How to... get into fly-fishing! Let it fly!

Lee Hooper explains the subtle art of tying flies- and why it's worth the bother.

The first fish I ever caught on a fly I'd tied; that's something that has stuck with me for all my life. It was on a fly called a Sweeney Todd, and I was probably about seven years old. I remember exactly where on the lake it was, what fly it was, what rod I was using. It's quite special, you know."

Lee Hooper has been fishing all his life, having been brought up inWiltshire with a grandfather, father and two uncles who all fished. "I used to get dragged along with them to the rivers or lakes when they were fishing. I used to grub around in the rivers; sometimes they'd cast for me or hook fish and hand over the rod, and I got introduced to it like that." In the evenings, the boxes of fly tying equipment would come out, full of feathers, dubbing materials and all sorts of things that were intriguing to a young child.

Now, outside of his day job, Lee is an Angling Trust Level 2 coach, as well as being a Chevron Hackles sponsored professional fly tyer, working for the Countryside Alliance Foundation's Fishing 4 Schools charity, as well as doing kick sample monitoring for ARMI (Anglers' Riverfly Monitoring Initiative). "That ties in really well with the fly tying, because when I sample the rivers for the aquatic invertebrates to see how healthy the river is, I see exactly what's in the water, so I know what flies to tie. I can copy the insects, copy what I see in the river."

But if you've not been lucky enough to grow up in a family of fly fisherman, how do you begin tying your own flies? And frankly, why would you bother, when you can simply buy them from a shop?

It turns out there are lots of benefits to tying your own flies. One is quality control; many commercial flies are made fairly cheaply, and one way to keep the cost down is by using sub-standard hooks. "You can buy some beautiful flies and fish quite happily with them. But at the end of the day, the hook is what's going to connect you to the fish," explains Lee. "I guarantee you it will be that one fish of a lifetime that will find the weak spot in your hook, and you'll be going home in tears." If you make them yourself, you can make sure you use the best quality hooks around.

Secondly, the cost. Flies aren't cheap, and although you need to buy a bit of kit in order to start fly tying, "the amount you would spend on flies, you would soon make back by tying your own". And thirdly, the sheer enjoyment of it. "I love fly tying, and I know hundreds of people who get as gripped by that as they do by fishing. Personally, I can't imagine one without the other; they go hand in hand, and provide massive enjoyment." That's not to say it's always going to be easy. "When people start tying, there is a frustrating stage where you're trying to get the hang of things. But once you get past that stage, it's really therapeutic and enjoyable. You can invent your own flies, copy flies, imitate insects, design your own. The variations are endless." Getting started can be a bit of a minefield, especially when it comes to equipment. The first thing to do is ask what you are going to be fishing for, and what flies you want to tie. Advice from more experienced fly tyers can be invaluable, both about equipment and starting off tying. Lee recommends joining the Fly Dressers' Guild, a non-profit organisation who promote and encourage the art of fly tying. You don't have to be experienced to join; the aim is to encourage people to take up fly tying, and improve their skills. The guild has branches up and down the country who have fly tying sessions once or twice a month, as well as plenty of handy information online. Professionals such as Lee also offer private coaching, but books, magazines, and the internet are great resources. Davie McPhail is one fly tyer who comes particularly recommended. "He's a Scottish fly tying legend on YouTube," explains Lee. "He has clear footage so you can see exactly what he's doing. If there's a pattern that you don't know how to tie, you can just watch Davie and copy him."

For a beginner, there are thousands of basic flies out there, but Lee recommends a Pheasant Tail Nymph as a good starting point for a trout angler. Made from basic materials: a few pheasant feathers, a bit of rabbit dubbing and some copper wire, "you could almost make this fly out of roadkill if you were that way inclined."

It isn't all about making set fly patterns, though; Lee believes the techniques are just as important, if not more so. "If you learn techniques, there are lots of different flies you can tie, because every fly is a chain of processes. Once you've learnt the techniques, you can tie anything." As with so many things, practice makes perfect. One of the hardest things about fly-tying is learning consistency. Making one perfect fly can seem easy; but making three or four exactly the same is more of a challenge.

Don't forget though, that fly tying is supposed to be fun. "Have a play, enjoy it, invent stuff," urges Lee. And don't forget, things don't need to be too complicated. Lee's favourite fly is called Diawl Bach – Welsh for "little devil" – but it's still a basic pattern. "I'm not a fan of fancy stuff, because if you spend hours tying something and you lose it, you won't be very happy. Simple flies catch more fish, and accidents happen." Fish have teeth, after all.

When push comes to shove, fishing is fishing. "There's always something to learn about fishing or fly tying, whether you've been doing it for five or 50 years," says Lee. "And at the end of the day, the fish make the rules."