular fly is done. It's interesting to talk to other fly tiers and see how their system of tying flies works. Some guys are very pattern precise and others just whip out the flies in no particular order. Whatever the system, the basic outcome should be the same, replace the flies you have used.
I'm the type of fly angler who tries to be as minimal as I can when it comes to carrying an assortment of fly boxes. I've really honed the amount of fly boxes I need down to a very cramped three boxes. That's not a lot of flies by some standards but experience has taught me over the years that it's not the number of fly boxes that are important but the right amount of the right flies that are important. With all the different types of flies now available that can be a daunting task. You have bead heads and non bead heads. There are traditional dries and parachute flies. Lead core streamers and non weighted streamers. When you start to add emergers, well you get my drift, winter time fly tying is an important cog in the fly fishing wheel.
When I finally finish refilling all the boxes and have just the right amount of flies I need to cover the coming trout season, it's now time for the projects. Project fly tying is like a reward you get after the laborious task of production fly tying. This is the time for you to start some of the projects you planned during the season such as improving the Chernobyl Ant. I usually have as many as four or five projects that I want to work on but must wait until after all my fly boxes have been refilled. Project tying can take on many forms, from just creating a new fly, improving on an old fly or creating a whole new fly box with an assortment of sizes, colors and types.
I believe the most important thing a fly tier must have when tying flies is quality fly tying materials. Having the highest quality materials in the right sizes and colors can make the difference between success and failure while on the water. By tying your own flies you are saving huge amounts of money so don't scrimp on fly tying materials just to save a little money. Start by purchasing high quality hackle in the right size. A common mistake new tiers make is that they will use a high quality neck hackle but it will be the wrong size to tie a size eighteen dry fly or even worse the reverse, the right size hackle but of poor quality.
After years of fly tying you can imagine I have tons of fly tying materials. Still every year I have to purchase new materials just to keep up. Lately there has been a whole new bunch of new materials that can make your flies better and easier to tie. As for me I will use anything that makes my flies fish better. New synthetic dubbing materials, wing materials and a wide range of foam materials have revolutionized fly tying so much so that winter fly tying can become quite a yearly task both in new flies and the old standards flies. Still there are always the classic flies that still require the hair of rabbit and a tail of moose mane.
Many fly anglers argue that there is just not enough time to sit down and tie all the flies they need for a season of fly fishing so they supplement what they do tie with store bought flies. I'm not a fly Nazi and I'm not about to criticize anybodies abilities or responsibilities but I've always said that if you tie just one fly a day for 365 days a year you will end up with over 30 dozen flies. That's usually enough to get you through the fishing season. Now you may go twelve days without tying any flies but on the thirteenth day you may tie a dozen, the principle still applies.
Many fly tiers spend and exuberant amounts of time trying to tie the perfect fly. What I have learned over the years is the most important thing about fly tying is proportion. As long as you get the size and the coloration of the fly right then most often it doesn't really matter how pretty the fly looks. If you use good quality materials and have the size and coloration right then you are going to catch fish with the flies you tie. I have seen many times a poorly tied fly out catch the perfectly tied fly strictly because the fly was the right selection, size and color. For myself I know that after nearly forty years of fly tying I've pretty well reached a level of competence which I'll probably never improve on. I feel comfortable and confident that the flies I tie will do the trick. Any effort and time I spend to make a fly look perfect in the end won't help me catch fish any better than my run of the mill production Hare's Ear nymph.
For those fly anglers who must purchase their flies in order to refill their fly boxes because they are unable to tie their own or don't have the time or patience to tie their own then I say they are missing out on the most important aspect of fly tying. Tying flies happens to be one of the best means a fly angler has to learning about etymology. Understanding aquatic insects and how they affect trout behavior is the one of the largest hurdles facing fly anglers today. Tying flies or learning to tie flies forces the angler to learn about the insects that live in our streams and rivers. Etymology is the final frontier for the fly angler and once mastered can make the difference between a good day on the river and a bad day.
