Fly-tyers make the most of winter, eager for spring
People who don无毛视频檛 fish tend to view fly-tying with humor, maybe even pity. There无毛视频檚 a popular image of a fixated angler, hunkered over the vise in the basement, squinting at a bit of feather and a barely visible hook. The TV show 无毛视频淢*A*S*H无毛视频� fueled that impression with Lt. Col. Henry Blake retreating to his tying vise to forget Korean War carnage.
But to committed anglers who imitate insects with feather and fur, fly-tying is a natural enrichment to fishing.
无毛视频淚无毛视频檓 not an expert, but learning to tie my own flies was one of the best things I无毛视频檝e done to enhance my enjoyment of fishing,无毛视频� said angler and tyer Mark Kovacs of Uniontown. 无毛视频淚t无毛视频檚 a logical progression. It gets you more intimately involved in all aspects of fishing. And it extends the fun of fishing when you can无毛视频檛 be out there due to the weather. It无毛视频檚 a way to spend a winter evening preparing for spring, reflecting on my experiences, anticipating the fishing to come.无毛视频�
Tying flies is both a science and an art. The object is to imitate natural insects, both in appearance and behavior (the behavior part is achieved both by fly construction and fishing technique), so in some ways its constrained by biology. Tyers construct many fly patterns as exact copies of real bugs that fish, especially trout, like to eat. But there无毛视频檚 also a creative side to tying. Innovators search the universe of natural and synthetic materials to make old patterns in new ways, or invent entirely novel designs that resemble nothing in nature, but catch fish nonetheless.
Personally, I无毛视频檓 an under-achiever at fly-tying. I inherited equipment and materials from my late Uncle George decades ago, and I attended an evening tying class offered by the Izaak Walton League at Uniontown High School soon after. I can tie 无毛视频� enough to get by, sometimes 无毛视频揵ut I also got interested in writing, which requires a lot of time sitting down. I didn无毛视频檛 want to warm a chair long enough to do both, so I seldom tie.
I have a theory as to why fly-tying is not more popular than it is in our region. Anglers who grew up around here in the past couple of generations fished streams where acid drainage from abandoned or poorly regulated coal mines destroyed the insect life that feeds native fish and fuels a fly-tyer无毛视频檚 learning curve. Streams in other regions, such as parts of central Pennsylvania, were spared that pollution and so produced astonishing insect hatches that anglers there wanted to copy. Fortunately, with a lot of our local streams now on the mend, natural aquatic food-chains are redeveloping, and fly-tyers have incentive to 无毛视频渕atch the hatch.无毛视频�
Despite past setbacks in water quality, our region has produced some amazingly skilled tyers. Uniontown无毛视频檚 Mark DeFrank won third place in a recent Fly Tyer Magazine International Championship competition. And acclaimed tyer Kieran Frye of Westmoreland County won the 1994 Mustad Scandinavian Fly-Tying Open held in Oslo, Norway. Both experts offer individual instruction and group classes. A number of fly-tying classes are offered every winter around southwestern Pennsylvania. A web search should provide options to interested budding tyers.
Just last week I watched accomplished tyer Ashley Wilmont, a fishing guide with Wilderness Voyageurs in Ohiopyle, tie black winter stoneflies in a demonstration at a meeting of the Chestnut Ridge Chapter of Trout Unlimited. Just as impressive as her artful tying were Chestnut Ridge TU president Dale Kotowski无毛视频檚 observations on stream ecology.
无毛视频淩ight now if you go out and walk along a lot of our streams, you无毛视频檒l see these tiny black stoneflies crawling around on the snow along the bank,无毛视频� Kotowski revealed. 无毛视频淭rout feed on them in shallow water before they reach the shore. If you无毛视频檙e not out there fishing these little black flies right now, you无毛视频檙e missing some good fishing.无毛视频�
I like to consider myself an observer of nature, but I无毛视频檇 never noticed the winter stoneflies Kotowski described and Wilmont imitated with skill.
Kotowski then tied a tiny size 18 midge pupae imitation, not much bigger than one of the characters in this print (He said these were the 无毛视频渂ig无毛视频� ones. He likes to tie and fish size 22 and smaller), that he said is an effective pattern in the Youghiogheny Tailrace 无毛视频渂ecause the water coming out of the dam is too cold for more well-known insects like mayflies.无毛视频�
Fly-fishing tyers like Kotowski, Wilmont, Kovacs, DeFranks and Frye, though, most look forward to magical evenings in May, when mayfly nymphs emerge from the stream and wing about, briefly, as adult insects, only to re-settle on the surface to lay their eggs and perish. Trout look forward to that too and feed eagerly. The thought of it is enough to get a fly-tyer through winter.