Tying for the Way You Actually Fish
Lesson: The Notebook Habit — Writing Down What Worked
okay. this is the last lesson in this module and it's not really about tying technique at all. it's about a habit. i think it might be the most useful thing i teach all course, honestly, and it costs about two dollars for a notebook.
here's the problem it solves. you tie a batch of flies. you fish some of them. a few work great, a few don't get touched, one falls apart after four fish. and then a month later you're at the vise again and you cannot remember which ones were which. was it the darker hare's ear that worked on the provo, or the one with more flash? did the caddis that held up in the riffles have more or fewer hackle wraps? you genuinely don't know, because you didn't write it down, and your memory of "that one worked good" is not specific enough to repeat.
so you write it down. that's the whole lesson.
what to actually record
keep it simple or you won't keep doing it. i use a small notebook, the kind you'd get in a three-pack, and for each fly i note:
- the pattern and size (hare's ear, size 16)
- what i changed from the "standard" recipe, if anything (used the darker dubbing, added two extra flash strands)
- where i fished it (which stretch, roughly)
- what happened (caught fish steady, or sat in the fly box all day, or fell apart after three fish)
- date, loosely
that's it. five lines. takes less time than tying the fly did.
the "what happened" line is the one people skip and it's the one that matters most. "caught fish" isn't useful enough. did it catch fish in fast riffle water or slow pools? did it catch fish for an hour and then stop working, which might mean something changed in the water, or might mean the fly waterlogged and needs re-floatant. specificity is what makes the notebook worth anything later. vague notes are just a journal. specific notes are data.
the actual habit part
the trick isn't the notebook, it's writing in it the same day you fish, or that evening at the latest. i say this because i didn't do it for the first year and it's useless information by the time you get around to it three weeks later. do it while you're still annoyed that the fly fell apart, or still pleased that it worked. that's when you remember the details that matter.
i'll admit the notebook is partly for remembering and partly because i just like keeping notes on things. i do this with other stuff too. it's a bit of a personality trait more than a tying strategy, but it happens to work really well for tying, so i teach it as if it's purely practical. no worries at all if you think that's a little much. it helps.
why this matters more than owning good materials
here's the thing i actually believe: proportions matter more than materials, and pattern tracking matters more than either one, because it's the only way you find out which proportions and materials actually work for your water. you can buy the nicest dubbing in the shop and never know if it's doing anything for you unless you're comparing it against what you tied last month and remembering how that one fished.
this is where i think about jordan for a second. jordan sat down at my vise at fifteen, no notebook, no reading, and tied a passable woolly bugger in about ten minutes just by watching me do one. genuinely annoyed me a little, because i'd spent a week getting my first one right. but here's the thing — jordan's fly worked because jordan copied proportions that were already dialed in. jordan didn't need a notebook that day because jordan was borrowing mine, basically, looking over my shoulder at years of trial and error compressed into one demonstration.
you don't have someone to copy in real time every time you fish. the notebook is how you become your own jordan-watching-nathan. it's you handing your future self a demonstration to copy, except it's written down instead of live.
a small caution
don't over-engineer this into a spreadsheet with twelve columns. i tried that for about three weeks, decided it was more effort than it was worth, and went back to five lines in a notebook. the goal is that you actually do it, every time, not that it's comprehensive. a habit you keep beats a system you abandon.
before next time
pick one fly you tied this course — hare's ear, pheasant tail, elk hair caddis, whatever — and write the first entry before you fish it again. doesn't matter if you haven't fished it yet. start the habit with the tying notes you already have.