When I finally went through my fly fishing equipment at the end of this year's fishing season I was surprised to see how beat up some of my equipment was and how depleted my fly boxes had become. After sitting down and physically going through each fly box I now have a plan at hand to bring my fly inventory up to an adequate level for the new season ahead. There will be a few new creations that I'm hoping will be successful in tricking some trout and of course I'll have plenty of flies left over to hand out to other anglers I may run into while on the river.
mgsandifer@gmail.com
Winter Fly Tying
There are basically two types of fly tiers; one who ties out of need and one who ties for the hobby of it. I fall into the latter. The bulk of my fly tying is done in the winter usually when the rivers are iced up and it's just plain to cold to venture out. By the end of winter and the beginning of Spring I have completely refilled all my fly boxes and all my tying projects have been completed to satisfaction and all that's left is to simply go fishing. That may not seem much to some anglers but I fish between one and two hundred days a year and between loosing quite a few flies to trees, rocks and branches, I give a lot flies away to other anglers.
When I finally have all my boxes filled and all my surplus boxes replenished then I become the traditional hobbyist. I think I tie my best flies when I'm doing it as a hobby. When I'm punching out one fly after another to fill the boxes I tend to fall into a kind of funk and when I have whip finished my last fly it's done whether it looks good or not. However when I'm tying flies as a hobby I do it more for the pleasure and satisfaction of creating than anything else. I usually have some ideas of new flies that I worked out in my mind while on the river and try to put those old thoughts together at the vice to create a new pattern that I can test the following season.
My success rate on new creations is rather bleak, so bad that most often the new flies fail miserably. However every once in awhile I get it right and hit gold. I create a new fly whose success goes far beyond explanation. Soon other anglers I know are fishing with them and having the same success and the new fly becomes a staple fly. If I hadn't come up with the idea on the river to build a better mouse trap I probably wouldn't have spent the time on the vice during the winter to perfect it. That's what anglers who tie flies for a hobby do. We either create a new fly to be tried or we take an old fly and try and make it better. I would say up to half the flies in my fly boxes can't be bought in a store, they have to tied by me if I'm going to have any flies to fish with
One fly in particular really caught my attention this year, that's the Chernobyl Ant. A big foam bug that can go by other names such as a Freddy but whatever name you call it this fly has really become popular the last five or six years. I never really thought to much about this fly other than I probably should have a few in my box just in case. I may have even caught a fish or two with it, but this past summer was a wild summer for the Chernobyl Ant. It seems every where I fished the Chernobyl Ant that was the clear winning fly. Of course the Chernobyl Ant comes in every kind of color and size you can imagine but once you get past that they are all pretty much the same, a colored piece of foam with a hook tied to it.
It was while I was on the South Fork of the Snake River where I started going crazy with ideas to make the Chernobyl Ant a more effective fly. The Chernobyl Ant has basically only two weaknesses; one it has a tendency to land upside down and you have to constantly mend your line to right it and the fly is fairly large, smaller trout have a hard time taking the fly all the way into their mouths. So that's how new flies are started, right on the river. I took the ideas I came up with while on the river and filed them away for my winter fly tying. After many seasons of fly fishing you can see how experimental flies tend to add up. Fly hobbyist love to tinker with older fly patterns, the thought is it can always be made better but I have found over the years that rarely rings true, but I keep at it and it may be my way of staying busy while at the vice.
After nearly forty years of tying flies I pretty much have this winter fly tying down to a science. I basically have three storage areas for my flies; the fly boxes in my vest, the countless boxes I use for specific rivers that I keep in my reel bag and the surplus flies I keep in large bins at home. The flies I use up on the streams, in theory are replaced when I get home from the surplus bins but I'm lucky if I do that a few times a year. After a hard season of fly fishing on streams and rivers you can see how depleted my boxes can become. So at the end of the season it's really a matter of me taking stock of what I've used up and replacing those flies.
To replace the flies that I've used or given away over the course of a season I have to get my mind into a production mode. There really isn't that much thought that goes into it, just tie one fly after the other until a particular fly is done. It's interesting to talk to other fly tiers and see how their system of tying flies works. Some guys are very pattern precise and others just whip out the flies in no particular order. Whatever the system, the basic outcome should be the same, replace the flies you have used.
