Fly fishing is enjoying a renaissance and fly tying classes are proliferating. More and more angling clubs are offering instruction in fly making for both members and the public. Tackle stores sponsor clinics and classes, and sport show exhibitors are using fly tying demonstrations as traffic stoppers.

Three winters ago the Southern Wisconsin Trout Unlimited chapter put out a feeler with a couple of pilot classes. Public reception was overwhelming. Enrollment filled way in advance.

More teachers were recruited and last winter the chapter, with fifteen instructors trained one hundred and twenty students at classes in Madison, Beaver Dam, Poynette and Mount Horeb, Dick Berge and Henry Hangley (cochairman) report many students became members of Trout Unlimited.

All this is gratifying because I pioneered such a course more than twenty years ago. When I first used a fly rod, obtaining fishing flies was relatively simple. Most tackle companies furnished a line of fly rod lures as a matter of course. Some made nothing else. Flies were available at nearly any hardware, and I recall our local drug store even carried them.

When the spin fishing craze hit shortly after World War II however, this all changed. The new way was in. It took little practice, skill or coordination to throw out a spinning lure. People became fishers that never were before. Fish management personnel envisaged booming license sales and, promoted the new method. Spinning lures sold for much more (and greater profit than old fashioned flies and were pushed by vendors. Manufacturers raced to convert to spinning baits.

American made flies disappeared from dealers’ shelves and cheap imports replaced them. Most not only didn't catch fish but came apart after a few casts. Fly fishing was at low ebb.

Too bull-headed to be pushed into the new way of fishing. I was marching to a different drummer. I remember driving 50 miles to purchase the last black gnat that a dealer had.

In desperation, I began making my own. Old flies were dismantled and their construction studied. Books were purchased and pored over. I had heard of the fellow who said he "tied flies for his own amazement". Now I knew what he meant. Those early ones were amazing.

Gradually however, my technique and product improved. Other people who hadn't joined the rush to spinning began coming to me for flies. One day on a trout stream, a creel census-taker, after taking my name and address said, "I've heard of you. You're the fellow that makes those dry flies that float". I am still proud of that.

. When more and more people started asking to have flies made, I began telling them, "I just don't have time to make them for you, but come over to the house and I will show you how to make that pattern your-self". This in turn led to establishing a formal fly tying course.

Fly making is an ancient trade that used to be learned through live-in apprenticeships. I have read that before Charles Orvis added fishing flies to his line of rods and reels he hired a professional tier to live with his family for two years and teach them alI the trade.

In order to touch on all phases of fly construction, a series of seventeen lessons was decided on. They were planned so that each introduced a fly that took the student through at least one new construction phase and every third or fourth pattern combined operations learned previously plus something new. Speed comes with practice.

Besides taking a student from simple patterns on to more complex ones, the sequence insured that he or she was exposed at an early stage to the basic knots and procedures that insure a quality product. These were emphasized at the start and constant reiteration would make them second-nature.

As with any craft that requires careful concentration on each detail, close attention by the instructor to each pupil is absolutely essential. I tried to limit enrollment to seven persons, but the classes seemed to always end up with nine or ten pupils attending. One winter it was necessary to hold two separate weekly sessions. The classes filled months ahead.

Fortunately, after the first couple of years, students started returning to "visit school" and some helped teach. Roy Sarow and Al Ward, both of Evansville became regular instructors. Roy helped for eleven years and Al four.

In addition to the seventeen fly tying evenings, one final session, a kind of class outing, was always held. This was on a local pond where everyone had a chance to polish their casting and be sure lines and rods were matched properly. Bob Turner, Bud Cufaude, Al Ward and Roy Sarow, all very competent fly fishers always managed to attend and assist the students.

The course started with an evening spent learning to make a simple pattern, long popular locally. It is a yarn-bodied, silver ribbed, wooly-worm variation known by various names but usually called the "green bluegill fly". Tied to be fished wet, it has both palmer and shoulder hackle and no tail.

While making this, they learn how to use a vise without damaging the hook, how to use tying thread to make a base for the material, to select hackle and prepare it for winding and to tie on and wind both palmer and shoulder hackle. They learn about making bodies from yarn, how to wind ribbing through hackle without tying down the fibers and to make and finish off a fly head. They also get acquainted with the few tools they will be using.

The instructor ties a fly while the pupils watch. Then they all tie the same one, step by step with the instructor, who pauses after each operation to be sure they all are staying abreast and help the ones that aren't. When this fly is completed, the students tie the same pattern again while the instructor circulates around the table, assisting where needed.

Each student ties the same pattern several times, and the last ones are usually quite presentable. if this sounds like a full evening it's because it really is and so are the ones that follow. Remember we are trying to teach the rudiments of a trade in only seventeen lessons.

It always makes me feel good to see how proud they are of those flies. They can hardly wait to show the folks at home what they have made.

The second evening's project is a brown hackle tied dry fly fashion. This pattern traditionally has a peacock herl body and golden pheasant tail. About midway through the lesson after getting the tail and peacock herl body pretty well mastered, they add white hackle tip wings and discover that a coachman fly is merely a brown hackle with white wings. Besides using what was learned in the first lesson, they are introduced to tails, hackle-tip wings and peacock herl bodies.

The third session concentrates on constructing quill section wings and emphasizes the difference between wet and dry fly design. The fly this time is a coachman tied wet. It is identical to the previous one except that the hackle is wound to slope wet-fly fashion and it has a down wing made from matched quill sections. By now-all the pattern except winging is old-hat so the students can concentrate on mastering the quill section wings, something many tiers never accomplish.

The rest of the lessons follow the precedent the first three set. Number 4 is a bee which introduces chenille and the principles of two-color bodies. Number 5 is the "Micky Fin" which is a hair-wing with tinsel body and tinsel ribbing. Number 6 is the "Crappie Fly", a streamer using the same body, but combination hair and feather wings. Number 7 covers cork bodied poppers, and number 8 deer hair bugs.

Number 9 is the "Ginger Quill" wet fly. Besides reviewing wet fly and quill section wings, it introduces quill bodies made from stripped peacock herl.

The next three lessons cover dry fly construction from bivisibles that have no wings through the Adams with semi-spent hackle-tip wings and the duck flank feather wings of the Cahill.The two latter have dubbed fur bodies and all three give a lot of practice sizing and winding dry fly hackle.

The four that follow these cover the different types of nymphs and the last or seventeenth lesson has two, the Royal Coachman (everybody wants one of these), and a marabou streamer.

I am proud of the course and very proud of my students. It ran for twenty winters until, due to the press of other duties, it was discontinued in the spring of 1981, at least temporarily.

If any of you are fly tiers, and need a project either for yourself or a club, I can't think of a more satisfying one. Now is the time to plan for next winter.

I furnished tools and materials for the students and except for one year when I was talked into letting the area vocational school handle the course, conducted it without charge. Actually I enjoyed it as much as the students and learned a lot too. I guess I figured it as a personal contribution to conservation. It always seemed that as people became interested in fly fishing they became more conscious of water quality.

In the Southern Wisconsin TU classes, students buy their own tools and the chapter supplies materials. However it works out, class supplies usually can be purchased less expensively in quantity than when obtained by individuals.

A lot of material was donated to our class over the years, both by students and out-siders. Soon after the course started. Bud Cufaude, who is a competent artist, enrolled. Bud wrote down what I said at each class, sketched the lesson step by step, finished it in water color at home and brought it to the next class. As a result we have had a complete set of lessons in color for ready reference all this time.