Episode
3 – Fly-Tying For Retired Tie-Dyers
"I think I fish, in part,
because it's an anti-social, bohemian business that, when gone about properly,
puts you forever outside the mainstream culture without actually landing you in
an institution." - John Gierach
By Robert Yarnall
In
case you didn't know, may have forgotten, or just really don’t care, be advised
that Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was spawned in 2012 as a serialized account of a
small boatload of perpetually perturbed neighbors who set out to harpoon a wind
energy project known as “Whalerock.”
The
Big Whalerock Circus has pretty much packed up and left town, leaving behind
just a small group of clowns who seem to believe they still have some mileage
left on them thar shoes. So Whiskey Tango Foxtrot continues into a second
season, following their goofy footprints even as they try to cover them up, recalcitrant
doggies pooping their way across neighborhood yards.
Sure,
our aging Whalerockers and Whalerockettes will cleverly (they think) say, “So
whaddya expect, the guy’s tellin’ fish stories!!!...” But serious anglers know it
is not about fish, it’s about fishing: who
knows what lurks in the shadowy depths of The Moraine Zone?
Abandon
All Common Sense, Ye Who Enter There…
The bedrock of fly-fishing is, of
course, the science of entomology, an intriguing topic in its own right. Aside
from Boy Scout merit badges and high school biology, my limited encounters with
insect study took place within casual conversations with former URI/ current
UVM Professor
Josef Gorres, a plant and soil scientist who designed and conducted a
series of popular field workshops for Rhode Island middle school teachers and
their students during his tenure at URI.
I actually know Josef from our
mutual interest in the study of martial arts - the essence of which is not
unlike the art of fly-casting, but that discussion is for another time – and
one night after we had spent a couple of hours picking each other up off the
floor, I casually asked him, “So what can we learn from studying worms and
stuff?”
Dr. Gorres, or Josef as he
insists to be addressed, replied humbly, “We learn about ourselves, what we do,
where we are going, what happens when there are lots of living things sharing
small spaces…”or something pretty close to that.
Josef’s retort was vintage professorial,
a genuine exhortation to make the inquisitor more inquisitive. Going on two
decades later, I still recall that conversation, usually when I sit at my
fly-tying desk working on the basic skills all fly-tiers must master in order
to advance to the next level of the art, very much like martial artists
advancing through the belt ranks.
When I can finally tie that
near-perfect imitation of the quintessential Wood River mayfly hatch, I am
going to dedicate it to my former karate training partner, Dr. Josef Gorres. Right
now, however, I’m simply moving on to Fly-Tying 101, Basic Bug Building.
Even if, like me, you’re nearly
Medicare-eligible and have never tied anything in your life besides shoe laces
and a Woodstock-era dyed tee shirt, you can actually handle this very cool
activity. You know you want to. Who doesn’t want to channel “A River Runs
Through It” just up the road in Arcadia, where rural is really rural? You know
you want to do this.
Our first stop on the winding
gravel road to the trout stream snakes through a couple of the kazillions of
online information booths that hobbyists of all slants smack into as they
careen around cyberspace.
Early-on in my embryonic,
curiosity-seeking stage of fly-fishing technique, I bit on a snappy web graphic
popping up as “The Bug Guy.” For folks
needing an informative, entertaining introductory lesson to aquatic entomology
(and anyone wanting to be a true fly angler needs one), look no further than Colorado
State University’s Dr. Robert Younghanz, aka The Bug Guy, a fly-fishing academic
who is also not interested in hearing you utter the word “Doctor” - unless it’s
in the context of a quick trip to Urgent Care to have a hook removed from your
ear lobe.
Robert has created an online
video library of lessons on just about every aquatic entomology topic critical
to understanding and appreciating the delicate balance between humans and the
environment, which is admittedly more important than the care & feeding
of fly-fishing enthusiasts. You can
access them at no cost, except for a guilty conscience, on his website.
If you want to duly recognize and respect
Younghanz’s effort to make the sport more accessible to wretches like me,
you’ll cough up a measly $30 (less than a spool of fly line) and buy his
two-DVD set, Entomology for the Fly Fisher.
Quick mend here: As a three decades-plus career
teacher – every minute of it in an actual classroom – I respectfully say to my colleagues
statewide that you will find Robert’s
DVD’s an invaluable resource for
any learning venture, but most hopefully as a prep lesson for a field trip to
the highly acclaimed school offerings at WPWA.
The second and final stop before
we get to the actual act of hooking oneself and cursing the dog is a visual
demonstration of the art of fly-tying by a fly-tying professional. My booth of
choice here is the online 12-part Beginner Fly Tying Class authored by
Pennsylvania State Fly-tying Champion Scott Cesari.
Scott is not a schoolteacher per se, but he certainly has the teaching gene,
presenting a series of sequential lessons covering basic fly-tying skills and
applying each skill within ten basic fly-tying patterns common to all devotees
of the art. You can grab his stuff for free as well, and if you can do that
without a guilty conscience, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, “…you could be a
CCA-guy…” (To avoid that dubious distinction, it’s well worth a $25 DVD
purchase to support Scott’s unique fly-tying niche. Check it out here.)
It may be a good idea to have a
go at Scott’s distance learning sessions before you sign up for winter
fly-tying workshops like WPWA’s, so when you are in the presence of real people
you won’t feel like a total idiot, although I can tell you from experience that
no matter what you do, it is going to be painfully obvious, mostly to yourself,
that you are at least 50% idiot.
The rest of the tying group will
forgive that part of you, because they were all there once themselves. Learn to
laugh at yourself (even if you’re a CCA-affiliated novice fly-tier) and you
will do just fine. Even I eventually figured it out, though that timeless
paradigm, “laughing with you vs. laughing at you” was very much in evidence the
first couple of hours.
So here it is class, your homework:
check out the respective websites of Robert and Scott and meet me back here next
time where I will demonstrate that you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks, except
for those attention-craving canine types whose main hobby is to yap and crap wherever
and whenever it is conveniently self-serving to do so because, uh, er, uhmm,
well, because that’s just what they do.
For everybody else looking for a productive,
challenging hobby, get on the fly and enjoy the planet while we’re still here.
Get ready to finally tie one on.
Next
time on WTF’s Second Season – The Jam, The Pinch, The Whip Finish (Say
what??!!??)
