The problem with fly tying is that it’s so blasted untidy that it’s impossible to sit down with something in mind without being lured by something bright or shiny, and the result is a handful of something entirely different.

Most new tiers never see it coming, as the “Shoe-Box” phase, when everything they own can fit into a shoebox ends, and they’re so badly hooked they’ll drop all pretense at ethics or morals, and cover the kitchen table in a blink of an eye.

… nor are they mindful whose credit card is doing the covering.

It goes double for us hoarders. We’re slow hanging up all the Olive turkey wing we dyed last night, and the six or seven pounds we left dripping in the garage, none of which we dare move, have us leaving the vehicles to the streets tender mercies. Add the peroxide of beaver left on our ersatz clothesline rigged in the only shower – and colors, materials, and ideas, enter your subconscious unbidden.

You sit down with an idea of banging out a couple dozen flies for a pal and creativity takes the bit in its teeth and by the time someone starts yelling, you’ve got a couple dozen truly remarkable flies, only they aren’t what you were supposed to make.

I was content working on a new dry fly series I had dreamed up, and instead of groundbreaking and earth-shattering, I wound up with stuff that works – which is far more useful, only won’t boost the myth and legend of any memoirs I might later publish.

Too many pieces of lightened beaver lined the garage drying, each possessed of seductive tan guard hairs suitable for the Fluttering Caddis dries of Leonard Wright’s, “Fishing the Dry Fly as a living Insect” fame.

I’m off on a tangent with original intent forgotten while I find the least-damp Olive turkey wing for biots, replacing the authors original pheasant tail fibers. I think the original Fly Fisherman magazine article suggested Mink guard hair, but beaver is free, closer, and willing …