I did some searching and couldn’t see this topic as having been addressed in the past.
So, How, when and where did you get started tying flies?
For me it started in the summer of 1969, I was 17. We were returning to Boonton, NJ from our yearly vacation in Maine. We stopped in Keene NH and my dad and I went into a sporting goods shop on Main St. I asked him if he would buy me a Knoll fly tying kit, which he gladly did. Talk about a high end vise, all I can say was, it worked (somehow). I had tons of fun with that set. I found out about a local store that sold materials, Reed Tackle in Fairfield. The next year the Adult Education classes at the high school included Fly Tying. Things took off from there. Fly Fishing magazine had just started up so I got a subscription to that, catalogs started coming in. I procured some space on my dad’s reloading bench. I even caught fish on my flies. I bought a fiberglas fly rod and line and cleaned up my dad’s 1940’s vintage fly reel. I was tying flies for a few friends after a couple years. All my spare money was going for materials or girlfriends. Life was so much easier and less complicated then. Then I got into tying commercially for a while. I enjoyed that, I was making more per hour at night than as a mechanical draftsman during the day. In 1975 I had enough money saved to have Walton Powell make me a custom bamboo fly rod for Smallmouth Bass fishing. In 1975 I moved to Old Town Maine and continued to tie commercially. Back to NJ in 1976, got married and tying continued but at a slower rate. I’ve tied for friends now and then but not commercially. I’m happy to have had fly tying and fly fishing be such a big part of my life all these years.
Rich S
