Actually, two days of procrastinating...and again, I'm not going to lie. I don't like tying flies for the up-coming season. Part of the problem is I've been going back and forth from Bozeman to Wolf Creek so much that all my materials and tools were packed in storage bins and every time I would go to tie anything, I'd have to spend an hour sorting through a jarbled mess to get what I needed just to tie a few dozen zebra midges. It didn't really seem worth it; making it incredibly difficult to bring myself to go through it. Plus, it's just boring tying the same bug over and over again. A few years ago I started listening to audio books--trying to keep my mind busy while performing such mundane and incredibly tedious acts like tying a zebra midge and when that failed, my zebra midges started taking on crazy characteristics like purple collars or Mylar tails just to keep myself interested. (Some of those alterations actually work YO!)
In an attempt to organize my life a little and prepare myself for season nine on the Missouri, (and yes, an even better attempt at further procrastination,) I decided to put together a fly tying station that meets some very specific needs for myself and my companions. The first thing is it has to be accessible at any random time inspiration strikes and I feel like tying a few bugs. If I have to sift through a bunch of crap to get to what I need, that inspiration is going to flee as quickly as a rainbow going down after the slap of a bad cast on the water. I have to be able to pick right up where I left off or I'm just not going to keep interested.
The second thing is that it has to be functional and everything has to have a place in order for me to feel like I'm truly being productive. I used to tie flies on an end-table in the White House, (my little cottage in Wolf Creek,) because my place was so small and that's really all I could fit. I was always setting my scissors or my whip finisher down somewhere and it would take me a few seconds to find them, which would add on to the time it would take me to finish a fly. When you're tying dozens of flies and even thousands over the course of a few weeks, those seconds add up and every time I lose a tool, even for a few seconds, it frustrates the crap out of me.
The third thing, and probably the most important, I make a HUGE mess when I'm tying flies and I don't like to clean up after myself because I know I'm just going to make a mess the next time I sit down. What this means is that I have to be able to cover my tracks with little to know effort so my area doesn't look like the disheveled mess to everyone else who has to look at it.
So the other day, I found this little roll-top desk on Craig's List for fifty-bucks and thought, "That's it!" It will give me everything I need and still keep the peace with the other homies and homesses. It's perfect. It has some built in compartments with just enough room for limited supplies, a drawer to sweep all my clippings in, and a lid to hide my mess. Sweet!
I did need to make some improvements though. For example, I found a plaque at Home Depot for hanging house numbers on a door for $5 and attached pins for thread and Dremeled out some cups for beads and hooks. I've always wanted to do something like that but never got around to it. (I guess I didn't think it was worth preventing that time sucking act of chasing thread across the room and then trying to wrap the thread back up on the spool.) I also attached hooks for hanging my scissors and whip finisher SO I NEVER LOSE THEM AGAIN; that is, if I actually use them.
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