A day in the life of a bonafide commercial fly tier isn’t very glamorous. Inspiring to some, but once one takes the leap down this rabbit hole most quickly realize the endeavor is an exercise in futility, mental anguish and at times sheer insanity. I guess that is why the burnout rate for this profession is rather high, as those who take part quickly realize that the overwhelming feeling of never being caught up will ring that overbearing, obnoxious voice inside your head telling you to give up, throw in the towel and do something that requires less time and effort with a higher reward. The reward being greater monetary gain with a fraction of the effort.
For many, the notion of spinning thread and affixing objects on hooks for a living is insanity; and at times I wouldn’t argue with that idea as large time navigating orders of repetitive madness that voice has me questioning what the hell am I doing. I sometimes ask myself this question whenever I start a very large order while several others continue to trickle in, but I quickly remind myself that the next day in the boat is only a matter of hours away and I quickly regain focus.
I choose to look at life and what I am doing daily a little differently, and now what I am about to say may not resonate with everyone, it may just let those of you who think people like me are absolutely nuts understand where the drive comes from. Being the son of a carpenter, and a carpenter who lived through the Korean war, was involved in the Vietnam war and a person who embodies the concept of if you aren’t suffering you aren’t living, and good things come from hard work, it is easy to see where the drive to complete tasks and the satisfaction that it brings comes from. My father turns 75 this coming February, to this day he still gets up at 4 AM Monday through Friday to pound nails for a living; a living mind you he has been taking part in now closing in on 60 years.
Throughout his long career as a tradesman, he like many other people out there has had his share of ups and downs. A once bolstering family business dissolved leaving him with virtually nothing, having to literally start over from scratch working for someone else for a few years all the while buying all new tools along the way as he lost everything. I can remember him telling me he had to borrow a hammer after that ordeal as he didn’t even have one to take to work. Over time and a great deal of hardwork, he managed to slolwy restock his tool crib, save up enough money and take the plunge going back into business on his own. Never advertising, no social media, newspaper ads, nothing, just straight up word of mouth. On paper, this to some may sound like a recipe for disaster, but reality is he too like myself has never been caught up on work. Even at the tender age of 74 he still has a waiting list of work that usually spans several months up to as much as 3 years. He does this now with one working eye, eleven titanium plates underneath the skin of his face, fused vertebrae in his neck and a variety of other ailments as result of a freak tree accident that happened 19 years ago this coming Thanksgiving weekend. On the weekends if he isn’t working in his woodshop building a piece of furniture or turning out cabinets or some other piece of miscellaneous work for the job hes currently involved in, he’s out there maintaining the 4 acre wooded property that I grew up on where he has gardens that would rival what you’d read about in any horticultural magazine.
You see, what my father embodies I try to emulate on a daily basis and although I am far from perfect I constantly am reminded of why I do things the way that I do and live my life the same way my father does. Dad taught me to take pride in my work, always strive to be better, you may not ever reach the level of perfection but you can try your hardest to get there as it is a lifelong pursuit in whatever you truly love. Have integrity, be not only a man of purpose but a man of your word because your word is all you have and with integrity comes the value in a positive reputation. If you have integrity, your reputation will precede you and people will follow your lead. Nothing comes without hard work, and although the finish line might seem far away at times, never just throw in the towel, because the feeling of accomplishment and admiration of the work that you put in when it finally gets there is second to none. Always take on new challenges and own them, make them the fabric that builds your character. Don’t go through life with the goal of pleasing everyone and looking for universal acceptance. Not everyone is going to like you or agree with what you have to say, but try be the best listener and agree to disagree but respect the other persons viewpoint and move on. Lastly, cut out the bullshit in your life, and keep those people who wear on your spirit at a distance as they can truly bring you down, as life is simply too short or as my friend Steve reminds me, “This ain’t no dress rehearsal”. Surround yourself with good people, always try to learn new things while tending to whats most important in your life, your family and that which is right in front of you.
So although I realize my current profession compared to that of my fathers is like comparing apples to oranges, his lessons along the way and how he conducts his life have had a long lasting impression on the person I am today. And whenever I look at the stack of invoices on my desk and start to feel a little overwhelmed, I immediately think of my dad and what he would think and do. Owning a business that relies solely on a craft manufactured by my own two hands is highly rewarding. Having the ability to mix in some guiding on occassion and making my own schedule is in my eyes second to none, and it not only works for me it puts a smile on my face.
