Charlie Craven - Charlie Cravens Basic Fly Tying

Copyright 2008 by Charlie Craven

Published by
HEADWATER BOOKS
531 Harding Street
New Cumberland, PA 17070
www.headwaterbooks.com

STACKPOLE BOOKS
5067 Ritter Road
Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
www.stackpolebooks.com

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Headwater Books, 531 Harding Street, New Cumberland, Pennsylvania 17070.

Printed in China

First edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN: 978-0-9793460-2-6
eISBN: 978-0-8117-4463-8

Cover design by Caroline Stover
Cover photographs by Charlie Craven

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008922044

For my wife Kris and our three great kids,
Charlie, Julie, and Jack. I love you all.

Acknowledgments

I have been fortunate in my life to meet and work with so many fine people who have freely given their time and experience to help me get to where I am today. I am truly in awe of their generosity.

Thanks to my parents, Dick and Cece Craven, for always encouraging me. Only with your support and advice could I have come this far.

Thanks to my oldest and dearest friend Ross Bartholomay for being a sturdy sounding board and providing a voice of reason and unending support over the years, and to Matt Prowse, my newest, dearest friend, for many great days on the water, the gift of hilarity, and rowing me down the river more than I deserve.

Thanks to Van Rollo and Erik Johnson. Without your help and support I would not be what I am today, and for this I will never thank you enough. Thanks to Umpqua Feather Merchants for support, encouragement, and the avenue to market my flies to the masses. Thanks to Michael White for always being there with a young guns perspective. I am fortunate to call you my friend.

Much appreciation goes out to my good friend John Barr for having the faith in my photography skills to let me shoot the pictures for his book, the years of advice and guidance, and for always saying what needs to be said. Thanks to Greg Garcia, for all the feedback, politely telling me when to rein it in, and all that you do for Charlies Fly Box. Many thanks to Jay Nichols of Headwater Books for hours of editing, unending encouragement, and having the guts to give me the opportunity to write this book.

And finally, thanks to my wonderful wife, Kris, and my three great kids, Charlie, Julie, and Jack. You make my life complete and keep me grounded. Without you, none of this matters. Having your support and love makes me lucky to be living my dreamstroking my ego doesnt hurt either.

Introduction

Fly tying is not rocket science. Tie enough flies with perfection as a goal, and your technique will improve. (Youll also fill your boxes in the meantime.) JAY NICHOLS PHOTO

T his is the part where the author gets to go on and on about his years of experience, tells you why you should listen to his advice above all others, and gets to toot his horn for as long as he can capture your attention. Here, the reader can get a good idea of the overall tone of the upcoming book, and perhaps decide just how much attention to pay to the techniques and advice forthcoming.

That being said, I am going to come right out and say that I am just an average guy of average intelligence who just so happens to have tied a whole bundle of flies in my life. I have been a commercial fly tier for nearly thirty years now, and in that time have tied flies for almost every species of gamefish in nearly every location in the world, though I mostly tie trout flies for the Rocky Mountain region of the United States.

I started tying flies with a kit given to me by my parents when I was about eight years old. It was of little consequence that I knew nothing about tying flies and only had a small pamphlet explaining how to go about it. I dove right in, and I tied every one of those pretty little bits of fluff contained in the kit to hooks, producing some of what were, in hindsight, the ugliest flies ever created. Many of my flies were tied inside out and backward, as I generally would start at the front of the hook and work to the rear. These abominations caught the local sunfish just fine, and I thought perhaps that I was truly gifted. Little did I realize that fly tying would later play a big part in my life. I still remember rushing home from school each day to sit down and tie as much as I could. I was enthralled with every bit of fur and feathers from the kit and even took to harvesting some of my own materials from our backyard songbirds. (Never leave an eight-year-old unattended with a BB gun.)

Commercial tiers have developed tricks for speed, quality, and consistency in fly patterns. JAY NICHOLS PHOTO

My tying improved dramatically after I mowed our neighbors lawn for five weeks to save enough money to buy a copy of Jack Dennis Western Trout Fly Tying Manual Volume 1. Up until this book, I had no formal instruction, and I had yet to see anyone else tie a fly. Dennis book really got my juices flowing and kept me at the bench until all hours of the night. I fell in love with tying and even remember my mom actually grounding me from tying flies at one point as a punishment for some forgotten sin. (It probably had something to do with that BB gun.)

From those days forward, I tied every evening and all day on weekends. Eventually, I became good enough to land small jobs tying flies for friends and family, which then led to tying commercially for a fly distributor in Thornton, Colorado. Monte Andres ran a little company called The Rocky Mountain Fisherman and bought flies from local tiers and then distributed them to local outdoor shops and gas stations. He ran an ad in the newspaper looking for tiers, and my father pointed out to me that perhaps I could make this into a real job and even save up enough money to buy my first car. I was about twelve years old at the time, and the prospect of being paid to tie flies was like someone offering to pay me to play in the yard.

I got the job with Monte, and that was the beginning of my commercial fly tying career. Since then, I have tied flies for most of the Denver-area shops, building lifelong relationships with some of the best tiers and fishermen in Colorado. I have to take this chance to thank those patient folks for putting up with a young kid and all his questions over the years. Folks like George and Dot Mayer, Tim Heng, Roy Palm, Terry and Lori Nicholson, Bill Schappel, and Ken Walters offered me opportunities to tie flies for their shops and helped me so much along the way. I owe much to these fine folks and feel fortunate to have known them for as long as I have.

When I was in middle school, I began teaching basic beginning fly-tying classes for a local fishing and hunting store. I later taught classes for some of the finer shops in the Denver area, which may have taught me more about fly tying than I have taught my students.