When I was 11 years old, I essentially stepped away from store-bought flies and did my best to tie whatever I needed. It wasn't a deliberate decision, but in hindsight, that's what happened. If I wanted a fly, I tied it. When I had a trip of any size planned, my mind raced with thoughts, often ill-conceived, of what the fish there would want. I would sit down and get to work on my "next great" creation, never following pattern recipes, as being creative came easily to me and was way more fun. Fantasies about how well the flies might work, and the incredible fish that might fall for them, are still very much part of my creative process. Sometimes these extended pre-trip tying jams prove more fun and enriching than the actual trip. Tying is food for my soul, and creating something tangible, attractive, and useful gives me a sense of worth that I can't get through a screen or keyboard.
As an adult member of society, I am a fairly easy-going, accepting person. I sincerely enjoy and like most people, I'm not horribly caught up in my own opinions, nor fond of hearing myself speak, and I am not snobby or particular when it comes to food, fly rods, or alcohol. But when it comes to critically evaluating flies and how they are designed, I must admit that I'm a bit of a prick. It is the only part of my life in which any type of engineering aptitude emerges, and flaws in form, function, silhouette, and aesthetics jump out at me as though they were illuminated in neon. My fly-tying mentors taught me to be this way before I was a teen, and since there wasn't very much going on in my head back then, it stuck. I am now 58 years old, and I have been tying and scrutinizing flies for 50 years. My critical eye for flies is the cross I bear, and rectifying design shortcomings at the vise each night is one of my greatest sources of purpose and pleasure. These are some of the only problems in today’s unhinged world that I can actually solve, and I really enjoy creating better bugs for myself and anyone else willing to give them a go.
One day in what might have been 2008, I was fishing, and I caught a grasshopper. I looked at it, long and hard, trying to break it down to its most fundamental attributes. I immediately realized that none of the patterns currently on the market captured the strong angular essence of the creature that was now drooling brown juice onto my hand. Likewise, I had no idea how I would crack the grasshopper code, but I committed to trying. I put the little wriggler in my fly box, and when I unpacked my fishing gear that night, I stuck a pin through the poor thing and stuck it to the cabinet where my tying lamp sat. It remained there, in my immediate sight, for two years, and I would study it almost every night. As a tyer, it was hard to figure out where to start. At that point, no tyers that I was aware of had created long, sharply defined tapers that floated, but that was exactly what was needed. I played with foam endlessly and eventually started laminating multiple layers of it together and then cutting it with long kitchen shears into various shapes. This was the advent of what I call "foam sculpting.” It differed from almost all existing tying methods, as the body was essentially made and laboriously beveled off-vise. Then, with a little slit in the belly and a bit of thread and glue, it was attached, in near-finished form, to the hook. It was unconventional, but it created the defined profile I was after. I fussed with the design and proportions for another six months, always referring to the now dusty, crunchy little fellow pinned to my cabinet. From my sometimes-cynical perspective, one of the pitfalls that affects most fly designers is that they "think" they know what a natural looks like, and they tie accordingly, without critically cross-referencing them or breaking down their most basic silhouette attributes. This hopper was not going to fall into that trap, and in an effort to mimic its angular, almost geometric lines, a new style of tying was created.