So as I sit here at 4 AM on a Saturday morning typing up these random thoughts I can honestly say that I have come to the realization of just why I continue to keep doing this exercise in futility. It is without question the result of that constant pursuit of fulfillment and pride upon completing tasks small or large and admiring the work that I have just completed that I get to share with the world. That resonates in everything in my life from the early morning training sessions to maintain some sort of fitness level, to the copious amounts of flies that turn off my vise, to getting up early every week and slipping the boat in on a piece of water in the dark before everyone else has even decided to get to the river and fish, to these aforementioned lessons in life that I am trying to instill in my two daughters. Do great things and write your own story.
And as I close in on the anniversary of the day that changed my dads life forever, I can’t help but recognize the fact that I am constantly thinking, “what would my dad do” as I keep pushing on with life. I hope now many of you understand what makes me tick, and realize just where my motivation comes from. As I sit back and look at this current pile of flies that I am about to box up and take west for a much needed week away, I can’t help but smile as I know what went into each and every one of them and I truly hope that whomever ties one on catches that fish that they’ve been after, and maybe realize that a great deal of pride went into every turn of thread. I will see you all in a week as I am wheels up in less than 24 hours where I will be in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan chasing brown trout with a close friend who reminds me a lot of my father.
Be well and enjoy a few snippets from my last few weeks of work.
Write comment (0 Comments)Another week, another pile of flies so to speak. Well it looks as though fall has finally decided to show up. The cooler weather that I personally look forward to arrived but with it came a nor'easter that dumped a bunch of rain and some damaging winds. The bellyachers and meme genies were in full effect online, whining about high water again. Note to self, high water makes for fat and happy fish. One motto that rings true from my past career was adapt and overcome, and arguably this past season has been one where you could easily apply that to your fishing strategy.
In a sense, what’s the big deal if you can’t fish, you should be looking at it in another light. You could look at it like this, those fish that get pestered daily are now able to take a vacation from gambling on a meal. There’s a silver lining in every story, and although we had a lot of high water this year in New England, some rivers have fared just fine, and many of you don’t even realize that there are more than one river in Connecticut with trout.
Conversely, high water, or changing flows this time of year can have some rather negative impacts as well depending on timing. I am certain that got some of your attention, and you’re wondering about the irony of this passage. Brown trout and brook trout are fall spawners, many of them are in the middle of, beginning or finishing up doing just that in our area. When the timing of severe fluctuations in flow coincide with heavy spawning activity there can be a much lower probability of higher levels of success with potential future fish stocks. The subject is a lot more complex than that, but essentially if a major change in flow in either direction, in excess or lack there of, the success of trout eggs hatching significantly decreases. There has to be some serious extremes mind you, for example a complete dewatering of a spawning bed (redd) exposing those eggs to air or conversely a large volume of water that scours the river bottom.
In the past week we have experienced a significant amount of rain so much that our rivers have run exponentially higher than what is considered normal. This past summer the amount of rain we received was even greater with noticeable changes in river habitat and streambed scouring. Now I am not certain as to the impacts of this recent storm, but it is safe to say that it very likely has had some impact on the 2022 class of fish. Some rivers like the Farmington have dams that can mitigate some of the negative impacts, but we truly will not know until a little ways down the road as to how that particular year class of fish fares. I can say with a very high level of certainty that there have been some very noticeable changes to habit, both good and bad. Being in a boat covering many miles of a few of the rivers I frequent regularly has painted a very vivid picture of what has transpired.
This brings me to yet another topic that I plan on delving into in greater detail at a later date. What can we do as anglers to protect these fish and the fishery for that matter to ensure that we continue to have river reared “wild” stocks of trout? Personally, I would love to see closures on many of my local waters to ensure that these fish get the best chances of furthering their genetic lines, but that idea gets mixed responses. I will let that one simmer for a bit but will come back to that in the coming weeks to the arguments that go hand in hand with that idea. In the meantime I will leave you with some eye candy from this past weeks adventures and a glimpse into the life of what it means to production tie. Have a great weekend.
-RS-
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Who’d of thought that a website with a space to piece together some random thoughts, adventures, or what have you would ever become so “old school” so quickly? It truly is kind of hard to imagine of such a thing, especially if you, like myself were born before 1980. But then again, I never thought that the hard wired house telephone or books for that matter would be such a thing of the past either. I know some of you younger folks are probably reading this in bewilderment, rolling your eyes letting your biases filter into your brains with colorful metaphors and nicknames all while simultaneously wondering when I’m going to tell you about how rough I had it growing up. You know the story; walked to school barefoot, uphill both ways kind of bullshit, everyone was tougher back then because of X-Y-Z blah blah blah.
