Ep 107: Fly Tying Tips, Tools, and Techniques, with Tim Cammisa
Tim Cammisa is an expert fly tier and angler and is the owner of Trout and Feather. He is also the author of the book Fly Tying for Everyone, as well as an upcoming book about Euro-nymphing flies and techniques. In this episode, Tim covers the tools that every fly tier should have, common materials and how to go about substituting them, mistakes most beginners make, and much more.
Website: Trout and Feather
YouTube: link
Instagram: @troutandfeather
-
Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed podcast, your home for fly fish in the backcountry. This is episode 107 with Tim Cammisa on fly tying tips, tools, and techniques. I start every episode by getting a background on my guests. And I know this one's going to be kind of a fly tying specific episode, but I'd love to hear how you got your start in fishing first, and then we'll kind of move on to how you started fly tying.
Tim
Well, first of all, thanks for having me on here, Katie. It's definitely a pleasure to be on Fish Untamed today. And to tell you about my start, I'm gonna have to flip it on you though, because my start is definitely unlike many others because I got into tying first. My father, he loved to fish, he loved to take me fishing, and I was into it, a little bit of bass, bluegill and some trout, but I was the person that if it was the first day of trout and we had to be there at the crack of dawn, my dad would set me down somewhere, I'd start looking at the water and just start wandering and my thoughts would drift away, and I was the kid that fell into the water. My dad would have to drag me back up to the vehicle to get changed before he'd even start fishing. So that was me, I just wasn't into it. And then around fourth grade, my parents signed me up for an afterschool program for fly tying. I had no idea what fly tying was. I just remember showing up, there was a group of gentlemen, I don't wanna say older, but they were very experienced gentlemen. They all had beards, they smoked like pipes, I mean, and they smelled like this funky glue. And I just was like, what is going on here? And I remember sitting down in the first couple sessions, we would tie stuff like deer hair patterns. And I just loved spinning deer hair and then taking the razor blade, just cutting it off and it just flying everywhere. And I was just completely enthralled by that whole process and just trying to figure out what was even going on because I didn't make that connection yet to fly fishing. I just knew I was tying flies, I was enjoying it. And then one session, my great uncle John showed up and I'm Catholic, he was my confirmation sponsor. I knew him from kind of that realm outside of anything fly fishing. And I look at him and I'm like, Uncle John, what are you doing here? And it turns out he was kind of known in my area in the fly fishing and fly tying community. He was a Catskill fly tier, which meant he tied really classic patterns. And he kind of took me under his wing and eventually from those tying classes, I started hanging out at his house, tying more flies. And then for Christmas that year, my parents bought me my first fly fishing combo kit. It was a seven foot six inch fly rod, maybe a five-weight line. The line was complete junk. That's the only regret I have is that everyone always told me, "It's not the line, it's you." No, it was the line. I can definitely and definitively say that. But it was just one of those things where I kind of progressed through to the point where I was taken fly fishing my first time by my uncle John and by Doc Bull, another one of the gentlemen that had taught that fly tying class. And it was just a great experience. I was on the water fishing my own flies. You know, I didn't catch anything that first time, but I had a blast. much apparently though because when we got back to the van, my uncle drove this Dodge Caravan. I started to take my rod apart and my uncle and doc looked at me and they were like, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "Well, I'm putting my stuff away. We're going home." They're like, "No, you are not. We watched you cast today and you scared every fish in like a five -mile vicinity. We're going to give you a casting lesson and then you have to pass the test before we take you fly fishing again." That was kind of like my introduction to fly tying and fly fishing. I've just been, what's the pun? I've been hooked ever since.
Katie
What changed? Was it the fact that you had gotten a taste of it through fly tying and realized that maybe this is something you're interested in through that? What was different between the first time you went and just picking up rocks and falling in and the next time you come and you're hooked instantly?
Tim
That's a great question, Katie. I don't think I have an answer to that question because I knew I like to hunt. I'm from Western Pennsylvania and I like to hunt grouse and pheasants and white-tailed deer so I love that aspect of stalking my prey. I don't know, the excitement and the thrill of that experience. When it came to fishing, for some reason, I just wasn't, there was something that just wasn't grabbing me. And I'm not sure if it was because, you know, as a younger child, you're kind of expected to do more bobber fishing, and it was just kind of cast of weight, and I'm not into that for any aspect of my life. So I think that probably played into it a little bit. But there was also this notion that, you know, you're tying these flies, and then you're gonna try to catch something on a fly that you tied yourself. That was really just kind of a challenge to me. And it was frustrating because, you know, as many of your listeners probably know, A lot of the times, you can say we were going fishing. We're not going catching. I mean, we're truly going fishing. And you're trying your darndest to catch a fish. And in fly fishing, it's such a steep learning curve, especially for certain species in certain areas. And here I was, this 10-year-old, 11-year-old fishing on these delayed harvest areas in Pennsylvania, which means they get a ton of fishing pressure. Those fish see a ton of flies. And I'm just trying my best to bump into one. That's really all it was. And that challenge really just, it pulled at me because everyone's telling me, you know, Tim just fish a black woolly bugger and you're gonna catch a lot of trout. I was like, I'm fishing the black woolly bugger. I'm not catching anything, but I really wanted to. And I think it was that, I don't know, that challenge that drove me back.
Katie
Yeah, I will say there's, I find it more fun to not catch fish fly fishing than I do to not catch fish with a bobber. You know, like if I'm gonna be doing one thing and not catching fish, at least I can be like active and trying to figure things out versus just watching a bobber and being like, okay, I'm kind of bored with this.
Tim
I agree completely, yes.
Katie
So where in Western Pennsylvania did you grow up? I'm also from Western Pennsylvania and I'm curious if we grew up near each other.
Tim
Oh, that would be wild. I grew up in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Katie
Okay.
Tim
So that was kind of my hometown and now I live a little bit west of there. I live, I tell everyone, Zelianople, but there's this little town called Harmony and I live on the outskirts of Harmony. We have around 10 acres here. How about you?
Katie
I'm from Franklin, so not terribly far from Butler.
Tim
No, I used to fish Oil Creek quite a bit. I don't want to burn any spots here, but that was one of my favorite rivers growing up.
Katie
Yep. I didn't fish there a lot, but I remember going there a couple times as a kid and I I think we caught, I remember catching like rock bass, maybe little smallies, I don't know if there's smallmouth in there. I don't have a ton of great memories from that time, but I know I didn't catch trout at that point in my life. So that was, I missed out on that, unfortunately. But were you, going back to the fly tying, were you like a crafty kid? Is that what drew you to fly tying? Or was it something else? Like what, you know, were you doing other, other like hands-on crafts and this one just stuck?
Tim
No, I mean, I was never into Legos or anything like that. I mean, as a child, I was definitely more athletic. That was something that drew me, you know, the competition, that aspect. I liked to play baseball and soccer when I was younger. Then I played football and just got into track and field and that type of stuff. So I love the notion of competition. But no, to answer your question, it's funny you say that because as a father, you know, I have a son who's seven and a daughter who's three. I'm always pushing them into more of these, I don't wanna say crafty, but that type of stuff where you design and you build and you evaluate and you kind of redesign. But as a child, I wasn't that way. So the fact that fly tying stuck is really just that, I don't know, needle in a haystack. It was just an area of my life that probably things didn't line up, but it really did stick with me. And I mean, I remember my parents having parties with all their friends over at the house, and they would kind of expect my sister and me to make an entrance and be around and talk to others. And I would just be locked inside my bedroom, just cranking out flies, trying to think, if this fly catches fish, maybe this one will as well. And I think there was just something about that notion It's kind of tricking your prey. The one thing, Katie, that I guess I'll go back to, I was definitely a reader as well. Even though I was very athletic, I loved to read. I could just, for hours at a time. I'm the kid that would say he was going to the bathroom and I would just lock myself in at nine o'clock at night and stay in there for two hours reading. There was this other aspect of my life where I loved to spend time at the library, but it related to fly fishing and fly tying. I was that kid that would go to the Butler Library and I would just pull all their fly fishing and fly tying books and I'd just sit them on a table and I would just be going through the paragraphs and I would just try to find little hints or just some little tricks, I guess, that the authors left in there that we had to kind of decode and figure out, like it was a big mystery. And I would read something about a certain shade of olive and I was like, that's the key. I have to tie an olive wooly bugger but I have to find it in this shade. So I would then call Cabela's and go to my local fly shop and try to find that one thing that was gonna be the secret to catch all the fish. So I think there was also that notion of mystery that was involved that kept me coming back.
