Graham ties flies used for fly fishing and he is very good at this.
So good that when he went to 'pose' one of his creations on a branch, a dragonfly decided that it looked really tasty and made off with it.
A wonderful series of photos here: Flies with an Attitude
I've often been asked "why do you enjoy tying realistic flies?"
Typically, I scratch my head, and say hmmm - Well, I enjoy the challenge, artistry, relaxation and therapeutic value, as well as the thrill of fooling large wary old fish that had previously seen it all. The sting of steel seems to provide these large wary fish with an abundance of attitude and likely an adrenaline rush as deep as mine.
That said, I never could have anticipated the reason why I tied the orange dragonfly pictured above, and don't recall ever being in such a rush to get busy at my tying desk. So, I'm going to share my story with you, presented more as a photo essay as opposed to lengthy text.
The story begins when I went to a local stream, with new digital camera in hand, eager to practice taking photos of a few of my realistic flies. The first thing I did was place a realistic fly on top of a dried twig sticking up out of the ground.
After taking one quick snapshot it appeared that noon was not the best time to take outdoor fly photos, the light was too bright, creating unwanted glare on the wings. I moved in a bit closer with the camera, and being unaccustomed to finding and focusing on small objects, I struggled to find the fly in the viewfinder. By the time focus was made, the fly was no longer on the twig. After searching for several minutes, crawling around on the ground, it finally occurred to me that something had taken the fly away.
After pulling another fly from my box, and deeply embedding the hook into the twig, I grabbed the camera, focused thought the viewfinder, and took a photo that stuck me as being rather unusual.
A bright orange dragonfly seemed rather determined to pull an easy meal from the twig.
One more:
These are just thumbnails -- visit his site for the full story and lots of other fantastic photographs.
