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With deer season over for another year, I now find myself transitioning into "Oh, how I wish winter was over" mode.
Yes, I'm aware that winter doesn't officially arrive until Dec. 21 this year, but that doesn't help much. That fact only magnifies my weariness for a winter that hasn't really started yet. And we haven't had any real winter weather yet other than a few cold days.
So while I will be logging my share of couch time in the coming weeks, catching up on some reading and watching what looks like a lot of lackluster college bowl game matchups on TV, it would be nice to have a few other diversions to ward off the winter blahs.
One of my most satisfying wintertime (or anytime of year, for that matter) diversion is tying flies. I know many other fellow fly tiers share that enjoyment.
Because this year marks 59 years of fly-tying experience for me, I can't imagine fly-fishing and not being a fly tier for several worthwhile reasons. When I started fly-fishing in the early 1960s, tying your own flies was almost a necessity. Then as now, crafting your own flies cost only a fraction of the price to buy completed flies.
That was high motivation for a resourceful 12-year-old on an extremely limited fishing budget. Even for those who could afford to buy all the flies they needed, adequate supplies of flies were not always readily available.
Although I probably didn't appreciate it during my early days as a fly tier, fly tying presents a wonderful creative outlet. Back then, my inspiration was to fill my fly boxes with an adequate inventory of flies that had a reasonable chance of fooling a few trout.
Almost every fly tier I know, once they have mastered the basics of the craft, begins to experiment and to design special patterns for the waters they fish regularly. Talk to any veteran fly tier, and they are likely to tell you about one or two of their own special designs.
One place to meet and talk to a dozen skilled veteran fly tiers will be a special event happening early next month.
The John Kennedy Chapter of Trout Unlimited will be hosting a special Fly Tier Roundtable at the Allegheny Township Volunteer Fire Department Hall, 651 Sugar Run Rd, Altoona, on Tuesday, Jan. 2, from 7-9 p.m. This event is free and open to the public and will feature 12 of the best fly tiers from the area demonstrating their skills at creating a wide variety of fly patterns for trout and other species.
I am pleased to be one of the tiers invited to attend this gathering. The other 11 tiers scheduled to attend are Bill Anderson, John Brehm, Kevin Compton, Father Clem Gardner, Ron Holsinger, Shawn Holsinger, Eric Kelley, John Morone, Creg Strock, Dave Thomas and Brad Zeiders.
This will be a great opportunity for any fly tier to talk shop and possibly get some worthwhile tying tips from an array of experts. If you don't tie your own flies but have wondered what is involved with the craft, this event will be a great introduction.
For those who would like to learn how to tie flies, there is no better way to learn than with some personal hands-on instruction.
The JKCTU will be offering a free eight-week beginners fly-tying course starting on Saturday, Jan. 6. Classes will be held at the Allegheny Township Volunteer Fire Department Hall, 651 Sugar Run Rd, Altoona, from 9 a.m. until noon each Saturday through Feb. 24.
The chapter will provide all the tools and materials needed for the course. Class size is limited to 30 students, and you must register in advance. For more information or to register, contact Scott Kavanagh at 814-515-4788 or Jerry Green at 814-934-7046, or email johnkennedytu@gmail.com.
The JKCTU deserves to be commended for offering both these worthwhile outreach programs for local fly tiers and would-be fly tiers. When I first endeavored to learn to tie flies back in 1964, how-to information was quite limited.
I scrounged what I could find from the relative few books and handful of magazine articles available regarding fly tying back then. There were no in-person fly-tying classes, and the few adults I knew who tied flies generally seemed reluctant to share their knowledge, even to an eager teenager.
And as I learned later, when an older fly tier did offer some advice, it was usually wrong or not very helpful.
Fortunately, that lack of information and instruction soon shifted to a bounty of knowledge. In the 1970s, fly-fishing and with it fly tying enjoyed an unprecedented surge of popularity that attracted countless new fly anglers and fly tiers, all desiring meaningful instructional material about their new-found interest.
Those needs were fulfilled by a wave of groundbreaking books along with hands-on and personal instruction opportunities covering all facets of the sport. The availability of information continued to expand with the appearance of new forms of media, from video cassettes to the Internet.
Quite simply, there has never been a better time to learn the craft of fly tying.