Fly-tying great way to wile away a winter's evening

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Each December, while Maine anglers await the ice-fishing opener for game fish, untold thousands in another tenacious group dive into the unofficial winter fly-tying season. By January, fly tiers are going full blast as fly rodders steal away to a cozy den, spare bedroom, cellar or even wood-heated shed with no central heating -- anyplace where they can set up a vise and store materials. There, they wile away myriad winter hours, constructing fly after fly and dreaming of spring's viridescent explosion.

Fly-tying excites lots of us, and in my humble opinion, nothing beats this "sport" on a Saturday morning with snow sifting through the trees or on an evening with wind soughing under the eaves. A warm room, hot cup of coffee or tea and fly vise add up to heaven.

Fly-tying season in winter 2006 promises to be particularly special for two reasons:

n Last year's high water kept lots of anglers home, and in rivers and streams, this insured plenty of fish survived 2005. In places such as the Kennebec from Bingham to Fairfield -- just to name one river -- fishing should be hopping in 2006. You can all add plenty of waters to the list. While laboring joyously at the vise, we'll conjure up images of a big trout or salmon grabbing the very fly we're tying at the moment. Never mind that many of these feathered beauties will wind up lost on bottom or in trees.

n Because the open-water season was off in 2005, the average fly fisher did not deplete his fly stocks too much, so in the coming 12 to 14 weeks, folks will spend more time on devising new patterns than ever before. The year 2006 will be the one when lots of folks will be trying a whole new array of flies. One or two of the hundreds and hundreds of new patterns may become another Maine legend like the Gray Ghost, Supervisor, Wood Special and so forth. It could happen and you might be the tier.

A common question pops up wherever folks talk fly tying. How do you invent a fly and, more importantly, promote it to catch the public's eye? One route discourages the average guy: It helps to be well known and live in a place that attracts traveling fly rodders. Most of the famous Maine streamers and bucktails invented in the first half of the 20th century came from places like Rangeley Lake, Sebago Lake and Pierce Pond.

In February 1985, I saw a new fly pattern -- new to me anyway -- rise into the public eye within two or three years, and the story shows how it often happens. (This success story involved a no-name tier, too.) Jerry Partridge of Belgrade Lakes village tied a Joe's Smelt with pearl rather than silver Mylar and showed it to me on a frigid day with howling wind pounding across Long Pond.

"Look at this Joe's Smelt I tied with a pearl body," he said.

That spring of 1985, the fly turned out to be red hot in the Belgrade Lakes' Long Pond, and folks were talking plenty about it. At first, area anglers were calling it "the smelt fly that Jerry ties," and that kept getting shortened to variations like this: "Jerry's smelt fly." And, finally, folks shortened it to "Jerry's Smelt," which I think always embarrassed him.

Other people probably invented it first, but Partridge sure did the best job in promotion. He sent it to The Maine Sportsman magazine's columnists and national fly-fishing writers, and in those years I saw it mentioned in Outdoor Life, Field and Stream, Fly Fisherman, etc. and later in books like Dick Stewart's Flies for Trout and Tom Fuller's Underwater Flies for Trout. Stewart's book will be around, too, in the year 2100.

In short, Partridge was in the right place -- the Belgrade Lakes when Long Pond's salmon population was booming -- at the right time. The rest is history.

This winter, folks may tie patterns that have become popular in the last two or three years. For example, I've been hearing a lot about a Pheasant Tail in an English rather than American style and a Copper John. I'll have a few of these two designs when May arrives and fishing gets as good as it gets in the Pine Tree State.

Another feature of fly tying can never be discounted. One of the great skills involved begins with having exactly the same materials that the originator chose and ends with constructing the fly in an identical way the originator did -- a perfect counterfeit. People tie flies such as a Jock Scott the same way they were fashioned 300 to 400 years ago, and the only changes occur when an original material comes from a bird that is endangered or extinct now -- say an Indian crow.

Never in the history of the world have fly tiers had it so good when it comes to finding recipes for most any pattern their heart desires -- thanks to the Internet. Folks merely need to punch a pattern into a search engine, and presto, out comes the directions for tying most flies.

In fact, two weeks ago, I could not find a Hewitt Nymph on the 'net, and it truly surprised me. Shock might not be too strong of a word. That quick digression shows how reliable the Internet can be for finding most any pattern.

Next week, DIF&W fisheries biologists tell us where to go ice-fishing come January 1.

Ken Allen, of Belgrade Lakes, is a writer, editor and photographer. He may be reached via e-mail at kallyn800@aol.com