It was the biggest tying expo the town of Longmont, Colorado ever had, with 30 tyers present and all having a marvelous time showing off their talent and skills at the vise. Mr. Rick Takahashi was there and saw my small display of wet flies and said they were absolutely stunning. A comment like that from him just humbled me. He's a master at tying and he was impressed with my little flies.
I wish I had time to go around and take better photos, and I don't know why I didn't because I surely could have, but I just kept tying away.
In the first photo, if you enlarge the photo, you will notice a boy next to a man in a white shirt. This is my neighbor and he was over the moon being at the expo. Mr. Takahashi tied him some flies and he was all over the place watching and learning. He has never tied flies before, and now he is hooked on it. I gave him a bunch of tying materials and bought him a nice beginner vise and presented it all to him when I got him home. The look on his face was like a kids face seeing the tree at Christmas morning. I told him that starting out with North Country Spiders will help him get started with hackle, thread tension and proportions. Then I wrote down Mr. Robert L. Smith's videos he can watch on you tube to help him out.
At the end of the expo, they ad a silent auction, and he put down $50 on a fly rod. He kept going over to see if anyone had out bid him and someone had by another $20. So seeing how he really wanted this rod, I gave him $30 and had him put down $80 on the sheet. He won the rod.
Not only that, but also, as you can see in the photos, there are these buckets in front of each tyer. They are for raffle tickets that you buy and if someone likes your flies, they put in a ticket or three and try to win your flies that you tied during the show. The boy won some flies too. He made out pretty good I have to say. He wants to tie next year at the expo.
I had some on lookers, but the guy next to me brought in a big, flat piece of river rock he found and drilled holes in it to make as his vise stand. I told him because he has something different, he was going to get a lot of onlookers. And did he ever. He even got a card form a man at a local fly shop asking if he'd tie some streamers for his shop.
And speaking of streamers, they and once again nymphs took the show. Those two types of flies always get the attention. But I had some older gentlemen coming by and once looking at my winged wet flies and soft hackled wets, they pretty much stopped to talk with me saying how my flies take them back to when they were younger and they liked it that someone my age was tying them. A lady stopped by and asked me questions about some of the flies, and she pointed to the Butcher first. I read the history of the flies I tied and was able to tell her the story of the Butcher along with the Rio Grande King Wet and Trude. The other fly I told her about was W.C. Stewart's Black Spider. She was very interested in the history of these flies and put in a few tickets into my bucket. I gave her some flying ants before she left my station. At the end of the show she came running over and said she won my flies. I wish I had time to tell her how to fish them properly, but I didn't get the chance. I feel bad about it.
So all in all, the show was a success. I think we raised close to $5,000 to help repair the South Saint Vrain Creek from the damages the flood did back in 2013.
This year I'm going to primarily focus on wet flies, especially the winged ones now that I have figured them out from the many videos I have watched and through trial and error. I almost wanted to give up, but I'm too stubborn at times and I really want to tie winged wets and make them look good. So I have gotten much better than before. By next year, I can hopefully call myself a master at them and not have to take ten tries to get the wings right. Before the show I was pretty much getting the wings tied in properly every time. And next year I will have a bigger display and hopefully have more people stop to watch me tie a fly or two.
Maybe next time I will have my neighbor boy sitting next to me tying away and having a good time.