Katie
I think that's kind of a common thread in the fly fishing world is always looking for that one little secret. And I feel like I hear things all the time like on other podcasts and stuff where I hear a tip and I'm like, oh, that's it. That's why I'm not catching fish on whatever creek. And then I go out and I do it and I'm like, no, I just suck here, I guess. Like, there's one little thing. It's hardly ever one little thing like that that's going to be making all the difference. It's putting it all together and finding the balance between everything. But tell me how you got from this kid starting out fly tying, looking at Cabela's for the right color, to where you are now as a fly tier. Maybe we'll get into fishing a little bit too, but you obviously have a book out, and I know we'll talk about that and the fact that you're writing your second, but tell me how you get from that little kid to now having a fly tying book and being one of the most well-known fly tiers, at least that I hear about. I hear your name all the time in the world of fly tying.
Tim
Yeah, well, thanks. I guess it's not too big of a leap to go from, you know, my 10 year old self to where I am now. The kind of the in between that happened as I got closer to college, I decided, you know, I wanted to go to college. I wasn't quite sure of my major. I did a little bit of research, but every time I was fishing, and this is gonna sound bad, my uncle John would always say, "Everywhere we go, Tim, there's always dentists and teachers on the water." It's like, dentist and teachers, they must not work. And I kind of started like shuffling things. I was like, well, I don't want to be a dentist, but I think I could be a teacher. I'm like, I'm really good at talking with others, communicating, plus I have my summers off, so I'm gonna go that route. So I did a little bit of job shadowing, you know, kind of liked the experience, went into teaching, I graduated from Clarion University, and right outside of school, I was really excited because I had my summers off, and that's a really big deal, especially as a 20-year-old, even though I didn't make any money at the time. But I kind of just pushed that aside. I mean, you know that going into education, and I realized that I had this opportunity in the summers to maybe become a fly fishing guide. So that was one of my desires. So I decided to start poking around. I took a trip out to Montana and I fell in love with Montana. You know, we fished the Missouri River, spent a month out there with one of my mentors, John Dunn. And when I returned from that river, like the very next week I got a magazine in the mail. It was Fly Fisherman Magazine. And on the cover was a picture of the Delaware River. And it had a question or it posed a statement saying something along the lines of, is the Delaware River, the Missouri of the East. And I'm like, well, I just fished in the Missouri, so I better go check out this Delaware. So I made plans and started fishing the Delaware, just fell in love with it. It was just an awesome fishery. And I would go to the fly shop, and my friends and I would be talking with them, and we'd be talking about our fish for the day. And this one fly shop, they're like, you didn't catch that many fish. I'm like, yeah, I caught a lot of fish. And they're like, they were big. I'm like, yeah, they're all over 20 inches, 18 to 24 inch range. And they were just kind of blown away that I was catching these numbers. So the owner was, he asked if he could go fishing with me the next day, 'cause I don't think he believed me. And I was like, absolutely. And I just slayed fish that day. And he hired me on the spot to be a guide and he wanted me to concentrate on emergers. So for a couple seasons, I guided on the West Branch and the main stem of the Delaware, occasionally the East Branch, but we basically, you know, I was the person that if we had clients who wanted to learn, kind of push themselves in fly fishing and focus on emergers, you know, I was gonna be the guide that would be set up for that situation. It was a lot of fun. but after a couple seasons, you know, I'm teaching all school year, I'm guiding in the summer, and like your own fishing starts to kind of deteriorate. And I thought to myself, you know, I want to be the one that's being rowed around, not the one doing the rowing. So that's when I kind of shifted gears, and I wanted to figure out just a way that I could kind of nose into the fly fishing community. I didn't really have these, any grand thoughts at the time, Katie, because in my mind, and I'll say this to this day, anyone who knows me and who knows me as a tire as a fly fisher will always say, I'm a much better fly fisher than I am a tire. I'm not saying my tying's bad, but it's just, in my own circles, people will laugh at my flies, like, oh, these flies will never catch fish. So it's really funny, is now that I have these books out and all these YouTube videos, because at the time, it was, my tying was above average, there's no doubt about it. But in terms of my fishing ability, that was really what was outpacing my tying. But then I kind of took a step back, and I thought, well, during the winter, it's always slow. Why don't I set up a camera, and I just record some YouTube videos. Again, with no thoughts except just posting them to YouTube. And I knew nothing about YouTube. So I just made a couple videos, I posted them. I would email them to my dad and all my friends, that type of stuff. And really didn't think much of it until one day I got a notification and it was like I have 100 subscribers. And I didn't even know what a subscriber was. And I'm like, ooh, this is kinda cool. So I started making more videos. And then the next thing, I started having sponsors. And it just kinda skyrocketed from there. So that was kind of that leap. It was putting my stuff on YouTube and probably the biggest thing I'll tell for anyone who's listening, who's kind of thinking about what they wanna do, it's that I didn't give up. Because there were so many instances where people would criticize me because maybe I would say something incorrectly and I just wouldn't catch myself. Or they would make fun of my fingernails if I hadn't manicured them prior to time. I mean, there was just so many negative comments on YouTube and that was almost a decade ago that I'm sure it's even worse now. But you just have to kind of get over that. Just say you're putting your stuff out there and it's gonna resonate with some people and it's not gonna resonate with others. And fortunately, I had pretty thick skin. I just kept grinding, kept putting videos out and then one thing led to another. And I don't wanna say poof, here I am, but kind of along that trajectory, I started getting invitations to Tide events such as the International Fly Tying Symposium and the Fly Fishing Show. And when you tie those events, you just get more exposure. So I started having clubs contact me because they wanted me to give presentations to their Trout Unlimited group or to their fly fishing club. So that was like another opportunity. And each opportunity just kind of built upon my experience level and just made me better at presenting, maybe better at tying, maybe better at fly fishing. And then along the way, I ran into an individual named Jay Nichols and he's the publisher of, oh gosh, I'm gonna blank on his publishing group. He's a publisher. He used to be an editor for Fly Fisherman Magazine. And I knew that he was kind of an editor and he worked with Stackpole Books. So, one thing led to another and one day, he sent me a message on Facebook and it was, "Tim, do you know of anyone who could write a fly time book?" And I got this little notification, Katie, and I'm like seeing this. And it was like really one of those, like really kind of out of body experiences because everything that happened along the way for me was always just, it was a big deal. Like a thousand subscribers was a big deal. Like a hundred thousand video views was a big deal. And now I'm at like four million video views. Every little milestone is very meaningful, even though I may not post about it on social media. It really is a big deal. But then this message from Jay was like, is this real? This can't be real. To the point where I told my wife about it, I didn't tell anybody else, and I didn't reply. Because in my mind, Jay had misclicked. He sent it to the wrong Tim. Maybe he meant to Tim Flagler. I'm like, this is not for me. So I'm just gonna kind of hold off, I gave Jim a couple days to delete the message and none will be the smarter. And after two days, he didn't. So I'm like, oh shoot, I better reply back to him. So I replied back to him, we had some conversations, and then my first book, “Fly Tying for Everyone" came to be. And it was a grind because I knew zero about photography. And when you're writing a book, every thread can be seen. So I had to learn macro photography. I had to really up my fly tying game. I mean, I just had to kind of completely, I don't want to say transform myself, but just push myself to this upper limit that I didn't even know was possible. And since then, I've been very fortunate because I got into photography and that led me to videos. And it now has really improved my YouTube videos and it's improved so many other aspects of things that I do whenever I'm out fishing. So that was kind of like, I don't want to say that's kind of how I came to be where I am now because that's the, what do you call it, the Cliff Notes version of that. But trust me when I say there was a lot of hard work, there was a lot of learning along the way. to kind of show up where I am today.
Katie
Yeah, I like that you have a combination of YouTube videos and the book because fly tying is one of those things that I actually think, so YouTube videos are obviously really helpful 'cause you can see the techniques in motion, but when someone's tying, like when I'm tying and I don't know what I'm doing, having the book open next to me and being able to look at it without it moving away from me while I'm doing the thing is really helpful. I feel like a lot of activities are like their best in video form and like no questions asked. But fly tying is one of those things But I think it really helps to have a physical book there in front of you. So when you're like, "Hey, was I doing that right?" You don't have to like click, you know, take your hands off the thing to click back in YouTube and see what was going on. You can just look over. And so I think having both of those things, YouTube as a reference, if I want to know how exactly do you do that technique, what's it look like when it's done? I can look at that. But also if I already understand the technique, I just want to know what the fly should be looking like at the stage. I can just glance over at the book and not have to take my hands off the thing. So I think that's kind of a unique activity in that it benefits from having both like up with you at the exact same time And the book truly is like an indispensable resource for fly tying it I don't think it can be completely outsourced to video. I don't think fly tying books are gonna go away anytime soon
Tim
Yeah, it's funny you say that because I'm kind of on this I go back and forth because I really feel that video just enhances So many aspects of it but now I look at it from the other perspective now that I've you know been on this side of writing a book and And the stuff that you can put into a book that will just never fit into a video, I mean, it's just impossible. I mean, I have a couple videos out on the mop fly or the micro mop fly, and then I included it in my book, which I'm proud to say I think I'm the first author to ever have a mop fly in a book. I don't know if I should be proud of that or not, but I am. And whenever I look through just the aspect of what I accomplished in the book talking about the mop fly, you can kind of argue the mop fly should be one of the easiest flies in the world. I mean, it technically could be, but I was able to enhance it to show some other techniques Those are little tips that I didn't include in my YouTube video, because that's the other side of YouTube and of making videos is that you only have X amount of minutes. I mean, you can make an hour long video on the moth fly, no one's gonna watch it. So you're trying to talk and be concise and to give a lot of information in a seven to 15 minute video, but you're gonna miss stuff. Or you're gonna, there are gonna be some missteps along the way, or you're gonna do a time technique just in a hurry and it might be missed. So it's nice that you can kinda slow that down in a book. Though it's kinda sad to say, I don't know how many more fly tying books are really coming and are gonna be pushed around the corner because it's just so easy for people to do videos now that some of these fly tires that I think are the experts out there are really just leaning on YouTube because they know they can get their work out there from that perspective. Though I'd argue that once you have a book there, it's gonna be there for decades to come, at least I hope.
