It's been a while! Things got real busy these past couple of months and I haven't had a ton of time to keep up to date on the website. Anyway, in the meantime I've picked up fly tying to supplement my fly fishing. It started after my first fly fishing trip when I had lost all but one of my most productive fly. Not knowing any patterns for flies at that point, I had to resort to posting on Reddit to see if anyone could identify what fly it was. After lots of close--but not quite correct guesses--from the community, I finally found out it was an EC Caddis fly. See below.

I then went to Mend Provisions in St. Paul and picked up the materials to tie it on my very beginner fly tying set. The shop owner didn't seem convinced I'd be able to tie this semi-complex fly, but after a couple dozen attempts I figured it out. I'd show some pictures but my camera can't focus on these really small flies.

Even though I wouldn't regularly fish these flies, they'd still be quite cool to tie. However, the fly tying community wasn't lying when they said there's no better feeling than catching a fish on a fly you've tied. I never thought I'd derive so much joy from tricking 6 inch brown trout with some string, feathers, and a hook.

Thanks for the patience between posts. I'll try to keep up with it more frequently, and get some of my own fly ties in front of y'all.

Since then, I've learned a bunch of patterns and have really enjoyed the artistic, creative element of fly tying. The materials are quite beautiful to work with especially peacock herl. I'm hoping to get into some traditional salmon flies at some point as well--they use some really cool looking feathers.

Thanks for reading!

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