your opinion please

[ben]

i did not write this ,This is a post from a different site and i would like to hear the FAOL community"s thought's on this.

Fly swaps.... the reality?

Although I do not know exactly how they work, it was alway my assumption that the swaps were sick, original, fish tested and fisher-person approved patterns. From reading the text from the past few swaps and talking to others about these, it seems that you can send in crappy tied standards that don't work and its accepted? I was kinda disappointed in reading/hearing that. I was actually looking forward to the day I felt skilled enough to do one. I felt that there was no way I was entering in swaps with guys like Cheech, Nightfish, Grizz, UFG, Marty, Wildnative, MFRW, Joni, The Doc, Mr. Fry, Improv, many I do not know, etc etc etc. My skills just aren't there yet. Not to down play anyone or take the fun out of tying, swaps or learning, it just seems its waisting skilled tiers time and probably keeping some serious players from getting involved. I mean where are the skilled old guru's that love to tie with fishy patterns, the ones that visit this site but don't do the swaps or participate but read it every day. For example, why don't guys like Buddy Knight, Dennis Brakke, Mike Andreas, L. Tullis, the entire Jedi Master crew that hangs at Fish Tech, etc etc etc do any swaps. Ya, ya... the time factor, burnt out or they're sick of them but I think that's not entirely the case.

I think that swaps should benefit everyone not just those that suck at tying.

My suggestion would be swaps that fit the skill level.
- Greenhorn --> swap is for new tiers, generic flies OK.
- Second String --> Graduated from GH status.
- First string --> NO generic flies, must have credentials.
- Masters --> The guru's found here... fishy flies, fishy dudes and gals.

any thoughts?