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What do you do with your realistic flies?

What do you do with your realistic flies?  

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Just wondering what you guys do with your realistic flies. I will save one on occasion, if I really like it, but I'd say i fish with 90% of my realistic ties. To me they're just flies, only they can catch the pickiest trout. That's the main reason I tie realistic flies- to fool trout that are extremly picky. They just can never resist that ultra realistic hopper, or realistic size 26 midge. What do you guys think?

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Sell them, and fish with them, the first option I can't do! I'm too much of a critic of my own stuff. I don't believe I've ever tied one well enough to display for myself, there is always something that I will constantly look at that isn't quite right. This isn't something I do with other peoples flies. I've a few tied by other people that I will happily display, and show off. When it comes to my flies, I do not believe I've ever tied one that well, probably never will.

 

This is partly because I don't have the collecting gene at all. Certainly not in any way that relates to objects. The kind of things I like to collect are experiences and skills. My interest is more in the process than in the finished fly. One thing I like to do is travel to the home waters of a particular traditional fly tying style and fish that style there to understand why it came about. When it comes to making a collection of flies, I just don't have the interest.

 

Cheers,

C.

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C-

You're going to find a host of people on this forum that disagree with you. Your flies are beautiful! At least the photographs of your flies are beautiful. You may see flaws, and put them on the back side so they don't get photographed, but I doubt you'd do that. I'm curious about what criteria you use for judging your own flies... i.e., the looks, or the way they float, or how they compare to some earlier version... etc. This forum is full of hundreds who'd love to be able to do what you do half as well.

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I can't "vote" since I don't tie realistic flies. I don't even know if I've got the patience or the ability to do it. I tie to fish, period. If I ever did create a fly that looked like a real bug (like some of the people here), I think it would go in a display.

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Thanks FlaFly, Its a personal dissatisfaction that I was trying to express. My interest is more in the skills than the finished product. I have no desire to tie a better fly than anyone else, just to tie a better one than I did before. On one occasion I was dammed by a review of my flies. Unintentionally by the reviewer. Someone asked if they had ordered any flies from me. One customer said that he had, and that when they arrived he thought them so good he had them framed, being unable to bring himself to fish with them. I never got that order.

 

On assessing flies, I don't look at one fly. As I said it is about the skills. Any competent tier can take their time and tie a nice fly. Once you reach that stage, can you tie a second and a thousandth fly the same? When you put two flies side by side you see all kinds of differences. That is a great way to check your progress.

 

Having trained as an engineer I understand that there are two kinds of measuring device. One gives you the size of something, the other gives you the difference between two things (called "comparators"). With one fly you can only measure the size, With two you can compare, that gives you a different set of results.

 

The other thing I do is question everything. As Hans Weilenmann observed in the forward to my book I am constantly searching for "a better mouse trap". Just because we have always done it this way, or someone taught me this way, is no reason not to seek out a better way. That applies to me as well. I can always tell you why I do something the way I do, what benefits I get for it. That only means it is right for me. My search for a better way means I will consider revising any technique if someone has a better way.

 

Most of all though the important thing is to enjoy what we are doing! Its a very artificial challenge we are all trying to solve. Of no more importance than trying to solve the crossword in today's newspaper. So long as you are having fun then continue. I don't do crosswords, but don't mind if you do. Mike tying to fish will not get pressure from me to tie any differently, should he decide to have a go at something different then I will help as I am able.

 

It is my attitude to my flies that stops me displaying them. If I can catch up with my tying I may just have a go at tying some to frame. My walls are a little bare! But then again, do I want a collection of my failures staring down at me from my walls?

 

Cheers,

C.

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I understand what you're saying regarding your first vs. thousandth comparison, but I think your "build a better mousetrap" metaphor is not consistent with it. I also understand that people who tie the same fly hundreds of times for sale want them to all be more or less identical.

But why is different = failure? Maybe you're trying to replicate someone else's model, and maybe then if the hundredth one isn't exactly like the model, then you failed in your objective. But certainly with respect to the flies you created, then if the last one is different from the first, why is the first one better and the last a failure. If they're both equally functional in catching fish, or if they're both different but each beautiful in its own way, I can't see how that is failure. In fact maybe the last one is better in some way than the first.

On the photog forum, we have Terje, whose photographs could easily be publishable, or deserve being displayed in a museum, but he is unsure whether he's good enough! All the rest of us think he's a genius. We also think you are too.

 

By the way, I have a philosophy about success in achieving my goal and luck: if I succeed, it was because of skill. If I fail, it was because of bad luck.

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"On the photog forum, we have Terje, whose photographs could easily be publishable, or deserve being displayed in a museum, but he is unsure whether he's good enough! All the rest of us think he's a genius. We also think you are too."

 

agreed. i definitely would be part of that 'we'.

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I have only done a very few "realistic" flies. I have done a lot more of what I would call a fish-able realistic pattern. They get saved, and so far, I haven't fished or sold any. I have given most of my fish-able realistics away.

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I tried tying some at one time that I would have considered as "realistic" but gave up on that idea. Those I did try fishing with didn't produce as they lacked something. Form was there, but not function. They often ended up too rigid & had no movement to them. I prefer to tie flies for fishing, and never accomplished that when I tried to tie "realistic".

 

I certainly admire those who can make them look so real, and even more so those who can tie/make them & still catch fish with them. That's a talent & skill I don't have, but IMO most are more about "art" than anything, so I wouldn't likely fish with them. If I was to purchase or be given such flies they only would get displayed and never fished.

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I like admire them for a while. But when some-one i like comes along and likes it i usually give it to them. It use to be a good way to force me to go make another one.

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I don't get to vote either, my flies are at best suggestive. I do admire the creations that look ready to fly away, but I haven't the patience to learn those skills. I think of some tyers as artists and some as artisans, my own work is nearer the mechanic level than the artisan level and not even close to the artist level.

That said, rarely do my flies not catch fish and that is and has been my primary reason to tie.

 

Now if I were attempting to tie realistic flies, I would undoubtedly be throwing them away or razoring them off to salvage the hooks. I am enough of a critic or perfectionist that not even the most realistic fly I have seen pictured would not satisfy me to sell or give away if I had tied it, familiarity breeds contempt and ones own work always has the drawback of familiarity. I would see that one hair that broke or twisted.

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You guys dredge up these old threads ... and force me to face how long I've been a member. (thus also facing how much older I am now)

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I posted not even looking at the dates of the post I was reading, dang, at the top of the page is a new content button that is supposed to display "new" stuff, this was at the top of that display. Several times I have noticed older threads popping up on the "new" display and some one usually does what I did today. Oh well.

 

Currently "Favorite Coldwater Species" is displayed as having been posted to "Yesterday 11:27 pm but when it is opened it says the last post was 13 Aug 10:22 pm

 

There is a gremlin loose.

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