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I sat down at the tying desk this morning to finish off some swap flies. I
needed to tie some midges as a dropper fly. I looked to see what size hooks
I had to do this. Picked up a couple of boxes of hooks and immediately
dropped them on the floor. Fortunately they stayed shut and did not spill
the hooks. Great fun to pick up size 18 and size 22 hooks. That is why I
keep a magnet on my desk to pick up the metal things that fall.
I figured with my day starting this way I would go with the size 18 hooks.
They are bigger to work with. I wanted to use red thread so I put some on
the bobbin. As soon as I threaded it and pulled on it, I broke it. I
threaded it thru again and just the tension on the threader broke the
thread. I put it away before I tossed it. It might just be a bad day at
the vice.
I switched to another spool of thread and managed to get it to wrap on the
hook. I then stripped off 2 pheasant tail barbs and attached them to the
hook. As I started to wrap the barbs, I broke them off at the base of the
thread. I unwrapped the thread and then attached two more barbs. I was
half way up the hook when these broke. Unwrapping again so I can attach
more feather barbs. This time I managed to get it wrapped and tied off.
One down and 11 more to go. This fly had taken about 10 minutes to get tied.
This might just take all day. The next fly went fairly well. I did it very
slowly and was very careful not to put to much strain on any of the
materials. I was a little paranoid and put some head cement on the thread
wraps, just to make sure that they would not come undone.
I started to wrap the thread on the third fly and managed to twist the hook
out of the vice. I am having a great day. I put the hook back in and
tightened the vice very slowly and carefully. I got the thread and the
feather barbs on and started wrapping the material. I got to the front and
as I started to wrap over the barbs they slipped out of my hand. Time to
unwrap them and start this process again. I finally got the barbs wrapped
and the fly tied off. I have tied 3 flies in 25 minutes.
I did get up and walk around for a few minutes to see if that might help.
Could it be that I was too uptight to be tying flies? Can that happen to
anyone who ties flies? I went back to the desk and started on another fly.
This one I finally made without any mishaps. Not so lucky on the next two.
I broke the barbs on both of them.
I decided to read for a while and see if that would help. After about 30
minutes I tied another two flies. Both of them had the thread break and the
whip finish came undone. It is so nice to put a fly on the desk and watch
the thread come undone. That means starting that little bugger again.
By being extremely careful and slow I managed to finish the rest of the
flies. It took about 10 minutes a fly. It has been a long time since I
spent over two hours getting a dozen flies tied. I then decided that I
would tie a few of my old standbys, those that I never have trouble with.
Would you believe that I had trouble with every one of them? At that point
I decided that I would quit. I was done tying flies for the day. It seemed
that no matter what I did it would not or did not work out. I was tearing
more stuff than I was succeeding with.
That is why I am setting in front of the computer and making you feel
better. I know that you have never had a day like this. I decided that I
would not even try to cast a fly rod today. I would probably bury the hook
in myself.
Hope your day is better than this and that you can get out on the water.
~ Rick ziegeria@grm.net
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