The Fly Tyer's Blog

HMH has revitalized their fly tying blog. I think you might like it.

I'm biased. My brother John is the one who will be writing the blog. He has always been my mentor and teacher in all things fly fishing and fly tying. He knows a lot.

I read his first entry today, about wet flies.

It immediately took me back to the many occasions I've sat on the bank of the Henry's Fork with him talking about flies and fishing while we waited for the hatch. Or arguing about flies and fishing. Like I said, he knows a lot, and he has opinions about the way things should be. It's a family trait.

There was a time when I hung on his every word, tried everything he recommended, and honored the classical traditions. And then came the time that I broke away and started doing things the way I thought they should be done. I tried my own techniques, tested my own theories, and tied sloppy flies with the proportions all wrong. And I still did better than he did.

OK, maybe not really. To be fair, we still debate that. What do you think? Would you rather catch more fish, or bigger fish?

Either way, I did have success, and I like to think it still bugs him a little that I can do something wrong and still get it right. (He thinks I must have an inordinate amount of luck.)

But the truth is that whatever success I have had on my own would have been impossible without the solid foundation of his teaching. To put it more succinctly, everything I know about fly fishing, he taught me. And I deeply appreciate that. Because we wouldn't have had anything to argue about otherwise.

Once again, I exaggerate. It's not really an argument; it's a conversation. And we've had a hell of a good time fishing and conversing together.

So check out The Fly Tyer's Blog. I think you might enjoy the conversation, too.