Katie
Yeah, I would agree. I think, like I said, I think the video is really helpful but I almost feel like I wanna look at the book and then when I'm not sure how to follow what the book's telling me, to go to YouTube and watch a step-by-step of how to do that thing. But the book is always my first go-to resource. So I will still be supporting you book writers out there as you come out with more fly tying books.
Tim
Thanks. We'll take it. And by the way, Jay Nichols' Headwater Books. I knew it would come to me, which again, I had to Google it, but I just wanted to throw that out there. So Jay, if you're listening, I apologize.
Katie
Perfect. Before we get into some of the actual body, the tips and techniques and stuff of fly tying. I wanted to hear about the title of your book and also the idea of like flies for the 21st century. So the book is called fly tying for everyone. And in the introduction, you kind of reference, you know, time flies that catch fish and flies for the 21st century. I want to hear about kind of the evolution of the title and that idea of like, 21st century flies and flies that catch fish like where did that all come from? Sure.
Tim
And I guess I'll pay a little homage here back to Jay Nichols, because this was kind of collaborative effort. I mean, It was his idea for the book. And he really gave me complete lead on the book. He said, "You can put anything you want in the book. "It's yours." It'll obviously be a little bit of editing at the end, but it was truly my book. And I say that, that I'll kind of stand tall with it. The only fly that he was pushing, he said, "You have to have this one in there," was a perdigon, just because it's such a popular fly. And now in my current book that I'm working on, there's gonna be multiple versions of perdigon. So it's just a fly that will continue to live on, I believe, for a while to come. The only other advice that Jay gave was, And this is what set my ideas for the book. He told me that there's a lot of books out there that you can learn how to tie a parachute atoms. And he said, "I don't want your book to be another one. We have enough of those books already out there." So he wanted just kind of a newer version of fly tying for today. And by just saying that one thing, don't worry about having the parachute atoms, I felt like that really kind of guided me into a direction that was different than other books. Because a lot of people will look at my book, and I think for the first one, for fly tying for everyone, When you look through it, there's not a lot of patterns there that are patterns that you'll know or you'll just go into a fly shop and you'll see on the shelf. And that could be a positive or that could be a negative. I think you can argue both sides of it. But I didn't write this book for somebody who already knew how to tie flies or for an expert, let's put it that way. I mean, my book was geared toward beginning and intermediate fly tires. It's not a step-by-step where if you start with fly one, by the time you get to fly 13, you're gonna be an expert or anything like that. It's just, there are flies that go through dry flies, and mergers, nymphs and streamers. And it took me a long time to select those 13 flies. I looked at it as, how can I find a baker's dozen amount of flies that number one, they have to catch fish, and number two, they're gonna illustrate a number of, you know, today's most used fly tying techniques, and they're gonna incorporate both natural and synthetic materials. And I don't wanna say cutting edge materials, but just the new stuff that we're using like right now. So whenever I, you know, I wanted to kind of wrap up my book and have it be, I don't wanna say a snapshot being tied in the 2020s, but that's really what I was going for, was that if you could look at my book and you could say, oh, these are the flies that are being tied, you know, it's the year 2023 right now, I think I can confidently say you can look at my book and say, oh, these are the flies that people are tying in the year 2023, not 1975, not 1989, not 1994. The woolly buggers, those have been tied a million times. There's a hundred books out there that will show you how to do it. So, you know, for me, I wanted to have a jig bugger. So I showed kind of a more modern version a woolly bugger. Now I affectionately call it my uncle bugger, but it's basically a woolly bugger without chenille or hackle. It was a much easier fly to tie. It's more adorable than a bugger and it catches just as many, if not more, fish. It's on a jig hook, so it's less likely to snag. I tried to build in these little, I don't say modern ways to look at flies today, but that's really what I was trying to achieve with my book.
Katie
I really like hearing that explanation because when I first opened your book, I wouldn't say this is a criticism, but I was surprised that it didn't just start like every other book I've looked at where it's like you start with a midge and then you like add some wire to that midge on the next fly and then you add some this and this and you know you don't the first maybe 20 flies in the book are super simple patterns that you probably already have in your box and I understand that approach because it's like you know anyone can tie a midge I could tie a midge with my eyes closed like it's it's not hard but when I've gone through those books I do often feel like I'm just putting more of the same fly in my box I already have like a million of because they're all over every fly shop So I was surprised to open up yours and see that the first fly is something like kind of cool and different than what I normally see. But I wasn't sure like what the logic behind that was. So it's kind of neat to hear a different approach of like, "Hey, you probably already know how to tie these like basic flies and you probably already have so many that you don't actually need to tie them very much and they're usually pretty affordable at the fly shop. What are some other flies that you might not have a ton of in your box or that are filling a niche that you don't have yet?" You know, like a parachute Adams is great because it fills so many different roles. But if it's not working, then maybe one of these more specialized flies that you might not have a ton of, that might be the ticket to catching a fish that day. So I like hearing the logic behind that. And it does set your book apart, I feel like, from most fly-tying books I've seen before.
Tim
Yeah. And I think that's what I was going for too. As a teacher, now I'll take a step back into my other role, because I'm not sure if we've introduced this, but I'm a sixth grade elementary school teacher. And from that perspective, teaching sixth grade especially, you really have to break things apart, especially for children today. That's kind of the aspect of education. In my book, I don't do that. I don't say, "Start here." But I guess the one aspect that I tried to really focus on was that through each of the flies, I went through step by step by step by step. At one point, I was on the phone with a member of Fly Fishing Team USA. He was just asking me what's going on. I'm like, "Oh, I'm working on a Frenchie right now." He's like, "Oh, you're just tying it?" I'm like, "No, it's for my book. I have a Frenchie in it." He's like, "Oh, cool. How's it going?" I'm like, "Oh, great." 24 or something, and he's like, "There's not 24 steps to a Frenchie." And I'm like, "Oh no, there's not." But for the book, I wanted to really just break it down where if you're tying and you're sitting at your bench and you wanna tie a Frenchie, you'll see where did I start my thread, where did I finish my thread, where did I start my tail, where did I start my ribbing. It's gonna all, I'm gonna give you as many details as I can versus in some books, and this isn't a criticism of the book, sometimes you're just limited on space. Some books, it's like you start your thread and the next thing you know, they have their tail, their ribbing, and they're already adding and stuff too. And for somebody who's experienced, it's easy to say, oh, I know how they got to that point. But for somebody, especially at the beginning level, they wanna see, where do I put my thread? And some people wanna break it down into as fine of a segment as they can. So I think my book kind of gives that opportunity where if you are more experienced, you're gonna buzz through some of those pictures, though I try to put little tying tips in each one of them as well. So I try to build, there's a lot of information in there, let's put it that way. and it took me a long time to kind of generate and get it all out, but now that it's out there, it was a blast. But then now, the constructive part of this, as I'm working on my next project, I'm thinking like, oh, why didn't I do this in my first book, and why didn't I do this? And I look back and I'm like, man, that was so bad, I should have done this instead. But you know, you just learn along the way, and I'm just trying to make my next one better than the first.
Katie
Well, as someone who's not super great at fly tying, I can say that I appreciate the step-by-step, because I have seen flies before in other books I don't really understand exactly what they did to get from one picture to the next. And the description they have, I know, like it's probably one of those things that's just really hard to explain. And so I can get that they're trying to do that, but I'm just not picking up on what exactly I'm supposed to do. And I think books like that are really great as references, because there's flies I know how to tie, but then if I haven't done it for a while, I kind of forget like, wait, what order? How far exactly down the hook do I go? And it's really nice to have that, those kind of quick ones as just a reference like, oh yeah, okay, I see what I'm supposed to do there. But when you're just tying a fly for the first time, I really need that, like step by step, like tell me exactly where to put my thread. So I really appreciate that. Moving into the fly tying itself a little bit, I want to kind of start at the beginning for somebody who maybe has never tied flies before or is kind of like me where I've had some experience but I go through periods where I tie and I don't tie and I feel like I'm kind of picking it back up again for the first time when I start again. Just kind of some of the basic tools, like if someone's starting to get They're going to the fly shop, they're like, "I'd like to get into fly tying." What are some of the basic things they should get? What are some of the basic things they should know how to do? Maybe we'll kind of go through this in a logical order, but I'll kind of let you take it away there with tips for someone going in for the first time trying to get what they need.
