I have tied a good amount of flies over the years for friends, family and of course myself, but one things always gets me is the number of flies I see that get put under a glass, in a shadow box or on a shelf. There is a since of pride to see some of your flies sitting in a prominent spot on an executives desk, coffee table or wall but there is also that gut wrenching feeling of... "man you should be fishing those flies!".

If it was intended to be under glass I will put them in a nice shadow box and seal them in with a piece of artwork or a pin from a FFF show or something. But if they are in a plastic box, by all means fish with them! All that being said, what are the opinions of other tyers?

I recently tied the flies below up for a friend and his first response was those are too pretty to fish with...to which I started to say... fine give them back and you can have the ugly ones!

So I am wondering if they will ever see the end of a fly line or even have the opportunity to entice a beautiful bronze back. Only time will tell unless they rot first.