Just picture it, a beautiful Central Pennsylvania waterway, trout dimpling the surface, and there you are casting you very own hand-tied fly. You begin your drift when suddenly a fine rainbow breaks the surface, engulfing your fly. After a brief battle you slide your net under the brightly-colored fish and prepare to seek out your next opponent.
Before I go any further, I have to make a confession. I haven’t tied flies for a number of years now and in fact, do very little fly fishing.
Though there was a time that it was a very important part of my life.
Think you have what it takes to tie a fly that will catch fish? Don’t sell yourself short, I bet you do. When I was a lad of eleven, I convinced my father, a self-taught tier, to teach me the basics. My first few flies could best be described as being rough. They certainly wouldn’t have won any prizes, but the only critics I was concerned about had fins. And, believe it or not, they liked them.
I began fly fishing at the age of ten with bluegills and bass my quarry.
Casting to these fish while at a pond with few obstructions to hinder my back cast, I was able to learn basic casting and how to set the hook.
Jumping ahead a year, now at the ripe old age of eleven, I talked my mom into dropping a friend and I off along Buffalo Creek at Cowan. Armed with my collection of hand-tied flies, we were about to take on the local trout population.
Shortly after we started fishing, a hatch began taking place and both trout and chubs were rising all around us. It wasn’t long until I had hooked and landed my very first fly-caught trout.
Over the years my interests changed and my body grew older, and I now very rarely use a fly rod. That doesn’t keep me from fishing wet flies with a bobber at such places as the Zerbe Rod & Gun Club pond. Its just that I’m not as good at wading a fast-running trout stream as I once was.
If you would like to learn the basics of fly tying, or if you wish to sharpen the skills you currently have, a great opportunity exists to do so.
Beginning Jan. 5 and running for 11 weeks, the R.B.Winter Chapter of Trout Unlimited will be conducting classes for beginning tiers on Thursday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Christ Lutheran Church, 100 S. Third St., Lewisburg. A donation of $15 will be required to cover the cost of materials.
This course has been offered for a very long time, going back at least into the ‘70s when I was in high school. For additional information contact Rod Jones at 570-259-7205 or Bob Layton at 570-452-1989.
If you are interested in the intermediate tying classes, they will be
held Wednesdays from 7 to 9 p.m. beginning Jan. 4 at the Lewisburg Hotel, 136 Market St., Lewisburg. In this class tiers will be exposed to a variety of advanced patterns and tying techniques. Class size will be limited. For more information call Rick Edwards at 570-847-7790 and leave a message.
