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This morning's GUS diary can be filed in the "What to do instead of smoking" file. It is a very brief introduction to the art of tying flies or artificial lures used for fishing. The art involves tying materials to a fish hook with the intention of creating something that might be able to be used to catch a fish, maybe a trout but not necessarily. The materials that are commonly used are fur, feathers, hair, yarn, tinsel, rubber, string, plastic and more. The art has been around for as long as there were hooks and humans interested in catching fish. There is a good summary on the wiki for those wishing to read more: Fly Tying.
A short time before GUS started, I started trying to learn to tie my own flies for trout fishing. I had suffered through a few years of self-abuse learning to use a fly rod and had progressed to the point where I could enjoy fishing. Tying my own flies was the next step closer to the obsession. When GUS started, I found that tying flies was a good distraction from the cravings, requiring a certain amount of concentration and it kept my hands busy. With some good music in the background, tying flies is a pleasant way to spend a few smoke free hours. It is also another significant challenge to take on. I am still at the beginner stage and in spite of having a bit of an impatient personality, I am satisfied with my progress so far.
I have picked out a few pictures for illustration. The picture below left is of a fly called the Royal Wulff and is beautiful work of art. It is well beyond my capabilities (for now). Besides being really cool looking, this fly has a local history for me. I learned by doing this diary, this fly was named in the 1930's on the Esopus River in the heart of the Catskill Mountains and I have fished the Esopus often. For more of the story of the Royal Wulff, here is the link Naming the Royal Wulff. The Royal Wulff is classified as an attractor dry fly. An attractor fly is designed to get a fish's attention to provoke an attack. A dry fly is meant to stay dry and is fished on the surface of the water. It could be what the guy below right is using, landing his line gently on the surface of the stream, upstream from the feeding trout and allowing the fly to drift naturally over the trout's feeding area.
Another approach to fishing and fly tying is to present a near perfect imitation of the trout's natural food. Trout have three basic food groups: May flies (Ephmeroptera), Caddis flies (Trichoptera) and Stone flies (Plecoptera). When you consider that each group will have several life stages (nymph. emerging adult, adult, and dead or dying adult) AND each stream will have numerous species of each group AND each species will have a specific time of day and/or year to be available for the trout to feed upon, presenting a near perfect imitation of the day's trout menu might seem too complicated to mess with. In fact, it is a big part of the appeal of the sport.
Below left is a picture of a mayfly nymph, specifically a March brown (Stenonema vicarium). I picked out the March Brown mayfly for illustration because the pictures were available. There are many species of mayflies and they occur in a specific succession throughout spring, summer and fall. The March browns are active in the Northeast from the third week in May to the last week in June. You can go to a trout stream and pick up a submerged rock. Turn it over and you are almost certain to see one or more mayfly nymphs, a few might even be a March brown. For any number of reasons, they will occasionally get dislodged from their rocky abodes, go drifting off into the current and into the mouth of an awaiting trout. Below right, is a suitable imitation and is called a beadhead pheasant tail. Even I can tie a reasonable beadhead pheasant tail. The name comes from the fact it has a bead head and has pheasant tail fibers for the tail. Sometimes it is not so complicated. The beadhead pheasant tail is fished below the surface of the water, sometimes close to the bottom of the stream. Again, the fly is placed in the current and allowed to drift as naturally as possible past a feeding trout.
If you are on a trout stream on a summer evening in early June a few hours before sunset, you might see the adult version of the March brown come bubbling up out of the current. If the conditions are just right, this display of the cycle of life can be spectacular with hundreds of thousands mayflies arising up out of the water (no teapartier estimate is available). It will seem as if it is raining bugs upside down. For trout and the trout fisherman, it is party time. The party is short for the adult mayfly because they have maybe 24 hours to mate, lay eggs and die, Party over. Below left is an adult male March brown with the suitable imitation below right. The imitation is a dry fly which is fished on the surface of the current and again, allowed to drift naturally past the awaiting trout.
So how does someone go about tying a fly? To show you, I went to the ever reliable youtubes. There are several hundred demonstration films on the youtubes that can show you how to tie almost what ever you might be looking for. I stuck with the March brown theme and picked out this one. The person is tying a March brown emerger. An emerger is a creature that was a nymph and is on it's way to becoming an adult (in other words, a teenager). These emergers hang out in the film of the current just below the surface. Perhaps hesitant to grow up, mate and die (is that all there is?) they are slurped up by trout like popcorn. The person in the youtube makes it look so easy. I am still working on it.
The purpose of the bright green post is to help the fisherman see the fly. It is not part of the natural creature that the fly is trying to imitate.
There is a rich history of fly fishing available. Two museums I hope to visit soon are listed below.
The American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, Vermont
and
The Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum in Livingston Manor, New York
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