Some of the flies are tied with medium white sewing thread, others are done in heavy green buttonhole silk. When I made them I liked green flies best. Now I prefer the white ones which, over time, have become attractively segmented as the gently rusting hooks stained the thread. They look like naked Woolly Buggers. Faking out a fish by faking a fish food is a fine example of how irresistible human nature finds a simple act of deception that requires ingenuity.
Ingenuity hooks the fly fisher long before the fly fisher hooks a fish.
I fell to the lure of it. I fell in love with fishing by first tying flies to fish with. I learned the philosophy of economy from a crude fly tier but my earliest lesson, which came with my first hook, was to be inventive. Occasionally, I take out one of those small, ancient, yellowing cardboard boxes. I treasure them.