Tying titles: There's more to creating an original new fly than simply giving it a name

Spiel · May 21, 2009

Tying titles: There's more to creating an original new fly than simply giving it a name

Invention convention: The true test of a new fly is whether it can actually catch a fish

"What are you using?" I shout downstream as my buddy plays another fish to the bank.

"A Ralph's Stimulator," he yells back with a smirk on his face. It's an old joke, but we both laugh anyway. Ralph-not his real name-is a guy we know who modifies well-known fly patterns, then attaches his name to the creation. It would be like me adding a few paragraphs to The Iliad and calling it Jeff's Iliad.

Technically, I guess Ralph is justified. After all, he modified the fly and, in doing so, changed its identity. But did the fly actually become an entirely new creation? Can Ralph truly plant his flag, confident he's navigated uncharted waters?

When Bono from the rock group U2 penned the lyric "Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief" for the song "The Fly," I'm sure fishing flies were the furthest thing from his rock-star mind. But the sentiment of the lyric-that people are continually stealing from what has already been created in order to make new things-rings true even in the world of fur, feathers and tinsel.

Plagiarism is the lifeblood of fly tying, which is one of the greatest unstructured, free-form creative commons in the world today-think of the fly-fishing fraternity as one of the first open-source collectives. After all, the practice of lashing various materials to hooks in a bid to catch fish has been around for centuries, yet it's not bound by copyright or patent law. And it never will be.

Consider: I can watch another angler unhook a fish and find out what his fly looks like. Or I could take a peek in a buddy's fly box. I might just find an old fly snagged on a tree branch. Whatever the case, I can then go home and tie a dozen replicas of the same fly, perhaps with some modifications. I could even sell them. This process of continually copying and modifying flies is an understood component of the fly-tying art form, and that's precisely what makes it so difficult to determine when a fly has become an entirely new entity-or when it has merely been pimped up.

So, does it really matter at what point a fly gets a new name? Not really. Fly fishing can be as cerebral as an angler wants it to be, but utility trumps aesthetics every time. And when you're on the water, the origin of a fly is the last thing that matters-your main concern is enticing a fish. It's only in magazines we have the luxury of getting, well, existential about such issues.

And given that luxury, I would have to say a fly should only be considered a new creation if it somehow breaks new ground, even in a basic way. For example, Jack Shaw, the inventor of chironomid fishing, blazed a trail for a long list of new offerings. Now B.C.'s stillwater anglers spend the off-season filling boxes with dozens of combinations and permutations of Shaw's original design. And, through word of mouth and infinite adaptation, a long list of chironomid patterns has found its way into the West Coast angling lexicon.

Changes as simple as adding a red butt or a white bead to the head were ample enough to crown these variations with new names. But sheer sex appeal alone wasn't the deciding factor. These flies earned the right to have a name because they got the job done.

Conversely, many an angler can attest to near perfect-looking offerings coming off the tying bench that, like flashy first-round draft picks, couldn't live up to the hype. Such castoffs tend to fade away into obscurity, never to be heard from again. Indeed, the whole process has Darwinian undertones.

In the end, you can name your fly whatever you want, but there's always the possibility the moniker will be modified or replaced by others, or simply disappear. There's no guarantee it will stick. It's ultimately the court of angler opinion-and our finicky pea-brained quarry-that will decide if a fly is original enough to see its name live on.