Atlantic Salmon Flies as Art

“Toward the end of the twentieth century, we began to see a disconnect between the art of Atlantic salmon fly tying and the sport of Atlantic salmon fishing. In the right hands, a workhorse fly pattern like the Jock Scott became a large, immaculately crafted object, suitable for framing and hanging on one’s wall. Though many like it have hooked thousands of salmon over the last century and a half, this particular fly will never see water, much less the business end of a dime bright Atlantic salmon.”

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Weekend at the Vise

Facing a weekend with apartment to myself, I did what I suspect many fly fishermen in the Northern Hemisphere are doing: tying flies in preparation for the rapidly approaching season. As one tier said to me recently, “If I don’t start tying now, my boxes will be empty!” While that’s not entirely true — fishermen always fear a scarcity of flies, but rarely face it — the feeling is accurate: with the days warming up, it’s now a race.

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Spring Cleaning: Fly Tying Desk

This evening, trouble rode into town. I opened a bag of hackle and there they were: the dried husks of bugs. As I counted the husks, and ran what had been feathers but was now a fine dust between my fingers, I also counted the hours ahead that it would take for me to clean it up and to prevent all the other materials in my burgeoning collection from becoming infected.

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