The Feather Thief

This fascinating book came out in 2018. It describes the theft of priceless exotic, mostly tropical, birds by a young salmon fly tier named Edwin Rist at the British Natural History Museum.

The bird collection in the museum was collected during the colonial era by naturalists like Alfred Wallace. Edwin, an American music student studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London, planned an idea to break into the Museum and steal nearly 300, some irreplaceable, bird skins.

This morning I listened to this excellent concise summary of the book which almost feels like reading a detective story. The narrator is obviously not a fly tier as she regularly talks about 'the art of tie flying' rather than 'fly tying'. 😄

Lance Hidy on his father's Trout flies

Here's a rather unusual but very good presentation by Lance Hidy about the flies his father. Vernon 'Pete' Hidy, tied. The audience seems to be a non fly fishing public, and Lance's non technical phrasing of what fly fishing & tying is, is especially refreshing.

Hidy's approach to emergers called the Flymph is in a previous post from a few years ago.

More about the flies by Pete Hidy.

Orvis monthly tie off

Orvis has a been hosting a monthly tie off on YouTube and Facebook for the last couple of years.

A challenge who ties the nicest chosen fly pattern between Tom Rosenbauer and Tim Flagler.

If I recall correctly Orvis started the monthly match during the beginning of the pandemic, as a way to entertain us when we had to stay inside.

Recently Cheech from Fly, Fish & Food joined to make it even more challenging who ties the best fly. 

Somehow I got mentioned during the tie off two weeks ago: