I'll second that. You've hit the nail on the head, harleybob87. I've been a member of this board for about a year and a half, and all of my swaps have been through FAOL. In that year and a half, I've tied approximately 200 flies for swaps alone. That doesn't count practice flies or the tying I've done to keep my boxes ready to fish. I am a much better tyer than I was when I first started, and I probably owe apologies to the guys that were in my first couple of swaps. My flies were ugly. Practice does make a difference, and I've enjoyed every swap I've been in since. And hopefully my quality has gone up as well, but I still have a long ways to go to match some of the beautiful submissions that regularly make it into our swaps here.
Better to be an active environmentalist than and environmental activist.
FFMIRSWTNBOF (Full Fledged Member in Raunchy Standing-Within The NBOF)