With the exception of Monday the weather has been too wintry for enjoyable fishing, this morning we had 8 degrees.  With no interest in fighting the ice out of my rod guides I’ve been tying carp flies.  I’m actually submitting some of my carp patterns to one of the catalogs to see if they want to pick it up for commercial distribution.  A couple of the patterns are a bit complex, no problem knocking-off imperfect flies for my own use but a bit different when you need three perfect clones of each pattern/color.  At the end of this project I found the point where I was tying perfect flies pretty efficiently.

To tie a perfect fly you have to make every step count and most importantly use perfect materials.  Out of years of habit, I’m just not selective enough with my materials and I found that choosing perfect materials was my key to tying perfect flies.

The pile of not perfect carp flies.  The good news is that the fish this summer will like them just fine.

I have a few of the carp patterns and recipes on our Fly Index Page.