Tim
Yeah, that's a great question, Katie. I guess the tricky part is that some people I've noticed, they come in at different areas. Maybe they just buy certain things, they don't get a few others, and then they're kind of forced to figure it out along the way. Let me first talk about my entrance in. My Uncle John gave me a vice. So I had the vice taken care of, but I needed a bunch of the tools. And the easy way for me to get the tools, I'll go back to Cabela's, which I still have the phone number memorized. I called it so many times. It's 1-800-237-4444. And I got this Cabela's, like this little wooden box that opened up. It had a screw and vice, but it came with all the tools. What was nice about that is that it was reasonably priced. We're talking like $40, but it had all of the basic tools like ready to go. It had a vice that was complete garbage, but I have one for my uncle. So that was kind of my own entrance. And I tend to kind of gear people towards something along those lines. I don't want to say do the exact same as me, but whenever I look at a little set like that, if you can buy a little tool set where the majority of the items already come in it, and I'll go over what should be there, then you have a quality set of tools that are good to go, and then you can just price your vice accordingly. Because we're very fortunate in today's age, we have so many great vices that are out there that are even starting somewhere around $75. I mean, there's a vice that I use for my fly tying classes. It's around $50. I can't think of the name right now. It's kind of a knockoff of a regal vice, somewhere along those lines, but it gets the job done. And they work, they've lasted for a handful of years already with 12 year old kids just banging on them. So it's nice that you don't have to spend a boatload of money to get into it, but there is that steep learning curve. So when people will email me, I'll basically recommend, you're looking for a tool set that's gonna have some basics. And by the basics, you need something to hold your thread. So you're looking for a thread holder. You might need a little tool that's going to allow you to get your thread through your bobbin. So you want your little, there's like a little wire tool that can kind of pull through, it's called a threader. So then you have your bobbin set up, that's where your thread goes. Then the next tool, you're gonna need something to cut your threads. You're gonna look for a pair of scissors. A lot of people, they're like me, they might just grab scissors out of their junk drawer, and they're like, "These will work." But eventually, depending on what style of fly you're tying, you know, for trout flies, you're gonna need smaller scissors, a little bit more fine tip, versus saltwater, you can get away with something a little bit more heavy duty. So you're gonna get those scissors. Then at that point, I kind of fast forward to at the end of the fly, you have to finish the fly with a knot. And most people wanna jump to this really complicated thing called a whip finisher, which is great. To this point, to this day in my life, I don't use one. I learned how to do a hand whip finish when I was younger. But the first kind of knot that I learned was called a half hitch. And there's a tool that's called a half hitch tool. In some of these tool kits that you buy, you can actually, what they'll have is a half-inch tool to be like integrated into the handle of one of the tools. But as an 11-year-old, my uncle John taught me how to just take a pen apart and just use the end of a pen. So I could just wrap my thread around that and then slide it down the pen and get it over the hook eye. But I would at least recommend, those are kind of your starting points. 'Cause if you have those ones, then everything else just kind of comes along the way. For instance, maybe you want a pair of hackle pliers to use if you have a little dexterity problems with your hand or just to hold on to hackle or fine wires as you're wrapping them around the hook. So a pair of hackle pliers are great. For people who are thinking about buying a set, I always recommend there's some hackle pliers that are just a piece of metal, and there's others that have a little spring incorporated. I always recommend to go with a pair with a spring, simply because you can kind of pull on them a little bit more and they won't tear a fragile material. So I would go with a pair of hackle pliers. There's some other really neat things, maybe you could do something like a dubbing loop tool, because I love to make dubbing loops. So that's kind of something that I would push people to think about getting, but you don't have to go over the world buying all these intricate tools. It's just kind of think to yourself, that tool is there to solve a problem or make time easier. Sometimes you don't need them. I mean, when I was younger, I used to have this, I think it was called a gallows tool to make parachute flies that attached to the top of my parachute posts. I was like, you have to have this attached so you can tie in the base of your parachute. I've never used that tool for 25 years. I mean, I bought it thinking I was gonna use it all the time. I used it just for the sake of using it, but I realized once I figured out a few of the techniques, it was much faster for me to just kind of speed it up on my own. So those are some of the basic tools that I would recommend. And I'll be honest, I get a lot of questions from companies out there that want me to put together tool sets and they want me to kind of sell them with my name on it. I haven't done that yet, only because going back to this, I don't think a lot of people want all these tools that are out there. I think people just, they buy along the way. So I'd love to tell people, go out and buy that little Cabela's kit, because I think that Cabela's kit will have pretty much everything that you'll need. Some other little tools that I can think of might include a bodkin, that would be basically a needle. I mean, you can make your own, but it's nice to kind of have that to poke up things on your fly, you know, make sure you have a clean eye. Something else that I've really used a lot in my career is called like a little piece of Velcro. There's a bunch of different names for this, but it's like a Velcro brush and it's used to make the fly buggier. So you can make one with a Popsicle stick and just glue a piece of Velcro on it. but there's a company called Stonfo that has their own little Velcro brush that works really well. If you're into using deer hair, or if you think about you're gonna use a fly like an X-Caddis, an Elk Care Caddis, or spin deer hair, then you would use something called a hair stacker. That would be something else that you'd wanna incorporate. But along with, I think, the ones that I've already mentioned, I really think that that's gonna be a nice little set for people to get started. Then we look at the aspect of the vice. And this is where, I mean, you can ask, My favorite line is you can ask 15 different fly tires what their favorite device is, and you're gonna get 20 different answers. It's just, there are so many different devices out there today. So my recommendation is basically pick a price. How much are you trying to spend? And then just try to do some research in that price range and figure out what the nicest one is around there. I mean, I'll tell people, you're always welcome to email me. Give me your price range. Tell me what style of flies you're going to tie, and I'll tell you which one I think you should purchase. But you have to live with that decision, not me. But that's one of those things where I think starting at that $75 price range and up, there are a heck of a lot of great vices out there. And then some people might say, gosh, I like the $100 vice, but this one that's $200 is so much better. And then my advice is, well, don't buy it yet. Maybe look on Facebook Marketplace, because in the pandemic, a lot of people got into fly tying and they did it and they enjoyed it. And now they've kind of moved on to other stuff. So I'm starting to see more and more quality used fly fishing and fly tying things kind of popping up places like Marketplace.
Katie
What are some things that you look for in a good vice? Like if you're trying to choose one for the first time, what are some features that a vice might have that might benefit somebody tying a certain style of fly?
Tim
Yeah, sure. I'm looking for only a couple. I mean, number one, it's got to hold a hook securely. That's what a vice is for. And I said that in my first book. If it can't hold a hook, get rid of it. And that little, I'm not going to bash Cabela's, but that little Cabela's vice in the little wooden kit, it did not hold small hooks securely. It held larger hooks, but not small hooks. So for me, I'm looking for one that has the ability to hold down to a size 22, up to a saltwater style hook securely. And there's not a lot that can do that in that range. So sometimes you may just have to say to yourself, I'm only gonna focus on trout flies with this vise, or I'm only gonna focus on saltwater flies and buy that vise accordingly. I look for one that will also offer the ability to be something we call a rotary vise, where you can kind of swivel it around and it can spin at a 360 degrees. And that allows you to see both sides of the fly. Now, I'm also looking at this as, I tend to be pretty critical of my flies, but as a tire, you tend to only look at one side of your fly, depending on if you're a right-handed or left-handed tire. And I was just in Alaska last week, and they had a couple of vices set up at this lodge where we stayed, and we were tying, and I was kinda showing my buddy Rob a couple little tips about fly tying, and he wanted to tie a fly, 'cause he hasn't tied one for a few years. So we tied this fly, which he caught a gorgeous king salmon on right after, the very next day on that fly. But as he tied it, he finished it, I'm like, "All right, great, "here's kind of some things to focus on." He's like, "What do you mean, this looks awesome." I'm like, "Well, look at the other side of the fly." And he spun it around, he's like, "Oh my gosh, this side looks terrible, "I didn't see this along the way." So it's nice if you have a vice that you can kind of rotate and spin, so you can see both sides of it and see exactly what's going on with the fly. So those are kind of the two biggies. Then at that point, being that I like to tie a lot of trout flies, I look at a fly that gives me, or I look at a vice that gives me the hook. So I look for a really fine set of jaws. That's what I tend to go for. I mean, there's a lot of vices that get a lot of acclaim, but whenever you look at their jaws and that's the point that holds on to the hook, they're really, I don't want to say fat jaws, but that's what they look like to me. And they just take up so much space and it's a little bit more difficult to maneuver around them. So whenever you look at the set of, for instance, the vices that I used in my book, my first one, those jaws are a set of jaws that I believe are probably the best in fly tying today. And they're just so fine yet they can really still clamp down and hold a hook of small proportions pretty secure. So I think if I'm kind of, to kind of wrap it up, those are the three things. It's got to hold a range of hooks secure. I want that ability to rotate, which some people want a vice to rotate because they can kind of speed up the process. That's a whole other discussion. And then third, I want to have just a lot of space to maneuver around my hook.