Yeah. No.
I probably lost many of you already, because your circa 2021 conditioned short attention span has taken over your brain causing you to feverishly start swiping left or right on your Iphone cuz the odds are relatively low that you’re reading this from a desktop computer. It’s ok, I have found myself doing the same from time to time, but I recognize that Apple and many other tech companies have won by creating this information addiction that has changed the fabric of society. I have started to realize that I liked things and myself for that matter a lot more when I didn’t have a mini computer at my fingertips. I have this gut feeling that many of you out there, probably in the same age bracket or older are starting to push back on the machine and doing the same in a valiant effort to go back in time to what seemed to be a more innocent age when discovery was left up to the imagination and passing thru the front door of your house out into the real world and not by flicking your fingers across a computer screen in the palm of your hand.
My childhood is a constant reminder of that, and although my life wasn’t perfect by any means, it sure seemed like there was a whole lot less anxiety, angst and drama. With the close of my 18th year of being a small business owner in the flyfishing industry, I feel as though I am starting to see things a bit more clearly. I have always been a guy who constantly reassesses, looks at the big picture and tries to continue to forge ahead with my best foot forward and do so in the most simplistic way that I possibly can. I recognize that I am a very fortunate person, I have been able to take something that I am extremely passionate about and turn it into a rather nice livlihood. Many days, I honestly do not feel as though I am working, and although I hear it on a constant basis that so and so could never tie flies in the quantity that I do. Well, to be frank, that is why you aren’t me my friend, and that is what sets us apart from one another. When I guided on a much more regular basis, it was the same in that realm to. Passion makes people take things to extremes, and I clearly recognize that what I do daily fits into that category.
But I once again digress, so let me get back to my last thought. The one constant that swiping left or right, perusing the net for details or asking good old Siri for the golden answer simply will not give you is hard work. If you do not have a strong work ethic and drive, well I hate to tell you folks but you will fall short every time. Humans are always looking for a short cut to everything, its built into our DNA, but with short cuts often come consequence. I thank both of my parents for that character trait, because it has served me well. Hard work can be sidetracked by distractions, and recognizing them at times can be difficult especially if you buy into popular opinions that “you have to have this in this day in age to succeed”.
I too bought into that notion with the onset of social media that “I need it for my business” to succeed. Well, I’m here to say that I don’t necessarily believe that anymore. I had built up “my brand” so to speak before social media existed, the same way my father built his business as a carpenter; word of mouth. And although I have seen some growth via social media (small in all actuality once you really look at it), a majority of it was what I like to term a headache.
Being a commercial tier, any time spent away from my vise is time wasted, and over the course of a day a dialogue back and forth on “DM’s” can quickly turn into hours of time spent not completing the task at hand; tying peoples flies. Over time, there became more and more of what I refer to as “tire kickers” asking a plethora of questions only to never follow through on a purchase. Especially if you provide regular “content”, which in my case was an almost daily rendition of what flew off my vise the day prior. DM’s would almost always follow within minutes of a “content” drop but the same pattern would more often than not emerge. “Hey man, can I get what’s in this picture too?” Sure no problem, you’re looking at 6 weeks until I get to your order”. I would say that on 9 times out of 10 that would be the deal breaker, the reality that I couldn’t scratch that instant itch in our current world of swiping was unfathomable. You see, that is entirely ok, as many of you understand that time is a required ingredient in producing anything, let alone flies tied by someones hands.
So in closing, I hope to semi regularly start to write excerpts to share with you all here as it truly is enjoyable for me at times, and keeps all of you who have supported me through the years a bit in tune with whats going on over here. I often kick myself for erasing my original page from my earlier years as it had a plethora of good information there and was what spearheaded my move to an authentic webpage. My plans are to start doing some fly tying classes once again as there has been some interest in that department as well; whether I do them independently or through one of my affiliated fly shops or venues will be determined at a later date. I wish you all well and hope that you’re enjoying your time at the vise and/or on the water, and hope you will pop in on occassion. It has been a great year on the water on my end and I will share some stories and photos of that in the weeks to come. Until next time, here are some pictures of this past weeks work.
-Best,
-RS-