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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