My misadventures with salmon flies began two years ago. I had been tying trout and bass flies for three years and felt lucky whenever I could fish them. Yet, I needed something more exotic and challenging and I wanted to reach a level of tying that would be looked at with admiration and respect. Fully-dressed salmon flies seemed to be the answer and with the aid of my own naivete, I had fallen life-long under its spell.

My first step was to buy books and lots of them. Those transcripts of knowledge so generously given to us by the masters of the art were expensive and in the words of my fly shop dealer, "indispensable". As my fingers ran through those pages, my heart pounded with its newly found goal; "I will tie each and every one of those gorgeous patterns!".

I read with more and more attention. But as I looked more closely at the illustrations in the books I became confused. The same patterns looked very different as tied by different tiers. Which tier should I follow, which one should I trust and who was speaking the right language? At this point my mind could not handle the Tower of Babel I was faced with. To reverse or not to reverse the thread, that was the question...

My quest for materials soon began. The names of toucan, bustard, Cock of the Rock and chatterer filled my mind and I repeated these magic names to less knowledgeable tiers who looked at me with wide eyes. I bought goose and turkey quills and tried for hours to marry the fibers into wings and then apply them to hooks. I still keep those first flies and use them as a threat to my son, swearing that I will hang them in his room if his grades are not good!

I decided to buy only authentic materials and spent a lot of money in the process. I'd jump on a speckled bustard feather as though it were the last one on earth, never looking at the price tag. Thus ensued a frenzy of "Having-It-All". I could not tie a particular pattern if I were missing a called-for fiber of a rare pheasant that was hatched exclusively on the property of the last Earl of Jock Scott, Sir Conrad of Highlander! For a mere couple hundred dollars, a well-acquainted tier could obtain the rarest of feathers from obscure dealers in New York and Scotland. In my dreams I can see myself entering a fly shop where a wall-sized vault opens its door and delivers its treasures to me.

Now, of course, I have learned to order goose shoulders and other substitutes but I still get annoyed with dealers who promise me that their feathers will tie on a size 2/0 hook only to forget to mention that just 10 percent of them may actually be usable for this size. I have also learned that blue doctor and green highlander are not the same colors if you are getting them from the East or West coast.

It seems that my Visa account is getting me deeper in debt each time I call a dealer. More and more of my materials are obsolete. Worst of all, just when I receive that long awaited feather, I find I am out of the desired floss which happens to be out of stock. I must be under a spell -- the spell of the salmon fly.

My family looks at me oddly and my friends are getting bored with my obsession. I'm thinking about taking my vise to work and tying a few flies between cooking meals for a dining room filled with people awaiting gourmet entrees.

All in all, my salmon flies are improving and I've met a few other people with the same obsession who, like me, are going to salmon fly therapy which should help us keep our floss smooth, our wings proportioned and our sanity intact, I hope!