We fly tiers are resourceful bunch and will repurpose almost anything if it helps to tie a better fly. We’ve used pet hair for dubbing, stripped electrical wire for brassies and raided craft stores for supplies. Then we tie those materials using homemade bobbins, clean out the eyes with a sewing needle stuffed in a dowel rod and pick up the dubbing with a Popsicle stick with a patch of Velcro stuck on it. When we’re done place them in an Altoids fly box and head off to the stream. Fly tying is like the adult version of a Rube Goldberg project at times or reliving our youth as grown MacGyvers. Either way your friends and family don’t describe you as resource, but rather cheap, crazy and the person they’d choose to be lost in the woods with. Needless to say this list could balloon were I to incorporate it all, but I’ve focused the list to items you may be able to "borrow" from the office.
I’m sure this isn’t an all-inclusive list so let me know what I missed (I omitted some obvious ones like superglue, scissors, etc). As I wrote this blog I thought about the profession most accommodating to the fly tyer and I settled on elementary school teacher. Summers off, out at 3:30pm, work in a bug identification field trip and all the craft supplies you can imagine. So go ahead and raid your office supplies, if you get canned for stealing company property don’t blame me and take the time off to do more fishing!
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