Wayward fly fishing 

I can't remember a time when I wasn't fishing with a fly. Well, I guess I fished with worms and grasshoppers at one point, and maybe some corn. And I've also tied flies that resemble worms, grasshoppers, and even corn.

Send any thoughts to Toney J. Sisk

My life changed when I lifted a stream rock and pulled a grubby looking yellow worm from its case, a Caddis nymph. Thinking that it looked like one of my Dad's pipe-cleaner wires (those chinelle-looking wires), I went home and wrapped one of his pipe-cleaner wires around a bait hook, colored it yellow with a marker pen, tied a few pieces of black thread around it to look like the black legs of the stream nymph, and promptly forgot about it.

Then I found an old fly reel spool on a dirt road on the way to a creek. It was smashed by a car's wheel, but when I got to the creek, I managed to pull off a bunch of the line, attached some of my spinning reel monofilament with a granny knot, tied the line to the end of my spinning rod, tied on the pipe-cleaner fly, waved the whole affair back and forth above my head a few times, and launched the fly over the water.

The only other thing I can remember about the event was that in the next few casts, the line waving became considerably more difficult. I looked above me as the line flew by, and saw that I was actually casting a small fish that decided to attack my fly. I remember thinking to myself, This can't be right?

I haven't been normal since.

Currently, besides blogging about flyfishing (flogging) and writing book reviews, I write for Fly fisherman, Flyfishing & Tying, and other magazines. I also write for Disc Golf and small ball (regular golf) magazines.