Spey Tube Flies (Chaos on a Dining room table)

Where do you tie flies? Do you have a tidy spot in a den, or the perfect corner in the garage? Perhaps you have one of those highly organized stations that can be moved from spot to spot? Hmm. Well, I am beginning to feel my son and I have fallen prey to some hoarding mentality.

For many years, my gear and fly tying materials were borrowed or appropriated to cover my son’s fly tying needs. My older sons, Evan and Kelly, had long ago acquired their own gear. But, Tony just borrowed mine. Well, that has changed. Like some paranoid worried about the collapse of Western Civ. fly fishing, he is hoarding all manner of fishing equipment, fly tying materials and clothing. Hence, room is at a premium. There is no tidy corner, or empty space except upon the dining room table. Oh my! Perhaps you know how adherent fly tying materials are to a table cloth?

I periodically binge tie on the table until overwhelming feedback forces me to pack up and retreat. But, Tony has this habit of taking over an area like a gluttonous land baron. He expands out in ever increasing claims of territory…dubbing here, feathers there, tubes, hooks, debris, vice, tools, debris, lighter, tinsels, hairs, furs, debris, well you know how it accumulates and takes on the appearance of an archaeological dig.

Once this claim is established, he invariably is MIA at school, work, socializing, sleeping at odd hours and, of course, fishing. There sets the dining room table. Because he is not around, I get to hear the expressed negative opinions. You see even if he is not there to suffer the brunt of the critique of the dining room table, it does not matter because I am ultimately responsible for having led him astray. I caused all this. I created this monster. Well, yes I did. How cool is that!!!

I have tied on bread boards, kitchen tables, dark and damp basements and garages, lap stations, and yes the dining room table. The garage is busting at the seams with stuff. I am more of a guerrilla tier….there, then gone, never wanting to encounter the enemy straight on. Tony has yet to learn that lesson.