If you’re an outdoor sportsman living in central or northern Maine, I don’t need to explain the feelings and emotions known as winter doldrums, stir crazy, and cabin fever. Snowshoeing and cross country skiing offer the chance to exercise and commune with nature, albeit a very frigid style of woodland walking. Even avid outdoorsmen can stand only so much rabbit hunting, ice fishing, and varmint hunting, and weather often curtails these limited opportunities.

For awhile, long evenings and stormy weekends can be passed sorting, cleaning, and refurbishing gear and equipment. There are always books and magazines filled with photos and stories of outdoor adventures to wile away a few hours, but then you look out the window and reality sets in again. A bleak outlook brings on moodiness, extensive mumbling and grumbling, and unnerving pacing. Then the threats begin – from the wife and kids, that is – with explicit references to what’s going to happen if you don’t straighten up, and how they’re not even going to miss you!

It’s time to take up a hobby. From years of experience I can assure you that tying flies will really make time fly during long, cold winters. Fly fishermen will find it goes hand in hand with their sport, allowing them a connection to their favored style of angling all year long, regardless of the winter weather. Fly tying is far more than an enjoyable pastime, it’s a much-needed therapy for the winter malaise that strikes most confined sportsmen.

The benefits of learning to tie flies go far beyond a diversion to help pass time during Maine’s seemingly interminable winter. Just by sitting down at your fly-tying desk and putting a bare hook in the vise, a goal is set. Work-related problems, finances, day-end fatigue, and winter blahs fall away like autumn leaves as you concentrate on applying layers of feathers and materials to produce a fly. Within minutes life’s burdens give way to concentration and total relaxation. Fly tying works better, safer, and faster than any prescription tranquilizer, and it’s effective day after day, year after year.

Why tie?

If you’ve priced flies at the sporting goods store or in mail-order catalogs lately, it will be obvious that you can tie them much cheaper than you can buy them. Anglers who fly fish from spring to fall using streamers, nymphs, wet flies, dry flies, bass bugs, salmon flies, and several other styles will save a lot of money in the run of a year. An outlet may not stock the exact pattern you desire or may be sold out of the exact size for the fish are currently taking. When you tie your own flies, these problems are solved by spending an hour at the fly bench producing exactly what’s needed.

Most retail flies are tied in bulk with many produced from foreign nations by women and children paid by the dozen. The resulting product can be shabby. Personal tiers will take more time and use better material; therefore, your own flies will be better looking, ruggedly constructed, and longer lasting. Nothing is more frustrating than buying an expensive fly and having it unravel or lose feathers after catching half a dozen fish. Tying your own assures tougher, better quality flies.

A further asset of fly tying is the ability to repair older, worn, or damaged flies. With just a bit of experience even a novice tier can replace a tail or hackle feather, repair a wing, rewind body ribbing, and rewind or re-cement the head – another money-saving perk of a fly-tying hobby.

Without a doubt, one of the main incentives to tie flies is self-satisfaction. Not just the contentment of creating a perfect copy of an age-old fly pattern, but more so the pleasure and achievement of actually catching fish on a fly you’ve tied. Sooner or later every tier begins to experiment with materials, and envision new combinations of feathers and fur. The greatest fulfillment a tier can experience is to create a new fly pattern, and then have it actually catch fish regularly. Perhaps your design will become a standard for the next generation, like the gray ghost, Parmachenee belle, and rusty rat, and if not, it will still be special to you.

Getting started

Many sportsmen shy away from tying flies for a variety of ill-conceived ideas, such as they’re too old, they’re hands are too large, too stiff, or too clumsy, it’s too expensive, or it takes too much room. Rubbish! Any one from 8 to 80 can learn to tie flies and, unless you’re planning to make a business of it, the price is minimal and the material and equipment will fit in a couple of shoe boxes.

The simplest and most convenient means of becoming a fly tier is to learn from a family member or friend with experience and a full complement of materials and tools. Learning from someone close to you allows the time and length of teaching sessions to be planned for everyone’s convenience. Also, there’s no immediate outlay of money until the novice finds out if he really enjoys the new hobby and learns exactly what materials and equipment will be needed.

Fly fishermen abound throughout Maine, and consequently most cities and towns have fish and game clubs, Trout Unlimited organizations, or salmon fishing associations. Many of these groups put on annual fly-tying clinics which are open to the public, and in many cases, most, if not all the gear is supplied. Fees for the 8- to 10-week courses are minimal, if any, and several instructors are on hand to offer plenty of personal, hands-on instruction.

In many towns, fly-tying classes are part of the winter curriculum in high school adult ed classes. A few fly fishing shops and sporting goods stores also offer fly-tying clinics a couple of times a year. Private lessons from a professional fly tier are another option, and while more expensive, one-on-one training can’t be beat to learn the art quickly.

As a final training option, there’s a boatload of instructional books, magazines, and videos on fly tying. From beginner to professional level, fly-tying guidance is available on every style of fresh and saltwater fly pattern. There are even step-by-step computer programs available as tutorials in several levels of tying ability. All in all, the vast variety of options available to teach fly tying offers an avenue for every interested sportsman.

Apprentice tiers will need some basic supplies to begin tying. A vise, bobbin, thread, head cement, and hooks, as well as some wool, feathers, hackle, tinsel, hair, and fur in several colors. It is possible to get a basic selection of these items and more in a starter kit for as little as $25. If your goal is to work on certain patterns, such as tandem streamers, wet flies, or nymphs, the material list will be specialized and precise. Fishing gear outlets, fly-tying shops, and sporting goods stores are good bets if one is nearby, and if not, turn to mail-order catalogs. Several well-known retail catalogs have extensive sections of fly-tying material and there are at least a dozen mail-order outfits exclusively for fly tiers.

Once you get into fly tying, keep an eye on the newspaper ads and buy, swap, and sell pamphlets for ads hawking fly-tying gear. Check out yard sales, too. It’s amazing how often fly tying and fishing gear end up on garage sale tables for next to nothing. Don’t overlook the Internet as a possible source as well.

A handful of novice fly tiers make it to the pros. Enter local, regional, and national fly-tying contests and win a few, and you have market value. It’s possible to turn a pastime into a business by tying regularly and selling flies to area stores or even to national outlets. Good tiers make good money, and a few even open their own shops and prosper doing something they enjoy.

Let’s walk before we run, however, and remember that the crux of this whole fly-tying idea is to relax and endure Mother Nature’s annual cold weather marathon. Take heed that this hobby can become habit, and the self-satisfaction and money-saving perks of filling your fly box and creel are gratifying. Remember, fishing season is on its way and time flies when you tie flies.

Outdoor feature writer Bill Graves can be reached at graves@polarisumpi.maine.edu