On The Fly – Guest Blog from Wolf Creek Angler Guide Eric Mondragon

As winter keeps its grip on the Missouri, the itch to fish looms. The phone rings weekly as outfitters from around the valley call to book my services for the upcoming fishing season. I find myself spending hours behind the vice tying flies for friends and clients alike. The anticipation of spring’s arrival is driving me crazy. “If it was here now, it would be late” is an expression I often use.

Fly tying started for me more than thirty years ago. Since that time, I’ve seen and fished many fly patterns. My tying memories started when I was in the seventh grade in 1977 or 1978. A teacher started a tying class at school. When I was eleven, my skills were really bad. I probably still need a lot of work in that area, but not for lack of trying. I used to tie nice, pretty flies for friends as gifts. Then, I tied for specific clients for practice. As a guide, I am required to tie in volume. Therefore, the flies are not as pretty, but they are more durable.

Artificial flies have humble beginnings. It is as simple as a hook, some thread and feathers or fur. That is pretty much it. My tying journey started out with supplies that fit in a shoe box and that is where they were stored. Over the years, I collected supplies. (My wife would say “hoarded”) Thirty plus years later, my stash fills a roll top desk, a full size glass cabinet with drawers and a sizeable stack of plastic organizers in my office. I am proud of the selection, but I am also very lucky.

My wife says that the fly tying materials are like children. Over time, the cost is more than you expect, plan or admit. The materials get their own room and you spend a lot of time cleaning up after them. The end product causes joy, frustration, uncertainty and pride.

To “pay it forward” a bit, I recently cleared out some of my own material stock for the fly tying class I started at Cascade school. This is the second year for the class and local fly shops stepped up to the plate in a big way. Big R Supply and Head Hunters fly shops donated some awesome materials, which is greatly appreciated.

As I write this, I am staring out the office window daydreaming of warm, sunny days and lots of big trout feeding on flies. Preferably the flies I tied for myself, friends and clients. My enduring dream includes the hope that the kids in the Cascade school fly tying class will be exposed to a whole new world. As it turns out, fishing is a fine obsession.

The one constant over the years since that fly tying class at my local school: there is no finer feeling than catching a fish with a fly you created. I hope that the next generation has the same great experience, over and over and over.