Katie
Now what I find to be a harder problem, I guess, than choosing tools is choosing materials because the thing about tools is that there's kind of a limited number. I mean, you can just keep buying stuff to solve every little niche situation, but for the most part, like there's, I would say, you know, five to 10 tools that get most jobs done. But what frustrates me is when I open up a book and every fly calls for a specific recipe of things and half of them I don't have because I bought the previous flies recipe of things. And now this one calls for this color, this type of thread, this type of hook, this, And it feels like I can never have a complete set of materials because every fly calls for this very specific stuff. So I kind of want to hear how you would go about kind of planning for your first set of materials, like what you would go about buying. My technique has kind of been I start a fly and I get everything I need for that. And then when I get to a new fly, I will go buy that stuff. And so I assume that eventually I will kind of have all the stuff I need. But at the end of the day, there's like a bottomless number of flies and they’re all gonna call for this specific recipe. How would you handle materials for a newbie? They want to tie a handful of basic flies, but every book tells them a different recipe, every book tells them a different set of stuff. How would you handle that as a newbie who does not have unlimited money and time to go buy materials?
Tim
All right, well let's get a couple things out of the way. For starters, I'm guilty of that. I'm somebody that I will give everything specifically as to what I'm using. Doesn't matter if it's a video or a book, and that's different than a lot of other fly tires because there are some, there's some very prominent tires and fly fishers that it will just give general, they'll just say for hook, dry fly hook. And let me, I'll kind of argue both sides. The reason I like to be as specific as possible is if I don't say it, someone will email me, someone will contact me and they'll say, I wanna know what hook you were using. So I wanna give as many details as I can, but now let's get to a big concept in fly tying. And it's that you have the ability to vary based on your own needs and your own resources. So kind of keep that in the back of your mind that just because I said you have to use this Hanukkah and a size 14, there's gonna be 25 other different options that you can use instead of that specific hook. It's just the one that I use. There's probably a reason why I'm choosing those specific materials in my videos and in my book. If there is a reason, I'll say it because the other kind of aspect of this, I don't think people should have to spend a beaucoup amount of money to get into fly tying. I agree with you 100%. But I also know that if I'm watching a video, like a friend of mine, his name is Devin Olson, he's the captain of Fly Fishing Team USA, He's just one of the top fly fishers. He travels to the world to fish in competitions. And if I'm watching a Devon Olson video and Devon says to use brown olive in this material, then I want brown olive in that material. And I know it doesn't matter, Katie, and I'll tell you right now, it doesn't matter 'cause you could use brown or olive in about six other materials. But if I'm using that specific one that Devon told me to use, I have more confidence in the fly. And if I have more confidence in the fly, I'm gonna fish it with more confidence and I'm gonna catch more fish on it. So I will kind of, I want to preface everything I'm saying with that understanding too. Now to answer your question, we got all that stuff out of the way. And to answer your question, you're taking the right approach to this and you're taking a very similar approach to the one that I took. And this is kind of the approach that I take with, you know, all beginner fly tires. And even those who are intermediate, we're talking my father-in-law, a friend of mine just the other day called and wanted this same advice to this question. And it's really simple, especially if the person already fly fishes. because if they're already fly fish, then it's perfect. I can just say to them, what are your top five flies that you use on a regular basis that you lose as well? And it's really simple. I mean, for the most part, it's gonna be a pheasant tail, maybe a hares ear or a waltz worm. You know, maybe they're gonna go with a woolly bugger or a mop fly. Maybe they're gonna talk about another streamer or this one dry fly, maybe the X caddis that they use all the time. Doesn't matter where they're fishing, that's the fly they throw. So my recommendation is just start with your three to five most used flies, find recipes for those that make sense, and buy just those materials specifically for those flies in those sizes, and just start there. And once you have that base collection, you know you're gonna be using those materials 90% of the time. I mean, even right now, I have rooms full of fly tying materials, stuff I'll never use in 10 lifetimes, and I still tie my base, and I travel around the world, so I don't have just a base five flies, but I have around a base 20 flies that depending on what I'm fishing for, these are my 20 go-to flies. These are the flies that I need, and I'm constantly cycling through those materials. Those are the ones I need the most often, and then all these other ones are just kind of those extras. So your approach is definitely it. I can tell you whenever I first got into fly tying, again, I was a little kid, I was broke, I didn't have any cash, I would kind of do the same thing where I would buy all the materials I needed, but then I was also the kid that would go into a fly shop and I would find their bargain bins, and I would just go through the bargain bin, everything that was 60% off, and I would look for random things in there and I would buy that stuff as well. And it's funny now because as an adult, I'm looking through my materials all the time, looking for stuff for new creations. And every now and then I'll come across some of that bargain bin material, 'cause I still will buy it to this day. And it will just be so off the wall and such like an ugly color and I'll be like, oh my gosh, that's the ugliest green I've ever seen. I have to use that for a Frenchie. That's going on, that's the thorax right there. And what's kind of now, it's difficult, and I'll kind of morph this question, is that now I'm tying some flies with that material that people will have, they'll never be able to buy it in their life. You'll never be able to find some of these materials that I'm using, which is why I can't talk about them. It kind of stinks because now I'm like, oh, I have this fly that this is awesome, Katie, you should check this out. And you'll be like, oh, where do I get this stuff for it? I'm like, you can't. Unless you find it on eBay that somebody listed it's 20 years old, you're not. So I think your approach to it is definitely a sound one. So start with those flies that you fish the most often and go from there. And if it's somebody who's listening who has never fished before, And then you have to at least say to yourself, what do I wanna fish for? Is it trout? Is it bass? Is it striped bass? And call a local fly shop, phone a friend, go to a Facebook group, try to find a local Trout Unlimited, find people who are fishing that waterway, and then just start probing, not just one person, but five or six people, and just ask them, what are the three flies you used? And eventually, you're gonna find some consistency among those three flies, and then you just buy materials for those three flies. And then you have a choice as a fly tar. You can start to say, "I'm going to just start to buy a little bit of everything because I just want to experiment in fly tying." Or you can just take that fly fishing approach and just say, "I'm just going to buy as I needed for more and more flies that I want to add to my fly box."
Katie
This might be a bit of a difficult question to answer, but how do you know when you can replace a material? I'll give an example. If I am just, let's say I'm just tying something super simple, like a black midge, I could I could obviously tie that midge in the specific black thread that was called for in the recipe, or I could tie it in a slightly different shade, or a slightly different texture. I look at the fly and I'm like, "This is obviously close enough to work." Whereas something like CDC has very specific properties that you couldn't just replace it with any old material and assume it's going to behave the same way because that's chosen for that specific reason. I know that there's been a push of encouraging people to, "You don't have to follow things is written. You can make replacements as needed if you have something similar. How do you know when a material is something that you can replace with something else? Or if it's something that really matters to that fly and you really need to get that material if you want to tie that fly properly?
Tim
Well, I think you answered the question when you were asking. I think it really comes down to understanding why each piece of that material is there. And maybe that's something that a lot of books can explain better than videos. Because as I go through a fly, in my book there's a fly called the condor parachute. The condor emerger, I should say. Terrible name for it, by the way. And in that fly, though, there's a bunch of different things that people may not have at their disposal. Like, for instance, for the tail of that fly, it's not a tail, it's a piece of antron, it's a trailing shuck. If I was making a video, I would just be able to tie in a piece of antron and just say, this represents a trailing shuck, and move on. But in the book, I was at least able to acknowledge, like, this is a trailing shuck, it's meant to imitate the nipple skin that got pushed back, it's very translucent, it's gonna also catch to the fish's attention, it could act as a hotspot. So in that case, you can look at that and say, I may not have antron, but now I'm realizing it's meant to imitate a nymph. They got crumpled up and pushed away. I don't have antron, what else do I have that could imitate the nymph that got pushed away? Or what do I have that could act as a hotspot of the tail? So I think it's understanding what each of those, why they're there in the first place, and then saying to yourself, number one, are they important? Like, in my mind, yes, they are. Like, I wouldn't put something on a fly unless it needed to be there, 'cause that's a waste of time, it's a waste of resources, it's a waste of materials. Like, there's no, like, if I'm tying, like right now I have a fly on my vice, like I'm looking for something, I just found, I'm looking for like a certain resin to put on it. Like, I'm not gonna waste time looking and putting this resin on unless I think it should be on there. So now, when you go back to that aspect of like for CDC, if you say to yourself, like, why did somebody put CDC on this fly? Was the CDC on there because it's a fly that's gonna be going subsurface? And if it's subsurface, that means CDC is just gonna be moving. So then you would say to yourself, I'm looking for something that's gonna have some movement to it. So what has some movement to it? Maybe I can find another little hackle. I can find a piece of marabou, just something that will impart some movement. Or if it's a dry fly and that CDC is meant to float it, you're like, all right, well, this CDC is meant to float it. Why did they put CDC on here versus deer hair? And you kind of have to, that's the puzzle part of this, where it's like, we're just going through CDC, but for instance, like CDC, it's a very delicate material. So it lands really gentle. It has a little bit of movement when it's on the surface versus deer hair is very stiff, very rigid, but it floats really high. So it's a little bit easier to see. So you tend to go deer hair and faster moving water, CDC and slower moving water. So then you might say to yourself, well, I don't have CDC, but I want something that will land a little gentle. Maybe I'll do a parachute fly instead of canvas, instead of a deer hair pattern instead. So I think it's really understanding the properties and trying to get into the mind of that fly tying designer to say, "Why did this person incorporate this material?" And if they did, what material do I have that will kind of accomplish that same goal that I can get away with in a similar color and a similar size?
