I don’t think I’ll ever be a successful fly tier, in fact I’ll probably never be a fly tier of any merit at all! I simply don’t have the skill to repeat the exactitude and visionary materials management required.
That doesn’t mean I cant dream of what a fly might or can do if it possessed certain qualities of shape and size and movement and colour and position…this is what I think about a lot of the time
A fly of a certain type in a certain place at the right time can surely help matters. Planning to be in the right place at the right is part of the essential skill of bass fishing.
But sometimes things just tend to graduate towards each other with no planning, no reason and sometimes the accidental, the mysterious reasons for that meeting are beyond explanation, the results however can be enormously positive. A mystery.
Brian Healey and I fenced around each other for a year or two, neither of us quite sure what the other had found. Circling and chatting and playing cards close to our chests! And then slowly and over time it has formed into an easy, strong and understanding collaboration.
Brian Healey builds me flies like no one else – the flies are simply what and how I would imagine and want them to be – they are locked onto my instinct for bass fishing, or then again maybe Brian Healey is, maybe its all just part of the mystery.
And the extension of that of course is the confidence I have when my customers or I are fishing them. Who cares where that confidence extends from, that debate rages all over the tackle industry, I know I’m happy and feel good. Its great to work together. To have the time and patience and rewards of working and doing and trying and failing and trying again.
If you are looking for something a little bit special, unique, of extraordinary quality, then why not pay us a visit at www.hooked.ie where we will present a range of quality Irish made saltwater flies for both bass and seatrout fishing in the sea.
Jim and Brian
