Ava's Midge

I was tying up some crayfish patterns that I've been working on last night and as is usually the case, my 3 year old daughter was down i n the basement with me. When down there she is doing one of two things, getting into my martial arts equipment (3 year old + Filipino fighting sticks =  bruises and/or quick reflexes) or she is standing there transfixed as Daddy "makes bugs."


I even have a little clamp-on vice on the side of my desk, and an old bobbin threaded with a mostly used bobbin of thread on it. She will stand there and wrap up the vice in thread, scatter bits of hair and feathers over top of that, and "make bugs with Daddy."

Well, last night she told me that she wanted to make bugs on my vice. So I plopped her on my lap, got out a size 14 hook and put it in the vice, making sure the point was completely covered. I started the thread and then showed her how to wrap. She wrapped it down the shank a bit and then I had her go up a bit. Then I placed on a tuft of dubbing and helped her make the collar. A quick whip finish and her first fly was complete.

This one is going right into a shadow box. With a little luck, when she's older, maybe she will catch her first fish on the fly with it. (She already has a few notches on her Dora fishing rod.) Or maybe that's just the sappy sentiments of her old man.

Either way, I think that I have one on my hands that's as addicted as I am to "making bugs."