Katie
Sure, and I guess the nice thing about it is if you make a change, let's say you're new and you don't really understand why a fly was tied the way it was tied, if you make a change, it's not to say that it won't catch a fish, just because you made an inappropriate change. Let's say you replace CDC with something that just does not behave at all like CDC. But maybe now it sinks a little bit in the water and now it's kind of imitating the merger by accident and now you catch a fish because of that. If you tie a fly wrong, I think it's easy to be like, "Well, this pheasant tail looks like crap." But that doesn't mean that the fish won't eat it. Maybe it looks like something else now that you didn't intend for it to. That's the one nice thing is that you can mess up pretty badly and trout will often still be forgiving in those situations.
Tim
Absolutely. No, you're right. The one person I love to give credit to is my wife, Heather, because when we met, she loved the outdoors. She wasn't into fishing. we used to take her brook trout fishing with bamboo fly rods and we would just dap the water. She was like, "This isn't real fly fishing, Tam." I'm like, "Yes, this is real fly fishing." But then eventually she wanted to learn how to fly fish and she did, but she's really good about, she knows I'm gonna select a fly, I'm gonna tell her where to cast it, and she's gonna catch a fish. And sometimes I don't like that because I've kind of distorted her learning curve because she just got to the point where she's like, "Oh, this is great. "Every time we go fishing, I'm gonna catch 40 trout." I'm like, "Hold on, it doesn't always work that way. "You just happen to be with somebody who kind of knows what they're doing. And, but now to counter that, she'll say to me all the time, like maybe I'll give her a peregrine and she'll say, "What is this fly?" And I'll tell her and she's like, "Well, why is it tied this way? "'Cause the, you know, the waltz worm is tied with fur. "Why is this one not tied with fur? "Like, how's it gonna act differently?" And it's great because by her asking those questions, it's really encouraging her to understand why we're selecting certain flies in certain situations. Which then, to kind of even go down one more path, sometimes she'll just pick a fly, she'll catch a fish and I'll be like, "What are you doing? supposed to use that fly here. And she'll be like, well, I just caught three fish. So I think you're wrong, Tam. And I'm like, darn it. Like, all right, tell me what you did. Why you thought it worked. So it's cool because I'm definitely learning from her as well, seeing kind of how she does stuff a little bit differently, but to see how, now that what you said, it still pays off. And then at the end of the day, we have to also say, we're fishing for a trout. I mean, their brain is smaller than the size of the tip of our pinky. So we tend to overthink a lot of this stuff, which is the fun of it, but they're just fish at the end of the day.
Katie
Right. In a similar vein, I wanna hear your thoughts about adjusting flies themselves, not just the material, but what made me think of this is one of the flies in your book, "The Beachbody Stone." And you had a comment in there about how you can kinda do this to a lot of different flies if you wanna make 'em like sink faster. So it's basically like a pretty slim version of a stonefly. Like it's kind of just the shank of the hook that is forming the body. There's not a lot of material on there. And you mentioned that this can be done to a lot of different flies to get 'em to sink faster. So someone who's new and maybe is tying flies by the recipe, they're mimicking the flies that they get at the fly shop and have in their box. But maybe they want to make an adjustment to make the fly behave a little bit differently. How would you advise somebody to kind of go about thinking about making their own adjustments? Obviously, if they have local insect life, they know what it looks like, and they can imitate it with whatever colors. They can do that. But what are some common ways that you might adjust a fly to make it behave in a known different way?
Tim
OK. That's an interesting question. I'm like, "Oh man, how do I answer this one?" I guess I'll break this apart into a couple of different things. The first way I would mention is to incorporate hotspots into a fly. I think hotspots, they're not a new way of thinking, but a hotspot is something that you can do to attract the attention of fish or to build contrast into your fly. I'd written an article for Fly Tire Magazine a few years ago, and it was all about hotspots and nymphs. And some small things you can do, maybe instead of like a tail that's made out of tailing fibers or coq de leon or hackle fibers or even antron, you can incorporate something like a fluorescent orange or fluorescent pink thread or antron material, something like that. That would be called a blowtorch. So by putting a hotspot in the tail, it just kind of changes it where the fish have this fly that's coming towards them that kind of looks normal, then all of a sudden it's just this gaudy tail, like what the heck happened there? So they might go for it and that could just be the trigger that will grab their attention. People will change nymphs by putting different colors in the beads. Some of the more popular colors are copper, silver, maybe nickel. but I'm somebody that will always constantly play with different colors. Like there's a light pink that works really well. Whenever I'm fishing for pressured fish, I might go to a matte black because it won't grab their attention. So I would definitely encourage people to kind of think about how you can change beads on nymphs. Kind of another aspect of hotspots, you can think about, you know, using a fluorescent colored thread on nymphs. So for instance, when you have a fly like the pheasant tail, you can change it a little bit. You can tie like the normal traditional pheasant tail, but then just build up a bright orange or a bright pink collar at the eye of the fly or directly behind the beak. Just again, something to grab the fish's attention. So that would be one aspect. And don't just limit yourself with nymphs. Think about that with streamers and even dry flies too, that you can build in these little hotspots or these trigger points just to grab the fish's attention. So that would be one area, you know, if you're trying to kind of push yourself into a new area where it's okay to make some variations, by all means that. I mean, you talked about the notion of a slender fly versus a bushier fly. And I think both of those are areas that you can exploit whenever you're tying flies. Whenever I think about slender flies, I'm thinking about flies that need to sink to the bottom of the water column in a hurry. So whenever I'm thinking about flies like that, we're talking about like that beach body stone you said, or even a fly like a peregrine. They're very slender flies that don't have a lot of materials. Sometimes they're coated with a UV resin. They just look bulletproof. I mean, they just sink to the bottom in a hurry. But it doesn't have to be just those flies. Whenever I first started tying flies, One of the most popular nymphs of all time is called the hares ear. I mean, it's just a killer nymph. I mean, it's got a bunch of dubbing and I would tie this fly, I would have a gold rib, I had a nice little tail, I had nice little legs, and then I would grab my Velcro and I would brush it out, it would be all bushy and it worked like so well, caught so many fish. But I just recently interviewed some of the top fly fishers in the world and pretty much all of them tie or fish version of that fly, but they'd like do the exact opposite. They have no tail or a hotspot tail. For their body, they dub it as tight as they can. And then they counter rib it with like fluorocarbon. So they don't necessarily need a flashy ribbing. They just want something that's not gonna come apart. But also, like I was thinking, oh, they're using fluorocarbon because it's gonna resist the fish, you know, it's not gonna tear as easy. And they're like, no, the fluorocarbon's gonna tear just as easily as the thread underneath. But they're using that fluorocarbon to kind of hold it together so it's very compact, so it goes down the water column even faster. So they're doing the exact opposite of like what I did. Like they're not making it buggy. They're trimming it away with scissors to make it less buggy. But then from like that same aspect, there was a fly fisher that I interviewed, his name's Ollie from New Zealand. He's a member of their national team and he fishes all around the world as well. And in his mind, like he had never thought about using something like a fluorocarbon to make this tighter hairs here because he fishes in New Zealand and the fish, they don't get a lot of pressure on some of the waters and they want it very natural. So for him, he wanted it as bushy as can be. So it was funny as I interviewed him versus some other competitors, his first two flies were like super bushy flies. So he was selecting materials that would kind of splay out that he could use a Velcro brush and brush out versus these other competitors wanted them as slender as possible because they were fishing for very pressured fish and they want this to sink in a really fast water situation. So those would be two other little aspects of it. And let's see, so you're saying, what are some other ways that people can vary flies that are acceptable? I would think that kind of the third one would be to vary the colors of them. I think that too often we get focused on like, the fish just want this specific shade of fly, and that's not true. Like sure they will, but there's other areas and there's other situations where a different color to us may just look like, oh, that's just like a white bead on a nymph. Like there's, why would there be a white bead on a nymph? But if you're fishing in a lake and you have a fly with a white bead, that could imitate a midge as it's making its emergence, because that white bead could be a gas bubble or it could be the white gills of certain midges. So we have to kind of also understand that we don't necessarily have to match the hatch 100%, but there are still some things that we can incorporate in our flies that we may not even know why the fish are, they're focusing on that, but they are focusing on that. So don't hesitate to try different things and try out some different colors, but then still know it's good to have your base patterns kind of at your disposal.
