Save money by tying your own flies?

That’s the hilarious contention of John McCoy (staff writer for the Charleston Gazette), and I wonder if his employer shouldn’t immediately administer a drug test - lest John suffer another hallucination.

I look over at the piles of expensive fly tying materials, expensive hackles, machined HMH vise, chemically sharpened hooks and several-lifetimes supply of hen necks cluttering my office and wonder what our friend John has been smoking.

He recounts the high price of flies - and his amusing solution:

A relatively inexpensive answer to this problem is to learn to tie flies. Thirty years ago, when I started fly fishing, I couldn’t afford to buy rods and reels and flies too, so I learned to tie. I’ve done it ever since.

It’s difficult to estimate how much money I’ve saved, but I’ll try.

Let me try for you. I’d have to tie flies from now until people started making dinner reservations for their 2999 New Year’s Eve celebration to recoup the investment I’ve made in tools and materials.

And frankly, I’m an underachiever compared to the likes of Noted Pack Rat Dave Roberts, who recently built a whole new extension onto his house so he could warehouse his er…. “extensive” collection of materials.

(When the apocalypse comes and fly tying materials disappear from our nuclear-ravaged landscape, I’m heading right for Dave’s house.)

And there are plenty of people who consider him an underachiever.

So how about it? Is anyone saving money tying their own flies. Or are we spending scads of money for the privilege of getting them exactly the way we want ‘em…?