In 1944 my first year in High School, in N.J., one of my classmate was a fly
fisherman, we were 14 at that time. He showed me how to tie flies. Back then,
there was no waxed thread, bobbins and a lot of the materials we have today. We
picked up a lot of road kills.
Some day I will post the story about the Skunk road kill. We moved to another
location in town and the neighbor was also a fly fisherman and tied flies. He
gave me two books, one was by Paul Young, I still have that book but the other
was lost over the years. At that time the rods were bamboo, lines and tying
thread was silk and leaders were gut. I made my first tying vise from a length
of solid rod, cut the slit with a hack saw and used a bolt and wing nut to
close the jaws. I bought my first fly rod for 25 cents. It was bamboo and in
bad shape so I thought myself
to wrap a rod. From that I got several requests to wrap some other rods. I was
charging 5.00 to do them.
Airplanes was always my big interest and when I was 16 I started taking flying
lessons and the fly tying kind of slacked off , just tied on and off. I had my
pilots license before I could legally drive. Went into the Air Force at age 18.
. I built a folding wing airplane of my design in 1960. See tuholer.com
Aviation was my life till 1988, heart problems ended my career with airplanes.
In recovering I met a fly fisherman at the local pond and he was a fly tyer.
That got me back into tying. I started tying at small local shows then got a
break and was invited to tie at one of the bigger shows. From there more
invitations came and I started tying in the show circut. My flies started
showing up in magazines then in a number of books.
I also had the opportunity to meet and become friends with a good number of top
names in the fly fishing world. I was also invited to join the Pro staff of
Gudebrod, Dyna King,
Mag Eyes, Conranch Hackles, and Nymph Head Fly Tying beads. Was a featured
tyer at many of the shows.
In 1993, on our way to Oklahoma, we stopped in Arkansas to attend a FFF
Conclave. while there we bought a place on the White River. Moved here six
months later and I fished almost every day for the first three years. I got
involved with the local Fly Fishing Club and became very active. In 1996 I got
the club to agree to get a show started. That is the Sowbug Roundup, one of the
best tying shows in the country. I held tying classes for the club and had a
class of my own at my house once a year. I started to get invitations to tie at
the local area shows and the FFF Conclaves. I could travel then and did a lot
of shows in a number of other states. I also was going back to tie at the east
coast shows till other health problems limited that.During this time I started
tying for a few shops and resorts along for several clients. With all of this,
I was also building Graphite fly rods. We have a local rod shop that I also
wrapped some rods for them. In 1998, I
got into making bamboo rods from scratch. That really cut into my
tying time and the tying slacked off quite a bit. I am still tying and making
rods but at a slower scale. I have some health poblems that are slowing me down
quite a bit. I still teach making bamboo rods.
All the above does not make me better than anyone else, I am just thankful
that I was able to accomplish this when I was able to do so.
Other hobbies are Photography, building strip Canoes, Wood Carving and a number
of other things over the years.
Yes, Dot my wife of 59 years puts up with all of this.
I could go on but this is becoming a book
Tony
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