Katie
Do you ever change the shape of kind of like well-known flies by tying them on a hook that's not standard for that fly? Like I'm thinking about maybe you have a dry fly hook that is usually pretty straight and the dry fly's tight on that, but instead maybe you take kind of a really rounded nymph hook and try to get the abdomen to go down in the water a little bit. Maybe you have a hot spot that you wanna be seen. Do you ever change what the typical fly is, or sorry, the typical hook for a specific fly, do you ever change that to make the body shape different?
Tim
Yeah, I would say all the time. I mean, I think you gave the perfect example for that because for so many of my dry flies over the years, it didn't matter if it was an elkhair caddis, a parachute Adams, whatever the dry fly was, I wanted them on, you know, back in the day, it was the Mustad 9484-0 hook. And to this day, you know, there's always these dry fly hooks that have this super straight shank on them. And then to kind of go into what you just, you know, talked about for your audience, that's meant to imitate a fly that's made its emergence. It's typically an adult. It could be a caddisfly or mayfly, and it's on top of the surface. But to get there, they had to travel through this life cycle where they were a nymph, then they were an emerger, then they made their emergence typically near the top of the water column. And when they make their emergence, and they do that, both the nymphs and the caddisflies will kind of push away their shuck and their shuck will be kind of trailing behind them. And that's suspended in kind of this surface film. So to imitate something like that, like you don't want something that's perfectly flat. You want something that's kind of trailing away or like you said, has the abdomen that's going down in. So for the majority of my dry fly hooks to this day, I'm using a pattern of hook called a clink hammer style pattern, where it does exactly what you're saying, where it kind of bends the bend of the hook and a portion of the shank kind of bends down a scud style hook and it hangs a little bit lower. So it forces your tail, it forces a portion of the abdomen lower in the water column into that surface belt. So that's for sure one way. I mean, I can think about whenever we're talking about nymphs, back in the day, it was like the must add 96, 71. That was like my nymph hook, but now I'm using more jig hooks because when you pair them with a slotted tungsten bead, they tend to invert and ride, you know, hook point up. But then as I'm kind of working through more and more modern Euro nymphs, I'm now starting to incorporate kind of going back traditional nymph hooks, but now putting a slotted tungsten bead on those because when that bead is kind of seated perfectly, it will also encourage them to ride hook point up, but now you're allowing for a little bit more of hook gap to hook the fish. So I'm kind of even returning to that aspect. And then when I think about streamers, like there are many streamer hooks that I use that I just love. They're just a heavy wire and they work really well, but there's a way that I can actually bend the hook with a pair of pliers when I have a bead and certain wire on that, it will also help to invert the hook and have it ride hook point up. So I'm not afraid to tinker with things and kind of see what's gonna happen. And sometimes you come up with a great design on it. I mean, there's this one stone fly that I designed about a half a year ago. I mean, it was sitting at my bench kind of thinking through these processes like we're talking about now. And I was like, oh, I have this killer idea. And I tied a version of it, looked like garbage. You know, I grabbed a razor blade, tied another one, looked like garbage. And I got to like the fifth version of it. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I've never seen anything like this. It looked killer. It had like instant bin appeal. like this is like the next big fly. I went out and I fished it for three days. I caught nothing on it. So I'm like, all right, it's not the next big fly. Let's go back to the drawing board and try to figure out a few more things.
Katie
So do you still get a lot of joy out of like just tinkering? Is that kind of where the stage you're in right now where you're experienced enough that just playing around with things and making tweaks is kind of like where you like to focus? Or are you still solidly in just like tying flies that you know and love?
Tim
Right now, that's almost like a loaded question. I don't think I'm in either one of those stages. I want to be in the tinkering stage. I'll preface it with that's where I want to be. I love the notion of designing flies, creating more patterns to solve problems on the water. That's where I want to be. Because of the way I am in life right now, I have a couple of children, I'm married, I have a day job, and then this fly fishing takes up a heck of a lot of time on the side, but I'm also working on a fly tying book right now. That doesn't allow, like that's, like right before this call started, I was downstairs and I was practicing one of the flies that I'm, like the first fly that will be featured in that book. So I'm going through and just practicing that because, you know, no matter, you just, you wanna know all the steps, I wanna know, I wanna think my way through it before I actually sit down and start taking pictures of that fly. And I take a bunch of trips, you know, I'm traveling to Iceland next week, I just got back from Alaska, so I always tie my flies for those trips. So I'm constantly just tying for that as well. My wife doesn't tie, but she fly fishes, So you can kind of guess where she gets her flies from. So I'm also trying to kind of keep our boxes filled as well. So that's why I want to be in that tinkering phase, but I'm still in the portion where it's very, I guess you'll say utilitarian. That's kind of where I am right now, where I'm trying to accomplish whatever that current goal is. So I'm praying someday, in 40 or 50 years, I'm going to get to that tinkering area.
Katie
Yeah, tinkering sounds like a bit of a luxury place to be. Like your boxes are full, your books are written, you've got time to play. One last thing I wanted to ask you about before we wrap up and maybe talk about your next book, depending on how much you're allowed to say, is one thing you wanted to cover was mistakes that beginners make. I'm sure I've made all of them, but I can't think of what they are. I would love to hear from you, what are the common mistakes that you see new tires making?
Tim
Yeah, we all do. I still make those mistakes, trust me. There's a ton of mistakes that I see beginners make. Sometimes they're not bad, but sometimes they can affect the fishing too. Those are the ones I like to concentrate on. Number one, the biggest mistake that I that, especially when you start to finish a number of flies, so many people crowd the eye of their hook. And what I mean by that, whenever they place their thread on there at first, they put their thread tight against their hook eye, then they start building materials for the tail, they typically work from the tail back up to the eye, and then they put a bunch of whip finishes at the eye, maybe they put some head cement, and then they get to the water and they go to fish that fly and they can't get their tip through their hook eye. So my first kind of piece of advice that I give to beginners, stay away from your hook eye. Just pretend that you're not allowed to tie within three wraps of your hook eye. That way, whenever you do finish it, you'll have a nice segment of metal to tie your whip finish onto, so you know that you'll be able to get your tip in there, because there's nothing more frustrating than getting into the river, during a hatch especially, and you can't fish, because you just can't get that tip through that fly you wanna use, and you have to grab a backup. So that's number one. Number two, putting dubbing onto a dubbing noodle onto your thread. I see so many people use what I would call it's just way too much dubbing. That's just one of the big no-nos of fly tying is that there's kind of this rule. Whenever you grab a pinch of dubbing, cut it in half and then cut it in half again. That's probably about as much dubbing as you'll need because a pack of dubbing should last you years depending on how many flies you're tying out of that. And they last me a heck of a long time because I'm just using these tiny pinches of dubbing. It doesn't matter if it's nymphs or dry flies. Really, less is more when it comes to dubbing. The other aspect that kind of relates to that I see people build up dubbing, but they go down the bend of their hook. And there's some, some emerger patterns that I tie that I start to go down the bend, like that condor in my text, that you start to go down to the bend of the hook. And I always tell people, I kind of tie down the bend until it gets to the point where I'm uncomfortable. Then maybe I make one more wrap and that's it. But if you start to go down that bend of the hook, even halfway down the bend, what will start to happen is that you'll close the gap. And then when you hook fish, they won't fully be, that hook won't fully be seated. And sometimes they'll get off because of that. So make sure that when you're tying, you don't go too far down that bend of the hook. That bend is there to kind of grab onto a fish and hold it in place whenever you're keeping everything nice and tight. So that would be number three. And then number four, this is gonna be a tricky one because as a fly tier, you're trying to tie flies both aesthetically pleasing to you, and then they're meant to catch fish. The one thing that I have noticed is that people, especially in the United States, tend to fly, tie sizes that are a little bit too large. And I get it because you're tying flies, maybe you want to tie a really large fly because it's easier to see, it's just maybe a little bit easier to work with some of those materials. But if you're saying to yourself, gosh, I want to start tying a bunch of nymphs, everyone tells me to tie size 14. And I'm gonna tell you, go down one size to a size 16. And then just tie them a little bit skinnier, tie them with less materials, because then they'll sink faster if they're nymphs. That's kind of the one area that, as I'm working on my new project and I'm interviewing all these competitors from around the world, the size of the nymphs that they're fishing in the waters that I fish are so much smaller than mine. And it's been a really big takeaway for me as well. And now as I start to watch others tie, and I'm looking, I'm like, oh gosh, like, are you gonna catch a fish on a size 12 dry fly? Absolutely, especially under certain conditions. But the rest of the time, you're probably not. So there's a reason why it's okay to kind of err. if you're gonna err on that smaller side of fly tying.
