OK, here's the monthly "What I Learned" post.

I have never been so frustrated at the fly bench. The first 3 flies took half an hour to tie (or was it an hour? I can't remember). The wings. Oh My Gosh, the wings.

Trying to get 2 distinct wings was really hard. I ended up just tying on a single clump of wood duck and calling it a wing and blessing it with the fly tier's mantra "the fish can't count how many wings it has".

I purchased a Whiting farm 100 fly pack of #14 ginger hackle but the tip of the hackle always looked too small for the hook, the middle and end of the hackle feather looked better. Also, the hackle always felt either too sparse or too tangled up and clumpy. The middle ground never seemed to happen.

This was a rough one. I want to try tying another dozen for myself but when I finished tying these I was in no mood to spend more time tying.

So on one hand these were the flies that I was the least happy with. On the other hand, these flies really pushed my tying skill level. I'm not sure I was up to the challenge. But now that some time has passed I look at my vice and think "Give it another shot. Go tie another dozen or 2 of those guys." I do know that if I push myself to learn how to tie these dry flies I'll be a much better tier.