A Whole Lot of Failures

I was going through my streamer box last night, which is about the size of a small suitcase, because I was tired of seeing so many patterns that I am never going to use.  As I was making piles of "keep" and "get rid of," I noticed that latter pile was getting substantial in size.  When all was said and done, this is the mess I wound up with. 

It is important to note that I tied all of these.  I don't say that to brag by any means.  These flies are not good by any means and are full of mistakes.  Some have heads that almost completely close up the eyes.  Some were attempts at improving existing patterns.  Other flies had materials substituted for what was required and ended up looking...off.  Others had bad proportions.  Some flies were just bad ideas from the start.  Some had deer hair that looked like it was spun by a monkey and others had cones that did not have wire wraps behind them.  All of them have one thing in common though; they were all part of a learning process.

Henry Ford once said, "The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing."  Yoda (not sure what his last name is) once said, "The greatest teacher, failure is."  Each one of these flies taught me something.  I either learned something while tying them, after looking at them at the time, or yesterday as I analyzed them.  I also learned that I have come a long way with my tying.  While a lot of it can be chalked up to good teachers and tyers, a lot of credit needs to go to these fly tying disasters.  Sometimes we learn what something is, but learning what it isn't.  

If you got a fly tying kit for Christmas or just decided to start tying, just know you are going to make mistakes.  If you recently got a fly rod and want to learn to cast, you need to be aware that you are going to fail sometimes.  Failure is part of the learning process and that is alright.  You're going to tie ugly flies and you're going to make bad casts.  The best thing you can do is identify your mistakes and try your best not to repeat them.  Finally, remember that the reward from learning from mistakes is greater than the mistakes themselves.  Now, if you will excuse me, I have a date with some ugly flies and a carpet cutter.  You better believe that these mistakes are going to end up as masterpieces!