Tie every day a fly for one year? Hold my beer!

While I'm at home during these chaotic and uncertain time now, I'm looking back at the past year full of fly tying every day. I wanted to write about it for a few weeks and I think now is the best time to travel back in the past to where all had other things in mind than a damn virus.

The one that got away

Sometimes fishing can give you the best highs you can think of. Like when you catch a really big fish in an unexpected situation or moment. You're pumped, the body is shaking and full of adrenaline.

But it can also be very hard and unfair. Most of us will endure this at least once in the fishing career and we can't prevent this from happening.
Imagine the following:

You're fishing a very hard water where not every day is catch day.
You grind your fly on all good places where you know the fish are holding or feeding, but nothing worked for the last few weeks.
Out of the sudden you get the bite you are waiting for so long. There is a heavy opponent on the other site of the line and you directly feel this is the one fish, you are after for a long time.
But then the line gets slack and you can't really realize what has happen.
Depraved you strip the line in and check the leader. Everything is okay, the fly is still in tact and the hook is sharp as a razor blade.

Every time this happen to me, I want to scream, throw my rod into the water and roll down on the bottom like an embryo. I know that's how fishing can be, but for that moment I'm just frustrated.
One thing I learned is to keep going and do the next cast. You have to get the negative thoughts out of your brain and focus on fishing again. I realized when I think too much about a lost fish, I can't focus on the further fishing and might fuck up another good bite.
Be positive, focus on the fishing and have confidence in your doing. Then the next bite of the big one will come and you are able to land it.

From Zero to Zero. At least you know nothing

While scrolling through all of my old fishing pictures, I found on that amazed me more than all the others. The story behind is the following:
It’s Christmas 2012 and a yung man got his first fly tying vise. In the local fishing shop the bought a zonker patch and some dubbing.
In this hour he tied his first fly ever.


Seven years later I see this picture of my very first tied fly ever and I look back at the progress I made since then. Without any knowledge of flytying and flyfishing I started and tried to make my may.

There were a lot of ups and downs through the whole way, mistakes and eye openers. The Internet is a great opinion to build up knowledge on how to do and not to do, but it can also be frustration because you were overwhelmed by all these great fishing pictures and big fishes compared to your catchless tries and “failures”.
My opinion is, that you have to find the right path between getting inspiration from all of the content and practicing it on the vise and test it at the water.

Recently I caught myself thinking I know a lot of stuff related to flytying and flyfishing, but I immediately realized that I only see the tip if the iceberg and there is so much more to learn.
More materials, more techniques, different use cases and so on.

In the end I feel a little bit like Jon Snow in Gmae of Thrones. After seven seasons of flytying I think I know a lot of stuff, but in the end I have to admint that I know nothing.

The one bite

You strip your fly through the water.

You strip your fly and throw it back. You don't search the fish, you know it's down there in the pool. You have confidence in your doing and in your fly. You know every second the desired tug can happen. And then, out of the sudden like the RKO of Randy Orten, you can feel the pull in your line and the hell of a fight is starting.
This is why you flyfish for the toothy predators. 
Nevermind if you're at a Lake, River or in the Salt. Only this pull counts.