The Tie vs. Buy Conundrum
I was at L.L. Bean today and even though I was on a strict mission to buy nothing but a beach chair, I inevitably ended up in the fishing and hunting store because I am an addict and I cant be stopped! I justified my unplanned aside by realizing I don’t have any flies in the shrimp and crab departments. I have a trip coming up to Saint John in the Caribbean and I’m fairly sure bonefish wont hit a size 8 Golden Retriever. In any case, I grabbed two crabs and a half a dozen shrimp and headed to the checkout. As it turns out, it would have been cheaper to buy actual seafood than the 8 flies I bought, which came out to 32 bucks. As I stared, slack-jawed, at my receipt, I wondered if I would have been better off just tying the damn things.
I got into fly tying in college, but didn’t start taking it seriously until I graduated and started making a bit of money. Up until that point I had your standard issue vice that clamped onto a table, and a bobbin that would break thread if you applied slightly too much pressure. The few tying materials I managed to scrounge up fit in a shoe box. Did my flies look good? No. Did they catch the same amount of fish as the flies I obsess over now? Pretty much! Granted I was way weaker as a fly fishermen, but my flies had a certain happy goofiness to them that instilled confidence in me as I cut my teeth on the little rivers in New England. Now, I’ve become a monster. My fly boxes look like they were assembled by a German obsessive compulsive. Everything is organized and arranged just so, as if the fish have a penchant for aesthetics. I have more tying materials than I could use in a lifetime, and yet I still always seem to be missing the one ingredient needed for the perfect fly as described by my fly tying heroes (Tim Flagler being Jesus).
My fly tying habit started innocently, the way I assume it happens for most guys. I wanted to have all the different varieties of flies, and I was under the delusion that it would be more economical to tie them myself. At the time, I didn’t hunt and I really only had ice fishing to get me through the winters. I spent many a night hitting the fish whistle off the water and learning to tie all the Northeast classics. I started to fill up a few boxes with halfway decent flies, but at heavy cost. I have friends who tie, and they have no problem substituting obscure materials with more common options. My MG cohort Max uses mallard flank the way a two-bit handy man uses duct tape, but his flies are every bit as effective as the ones that I use, which may as well be tied in a Japanese Lexus factory.
When you actually break it down, it can be cheaper to tie your flies in the long term. One pack of pheasant tail can tie hundreds of pheasant tailed nymphs, which are among the most ubiquitous and productive on Earth. You start to run into trouble when you take the Grady route, and convince yourself the trout will turn their nose if your Frenchie doesn’t have the perfect pink collar. My biggest constraint with fly tying is finding the time to get a good session in. As I get older, I’m noticing that I have less and less time to devote to my hobbies. This year, I’ve caught myself buying flies whenever I hit the shop, which I haven’t done in years. Nothing wrong with that of course, but at the same time I could have spent about 5 bucks on the appropriate hooks and tied them up myself. I want to try and find a balance, and figure out which flies it makes sense to tie and which to buy. I seldom use crab patterns, so I probably dont need to spend $40 on all the materials it takes to tie them. I cant stand tying dry flies in anything under a size 18, so I buy them to preserve my mental wellness. But at this point in my life, if I start buying guides’ choice hares ears, take away my Regal vice because I don’t deserve it.
The greater message here is that flies don’t need to look good to catch fish. I’m saying that for my benefit as much as anyone’s. I need to find a way back to the days where I would throw a bunch of mismatched nymphs in an empty Marlboro pack and hit the river. I’m going to start forcing myself to tie super buggy patterns and not get all worked up about how they look. Those crabs and shrimp look absolutely mint though.
-Grady
