Why Make Flies and Lures?

Like a lot of fly tyers I started when I was about 12 or so. I had to tie flies in order to fish. Good flies were hard to find and too expensive to buy back then. But I'm almost 60 now and good high-quality flies are cheap to buy and easy to find. Rather than a threat to creative fly tying, however, I see that as a great benefit. I don't need to tie any more Elk Hair Caddis, Woolly Buggers or Royal Wulffs because I can buy those flies for not too much more than it would cost to buy the materials.

That means I can spend all my time fiddling with new designs--tying odd-ball specialty flies I can't buy at any price. It also means I don't have to worry about tying time efficiency. Because I buy most of the traditional patterns I fish with, it suddenly becomes perfectly sensible to spend a half an hour or more each on the flies I do tie.

Now that I think about it, worrying about production efficiency can take the fun out of almost anything. I used to work think and fret about new and ever faster ways to build driftboats. Now I pride myself in taking longer than some of the first time boat builders I sell my boat blueprints to.

Time is money. The more time it takes the more valuable it is. And my fly boxes are filled with powerful, valuable, good-looking flies nobody else has.