At the Vise // A series on craft, preparation, and process

Tying on a Guess

In September the fly box told me what to tie. In October it has nothing to say.

Last month was the easy kind of tying. The spring had already written the list. The empty slots were the record, and all I had to do was read it back and fill it in.

The question has changed since then. September asked what worked. October asks what will, and nobody at the bench knows the answer yet.

Tying for November is tying for water you have not seen. You can make a fair guess at it. The water will be colder. Trout will be slower to move and quicker to settle into the soft, deep seams near the bottom. The bugs will be smaller: midges, and a few olives on the grey afternoons. There will be browns on redds, and the right thing to do is leave them there.

Every one of those is a reasonable bet. None of them is a promise.

So you hedge. Tie a size smaller than feels right. A heavier bead on half the row and a lighter one on the other half, because the flow you find in five weeks may not be the one the gauge showed last week. A few patterns in a darker shade for the days that never really get bright. Call it a set of answers to questions the river has not asked yet.

Most tying is reacting. You see a hatch and tie it. You lose a fly and replace it. Fall tying runs the other way. Every fly is a guess about a fish, and in October the guess gets longer. You are betting on a river you can picture but cannot see, at a temperature you can predict but cannot feel, for a fish that may or may not be looking up, or looking at all.

You will not get all of it right. Some of these will ride in the box until spring, the way that untouched top row did this year. That is the cost of guessing early, and it is worth paying. The alternative is standing on the bank in November with a box built for August.

So the bench runs a little slower this time of year. More time looking at the space between the rows. More thinking about water temperature and light. Fewer flies, each one tied with a reason you could say out loud.

And when you do fish them, and one turns out to be right, it carries something the September flies do not. Those were answers copied out of the box. This one you worked out ahead of time, alone at the bench, weeks before the river could tell you.

The fish goes back. You keep that part.

~ John