The three flies I want to introduce to you are the buzzer, the leech and the booby. The leech is also known as the tadpole and the buzzer form I use is also known as the bloodworm. Getting acquainted with these three flies will give you a great grounding in fly construction as well as giving you a wide field of use for the minimum of effort. Let's start with the easiest of the three, the buzzer. I'm going to assume that you've never tied a fly before, so I'll make everything as simple as I can.

Please remember that the object of the exercise here is to get some flies made that are generic. They are not meant to imitate any specific life form. Rather they are so general in their appearance that they will serve their purpose in many situations. For those of you who want to progress your fly tying skills to the next level and beyond there are many books and web sites that will serve you well. You can also check out the fly tying videos links that appear later - they are superb and will help you when you decide to take the next step. My first priority has always been to do what it takes to catch fish with the minimum of effort. Some may call that laziness - I like to call it maximizing my cost benefit analysis!

I always buy my flies - I don't have the time to tie them for myself. That's the excuse I used for years - and I believed it. The day arrived when the experience I had developed told me that the fly I needed was not available in the store. What now? With great trepidation I made the decision to try and do-it-myself. And, guess what? It wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be. One thing that I realised quite quickly - there are two types of flies. There are those that are designed to catch fishermen and there are those that are designed to catch fish! There is no doubt that the works of art that are admired for their technical excellence are truly magnificent. Fly tying can become a hobby in itself, eventually becoming divorced from the original intent - which is to make an artificial bait sufficiently realistic to fool the fish. I have neither the time nor the dexterity to make up these beautiful "life as art forms".