There are a lot of little tricks and tips for taking your fly tying skills to a whole new level quickly and easily. Some take some getting used to, like always tying with your scissors in your hand and never putting them down, while others cut the learning curve in half right away. One of those biggies that you can do is setting aside a dedicated tying space. Don’t believe me? Do it for one week and you’ll already start to see a difference in the way you tie.
For the longest time my tying spot was my kitchen table. Yea, I’m serious. Already you can probably imagine how annoying that was. I was constantly getting in the way of people eating, constantly having to move all my tools and materials and pack everything up just to unpack it all again that night, it was awful. Plus, do you know how deer hair tastes in your breakfast? Not very good. Once I set aside a dedicated tying desk tying flies was instantly more fun and my tying started getting better and better way faster than every before.
Tie Better Flies Right Away
The number one reason you need to set aside a special fly tying station for yourself is that your flies will instantly get better. If you have a space that doesn’t need to be cleaned up after every tying session then you can spend more time actually tying instead of cleaning. You’ll also be able to better organize all of your tools and materials so you won’t have to cut corners or skip steps because you can’t find something.
Once you can spend more time actually tying flies, laying out your materials and tools before you start tying, not only will you start tying faster, but you’ll also start tying more consistently, which is even more important. The more consistent your flies are the better you’ll be able to replicate catching a fish if a certain fly works. If all of your flies are slightly different from each other you might only have one fly that will work, even though they’re all the same pattern. That means you’re skunked for the rest of the day.
Save Money On Materials
Think of the savings! Every time I had to clean up my little area because it was in the way and I had to stop tying, I’d either lose half of the materials I was working with or have to throw away the ones that I had taken out of the packaging. A dedicated tying desk will let you keep materials out of the packaging without losing them all the time so you can use up more of each package, saving you some cold hard cash (that you can use to buy more tying materials, obviously).
Don’t even get me started on the savings from not having to clean feathers and fur from all over your house or throwing away food that was dropped into a pile of fly tying shavings.
Peace Of Mind
This could have been the first reason, since it’s the point of tying in the first place, but I wanted to build the suspense a little for you. Close your eyes. Imagine sitting down at your tying desk after a long day. Feel the warm wood under your fingers, the plethora of stickers that you’ve strategically placed all over the desk, the drawers full of material just waiting to be turned into fish-catching magic on a hook, the perfect spot for your beer…it’s perfect.
Now imagine sitting down and trying to tie a fly while your entire family is running around you and materials are flying everywhere and you can’t even concentrate on the hook in front of you. Exactly. Everyone needs their own dedicated fly tying space at home.
Now, let’s talk travel vises…
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