Production Tying

I have done some production tying over the years. Quite a bit, in fact. And after all that time, I can definitely say that I have come to a concise, and somewhat well thought out opinion on production tying, and that is: I am not a huge fan of it.

Not to say that I despise it or anything like that. It's just that my preferred style of tying is too haphazard to be a good production tyer. I like to have something playing on the TV in the background, like sports or whatever TV show I happen to be hooked on at the moment. And that TV viewing has a tendency to take my focus away from the fly for minutes or hours at a time. Good production tyers need to stay focused on the task at hand. I don't do that.

I also like to get up and move around, not necessarily for any actual reason. I just can't sit still for hours on end. I need to get up and move. Good production tyers can sit for weeks on end, if need be.

My fly tying desk can get totally disorganized in a matter of seconds when I am tying. I don't like to prepare things in advance. Put 8 dozen beads on hooks before I tie a single fly? No thanks. Go through all my necks and saddles and divide up all the feathers by size? I would rather watch paint dry. I don't even like to keep my scissors in my tool hand while tying, which is something one of my fly tying mentors said was an essential part of being a proficient tyer. I'll gladly set my scissors down and pick them up every time I have to cut something.

I would rather match up all of my kids' socks than pre-bead a bunch of hooks!

Despite all these things that make me a bad production tyer, I have done quite bit of it. One summer, when I still worked at Bob Mitchell's Fly Shop back when it was in Lake Elmo, MN, I tied something like 70, or 80, or a billion dozen Kinni Sulphur parachutes for the bins of the shop. I still don't know why all of our customers chose that summer, when our two other part-timers, Gabe and Ron, were off gallivanting around the globe, to buy so many Kinni Sulphurs, but since I was the only henchman around, it was my job to tie them.

I haven't tied that many flies since, but this winter I did get an order for several dozen from Lund's Fly Shop, and I am very happy to announce that I am almost done with the order. I did some self-reflection, looking back at my history of production tying, and came to the conclusion that, since I am such a bad production tyer, I better get started on this order early. And I did, starting back in December, or maybe even November.... The flies don't look too bad, either, which is the most important thing.

Maybe I don't dislike all this production tying stuff all that much, after all...just don't ask me to tie another billion dozen like I did that one year!

The above three flies are what I have been tying for Lund's this winter.