I'm the type of fly angler who tries to be as minimal as I can when it comes to carrying an assortment of fly boxes. I've really honed the amount of fly boxes I need down to a very cramped three boxes. That's not a lot of flies by some standards but experience has taught me over the years that it's not the number of fly boxes that are important but the right amount of the right flies that are important. With all the different types of flies now available that can be a daunting task. You have bead heads and non bead heads. There are traditional dries and parachute flies. Lead core streamers and non weighted streamers. When you start to add emergers, well you get my drift, winter time fly tying is an important cog in the fly fishing wheel.
When I finally finish refilling all the boxes and have just the right amount of flies I need to cover the coming trout season, it's now time for the projects. Project fly tying is like a reward you get after the laborious task of production fly tying. This is the time for you to start some of the projects you planned during the season such as improving the Chernobyl Ant. I usually have as many as four or five projects that I want to work on but must wait until after all my fly boxes have been refilled. Project tying can take on many forms, from just creating a new fly, improving on an old fly or creating a whole new fly box with an assortment of sizes, colors and types.
I believe the most important thing a fly tier must have when tying flies is quality fly tying materials. Having the highest quality materials in the right sizes and colors can make the difference between success and failure while on the water. By tying your own flies you are saving huge amounts of money so don't scrimp on fly tying materials just to save a little money. Start by purchasing high quality hackle in the right size. A common mistake new tiers make is that they will use a high quality neck hackle but it will be the wrong size to tie a size eighteen dry fly or even worse the reverse, the right size hackle but of poor quality.
After years of fly tying you can imagine I have tons of fly tying materials. Still every year I have to purchase new materials just to keep up. Lately there has been a whole new bunch of new materials that can make your flies better and easier to tie. As for me I will use anything that makes my flies fish better. New synthetic dubbing materials, wing materials and a wide range of foam materials have revolutionized fly tying so much so that winter fly tying can become quite a yearly task both in new flies and the old standards flies. Still there are always the classic flies that still require the hair of rabbit and a tail of moose mane.
Many fly anglers argue that there is just not enough time to sit down and tie all the flies they need for a season of fly fishing so they supplement what they do tie with store bought flies. I'm not a fly Nazi and I'm not about to criticize anybodies abilities or responsibilities but I've always said that if you tie just one fly a day for 365 days a year you will end up with over 30 dozen flies. That's usually enough to get you through the fishing season. Now you may go twelve days without tying any flies but on the thirteenth day you may tie a dozen, the principle still applies.
Many fly tiers spend and exuberant amounts of time trying to tie the perfect fly. What I have learned over the years is the most important thing about fly tying is proportion. As long as you get the size and the coloration of the fly right then most often it doesn't really matter how pretty the fly looks. If you use good quality materials and have the size and coloration right then you are going to catch fish with the flies you tie. I have seen many times a poorly tied fly out catch the perfectly tied fly strictly because the fly was the right selection, size and color. For myself I know that after nearly forty years of fly tying I've pretty well reached a level of competence which I'll probably never improve on. I feel comfortable and confident that the flies I tie will do the trick. Any effort and time I spend to make a fly look perfect in the end won't help me catch fish any better than my run of the mill production Hare's Ear nymph.
For those fly anglers who must purchase their flies in order to refill their fly boxes because they are unable to tie their own or don't have the time or patience to tie their own then I say they are missing out on the most important aspect of fly tying. Tying flies happens to be one of the best means a fly angler has to learning about etymology. Understanding aquatic insects and how they affect trout behavior is the one of the largest hurdles facing fly anglers today. Tying flies or learning to tie flies forces the angler to learn about the insects that live in our streams and rivers. Etymology is the final frontier for the fly angler and once mastered can make the difference between a good day on the river and a bad day.
When I finally went through my fly fishing equipment at the end of this year's fishing season I was surprised to see how beat up some of my equipment was and how depleted my fly boxes had become. After sitting down and physically going through each fly box I now have a plan at hand to bring my fly inventory up to an adequate level for the new season ahead. There will be a few new creations that I'm hoping will be successful in tricking some trout and of course I'll have plenty of flies left over to hand out to other anglers I may run into while on the river.
mgsandifer@gmail.com