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I used to tie my own flies and it is very rewarding hooking one on one you tied yourself. I have my grandfathers and fathers furs and feathers. They gave me furs that you can't even get anymore. I have a box of what I call drunken flies somewhere lol mostly streamers that I would just tie stuff on the hook and invent my own fly hahah never caught anything on them but still get a laugh when I look at them. I may have some books for you if you'd like I will have to look for them tho not sure where I put them. they are mostly magazines and not in color but still tell you what to use if you want a few?
One of my wife's friends gave me a plastic box she found while going through her deceased Dad's things. The cheap, clear plastic box was chock full of "drunken flies." Tied with all sorts of things - gum wrappers, carpet yarn, cat fur, kite string, songbird feathers, mop strands, probably had some bellybutton lint in there also. I cherish those flies. Her dad was genuinely poor - dirt poor. He didn't have the money to waste on things such as colored threads and the like. But he had a dream to fly fish in his mountain streams. By virtue of his unconquerable will, he was driven to devise a countermeasure. A fly rod was out of the question so he "dabbled." A technique reinvented and now called Tenkara. He procured a long slender bamboo pole and tied a short length of found monofilament to the tip. No casting - just dabbling in those wondrously overgrown, clear, crisp mountain streams that are the haunt of the native southern brookie. If there ever was a gem of freshwater sporting fish, those beauties, in their spawning splendor are unmatched! Their emotional pull is magical. Their lure is locked-in, tenacious and indivisible. Possessing an innate capacity to convert mere men, proceed with caution. They are dangerous, able to influence seemingly sensible adults with their guile. Abandoning rationale, they collect the accouterments: thousand dollar fly rods, thousand dollar fly reels to hold the fly lines, boxes and boxes of tying materials, gossamer leaders, waders and boots, oilskin jackets of English branding, jaunty hats, and all the jingle-jangle of a flim-flam man. Risking matrimonial life and limb, sagacity is disregarded, replaced with wanton and impassioned acts of volition. All focus is now on scrambling over mossy time-worn boulders into hallowed lairs, places where tireless ancient waters conjoin with the human consciousness all for the pursuit of a single adversary - a little 6" fish!
Ahem... whew.....I think I need a big cup of strong black coffee!
Some of the above are true. Some are merely my muse escaping its usual hangout!
P.S. - I might resemble some of them remarks.
