Flymen Blog
The Essential Tool For Every Fly Tyer’s Table
Tie → Test → Fish
If you're a fly tyer, you've almost certainly experienced the incredibly frustrating feeling of carefully tying the perfect fly for your next time on the water only to find out on your first cast that your fly doesn't swim well at all.
That's exactly what led to the idea for the Fly Tester.
I spent an entire weekend tying up two dozen of the most beautiful looking streamer flies you can imagine, but when I went fishing the next day first fly I threw in the water swam upside down!
So frustrating!
I'd essentially wasted my entire weekend tying flies that simply didn’t work very well and obviously led to a less-than-ideal day on the water.
If you think about it, we as fly anglers are real optimists; we spend an incredible amount of time designing and tying a bunch of flies, then go straight to the river, throw them in, and hope they work!
I realized that we fly tyers didn’t have any method at the time to determine if the flies we design and tie are any good and in a lightbulb moment I came up with the idea for the first Fly Tester.
Nick Groves' Polarceiver Fly Will Smash Smallmouth Bass and More...
Nick Groves' Polarceiver combines two of my favorite materials, Peacock Herl and Polar Chenille, into an easy-to-tie articulated streamer.
Utilizing a Fish-Skull Fish-Spine for increased swim action and a Fish-Skull Baitfish Head to help the fly get deep and add a realistic head profile, the Polarceiver has quickly made its way to the top of my list for smallmouth bass fishing!