Irish Tea and Soft Hackles

Secret Flies

When I hear the late George Harrison's song, "Something in the way she moves", I picture him knee deep in the River Mersey near Liverpool fishing a marabou fly hoping and waiting for a hit. The second line of the song however breaks my romantic dream and crashes me back to earth. What a waste of a great song! As fishermen, we share a certain degree of hope that is seldom found elsewhere.

Some believe that it's this hope that influenced Jesus of Nazareth to pick fishermen to become "fishers of men". I don't know the logic of that reasoning. It may have been because they worked cheap or didn't want to help their fathers clean nets, but I do know that they followed, and that there exists a hope in the heart of a fisherman that will make him stay long after dark getting in that "one last throw", knowing that throw may be the very one!

This same hope is a prime motivator in spawning the Quixote-like quest for that one great fly, the "Secret Fly". Now, we fly fishermen are smart enough to know (wives, don't laugh!) that no such single fly exists, but like the swallows returning to Capistrano, it is engrained in our genetic structure to try to find it. We men are a primitive breed!

I'm always in search of a better fly. Along this arduous way, I have produced some bummers! Some have looked great on the tying bench, yet never made it to the terminal location of my fishing weaponry. The closer to the river I drew, the uglier they grew! These I would quietly put in my shirt pocket and hope to remember to trash before even my nonfishing wife could spot them. She doesn't know much about flies, but she's quite skilled in the feminine art of male ego humiliation!

Other designs have produced well at first use, yet fell out of favor over time. The usual reason was that they produced once or twice, yet proved themselves to be only sporadically effective. My boxes are loaded with traditionally well known flies that already will do that! So they soon are shuffled to the back of drawers or bottom of boxes until I finally ditch them.

In a year's time, I may try fifty to a hundred new flies. No way, you say! Before questioning the validity of my statement, keep in mind that these are not all new creations by me. Quite often, I pick up on a fly that works well in another section of the country, yet has never been given a "quality start" (as you would say in baseball) in our area. If it works, great. If not, try another. I have three new ones on my tying bench right now (June 15, 2005) that I hope to try tomorrow afternoon. A couple of them are simple modifications of common flies that we all know.

Some of the great ideas of the moment are my designs. Among them have been a plethora of small Frankensteinish monsters that usually failed... but not always. The percentage of successes however would not impress anyone with money to invest. Hey, if I had wanted to make money, I would have done something other than work in education and certainly would not have fishing and hunting as my hobbies!

Probably every person who has fished for some time and who devotes a goodly amount of time to the hobby has one or more "go to" flies. Quite often these are flies that the fisher will not mention in a public discourse on good flies, but instead will be quite close-mouthed about. Why? Because (quiet, someone may be listening) they are the secret flies, the flies that in the user's mind set him apart from his fly fishing peers! And maybe they do! They are the edge. These are the flies that get names like Casey Jones, Red Menace, Shadow, MP Rocket, River Hag, Orange Mig, and the best of the lot, Secret Fly. We all have them.

Truth be known, not only do most devoted fly fishermen have secret flies, somewhere on a fly fisherman is a secret box, a collection of flies developed over time on which he feels he can rely in tough times. Some people will start out fishing with one of these flies. Others only use them as the "go to" fly when things get tough. But they're there...., invisible but there.

It's a good idea to never ask a fisherman if you can see his box of secret flies. He will probably clam up on you and try to ease away. You may even get a cussing. But rest assured that if he opens his fly box to show you what flies he uses in a certain location, there is another hidden box tucked away on his physical presence.

And if a man's bragging to you about a secret fly he has, but he won't show you the fly, don't pay him any attention. The law of masculinity has kicked in! This guy doesn't have the "right stuff", so he's trying to run the "right bluff"! Let's face it, if he has a secret fly that's working well, he probably wouldn't tell about it. Would you give away your advantage? Once again, it's a male thing! Competition, progeneration, strutting, and all that Freudian stuff!

We are a vain species!

thoughts by Johnny McJunkins. email: jmcjunki@texarkanacollege.edu

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