Katie
That's one of those things that I have struggled with, not even in fly tying, but just in fly fishing. Even though I have caught numerous fish on flies that I feel like I can barely see, I still look at my box and think, there's no way they're gonna see that thing. Like, I can't disconnect that situation in my mind, and even though I know fish regularly take flies down to size 20, 22, that happens, I still look in there, I'm like, no, I have to pick something a little bit bigger because I want them to be able to see it. And I don't know if I'll ever get over this fear of the fish not seeing tiny flies. Dry flies, I don't have this problem. I don't know why. For dry flies, if I'm picking a bigger one, it's easier so I can see it on the water. I'm not worried about the fish, 'cause I can see the fish taking really small flies and I'm like, well, I need something smaller, but I can't see it, especially in moving water. Like I've got to be able to see the fly or at least know where it is. But for nymphs, I think I need to get more comfortable with fishing those smaller flies because I know they work, but I can't wrap my head around the fact that they can see those things.
Tim
Listen, my wife and I were in Iceland last October and we were having trouble catching these sea run brown trout. We just could not bump into one. We went a couple days without a fish. And it's tough when you go a couple days and you're away and you know if you catch one, that's the fish of your trip. I mean, you're just trying to catch one or two. And we just could not connect. And finally we found this pool, we saw a couple fish roll. We knew they were in there. So my guide, you know, we always let Heather fish first. We're like, all right, Heather, get in there. And our guide picked out a couple flies. We cycled through, rested the pool. And while we were resting, he said to her, you know, just pick a fly you have confidence in out of her own box. Like, don't worry about him. He's like, you just pick it. So she picked out a fly, she tied it on, and first cast, hooked one. Hooked like a 10 pound Sea Run Brown. It was the first big fish of our trip. And the whole time, he's just taking his time, and he has the net ready, and his name is Arnie. And I'm like, Arnie, I think we should speed this up. He's like, ah, we don't have to rush it. I'm like, no, I mean, she's fishing a pretty small fly. He's like, no, it's not a problem, it's not a problem. And when we blended the net, he was like, oh my God It was like a size 18 Euro dip. And he was like, "Heather, why did you pick this fly?" And she's like, "Well, you told me, "pick a fly I have confidence in. "That's what I fish in Pennsylvania, "so I figure, why not fish in Iceland?" And at first he was like, kind of floored, but then he's like, "But wait a second, "this fish ate that fly." So sure enough, the next day we went to another pool and I was up and he's like, "Tim, what are you fishing?" I'm like, "Oh, we're going 16s and 18s today. "We're not fishing size eights anymore." And we caught like six sea run browns in a row on tiny euronymphs. He was just like, "I would have never believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes." It goes back to illustrate, they're fish. They have to eat. In that case, who knows what that sea urchin saw that fly as, but it saw it as something.
Katie
That's just crazy. It's crazy to me that something that large thinks it's worth it. I guess it probably needs to come fairly close to it for it to think it's worth it. It's probably not going to dart across the pool to go get a fly that small. It's going to burn more calories than it gains in that case. It does go to show you that if that thing comes right its face and all it has to do is open its mouth, then that's half a free calorie.
Tim
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Katie
Well, I just want to wrap up with, are you able to say anything about your next book? I know some authors are able to talk at great lengths about their upcoming books and some people are really tight-lipped. What are you able to share about your upcoming book?
Tim
That's a good question. I never know what I can share. I won't give away everything. The gist is that it's a book about neuroendocrine. It's a fly tying book. It's going to incorporate a lot of fly fishing as well because I'm obviously passionate about aspect of it. I've never wanted to just have a book on fly tying and not talk about how you fish the patterns too. And the premise to the book is that I've been interviewing a bunch of the top competitors from around the world. I've contacted a bunch of them because I'm already friends with a handful, and it's opened up a bunch of doors where they've connected me with others. And I have some of the top anglers all around the world that I've been able to interview, have Zoom calls with, and just probe their brains, and now put that into a book form where I can take around 15 or 16 patterns and then talk why these are the top patterns being used by the top fly fishers today. So it's an exciting project. It's a lot of work. It's about 10 times more work than my first book because the first book was just me. It was very simple. I think just these are the flies I wanna pick, the materials I wanna pick, and it's just, this is all me. And in this book, I started with the premise that here's the flies I'm gonna be tying, and I'm just gonna build in quotes. But then once you start interviewing these people and you start to see these common themes start to run, like I was talking about with smaller nymphs, And I start to see these new themes, and I'm like, oh shoot, that fly's cut, this fly's cut. And it's been constantly, I don't wanna say juggling, it's not that, but I've just been constantly revising and adding more things. And now the book's really starting to take shape. We're recording this in summer of 2023, but I'm at the point now where I have a lot of the introductory stuff selected and written. I have all the flies selected now. I'm just going through and doing final ties at each one of them, and ordering any final materials that I need, and then to kind of appease some of your questions that you asked earlier, I'm only sticking with materials that I think can be found on a pretty worldwide basis because I don't wanna get some niche material that people are gonna say like, Tim, you're telling me this is a top fly to use today, and I can't even find this material. Like, come on, you're killing me. And I'm also listing some of the variations if you don't have that because that's a piece of fly tying that I think is really unique is that I can tell them this is the fly to tie, and it's not just a pattern, this is not a pattern book. These are patterns that I'm having, but I also want to share, here's a variation of each one to either enhance the flyer to take it in a different direction. So that's kind of the approach I'm taking. My fly is due January 1st, so if all of your listeners would cross their fingers and kind of keep me in their thoughts that I get this one done on time.
Katie
That was gonna be my next question is, assuming you don't just go fishing too much, when will the book be out? So it looks like early next year, all things going well.
Tim
Yeah, I think we're shooting for a fall 2024 release. That's what we're going for.
Katie
And when it comes out, where can people find it? Where can people find your first book if they want to find Fly Tying for Everyone?
Tim
Gosh, I mean, it's sold on a bunch of different vendors, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, all that fun stuff. But I would say, I would at least direct people to check out my website, which is trotandfeathered.com, because if you buy the book through me, I autograph all the copies of it. So I would at least recommend you do that so you can get an autographed edition of the book.
Katie
Perfect. And is there anywhere else that people can find you if they want to check out your YouTube channel or shoot you a message or anything like that? Where can people find you online besides your website? Yeah, besides the website.
Tim
Yeah, besides the website, which there's contact and all that fun stuff there, but I would say probably the two resources that I would direct people to, number one, find me on YouTube. You can type in youtube.com and you can either search for Tim Cammisa or maybe Trout and Feather. It should come up either way. You'll see I have a boatload of fly tying videos. I have a bunch of fly fishing ones as well. And then if they wanna follow me on Instagram, it's the same thing. They can search for Tim Cammisa or for Trout and Feather and I'll come up either way. You're more than welcome to shoot me a DM there or email me through my website.
Katie
Perfect. Well, Tim, I had a great time talking to you. Looking forward to getting back into fly tying now that my life has settled down just a little bit. I'm going to work my way through your book. I hope you have a great trip to Iceland. I'm really jealous that you're headed back there. I saw some of the pictures in this book of fish you've caught in Iceland. I'm jealous of you there and hope you have a great time.
Tim
Thanks, Katie. There's a reason I host trips there. It's just a blast. By the way, congratulations on your recent marriage. I definitely wish you many, many years of bliss. And also, thanks for all you do for fly fishing and fly time with this podcast. I'm sure people who don't have a podcast have no idea how much time and energy and effort and editing that goes into all these. So the fact that you're doing this for our community is just such a wonderful thing. So thanks for everything you're doing.
Katie
I appreciate it, Tim. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. All right, that's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. If you want to find all the other episodes as well as show notes, you can find those on fishuntamed.com. You'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram @fishuntamed. If you want to support the show, you can give it a follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. And if you'd like to leave a review, it would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thank you all again for listening. I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode. Take care, everybody.
Note:
These transcripts were created using AI to help make the podcast more accessible to all listeners, including those who are deaf or hard of hearing, or anyone who prefers to read rather than listen.
While I’ve reviewed each transcript to correct obvious errors, they may not be 100% accurate. In particular, moments with overlapping speech or unclear audio may not be transcribed word-for-word. However, every effort has been made to ensure that the core content and meaning are accurately represented.
Thank you for your understanding, and I hope these transcripts help you enjoy the podcast in the way that works best for you.