The mark of a professional is that they can produce a final product that is both uniform and of high quality. Whether it’s a golf swing or dicing onions you get there through repetition. Fly tying is no different, tying a number of flies in succession is the path to turning out flies that all look equally good and have the same, correct proportions. It’s also boring as hell.
Kelly Galloup describes himself as having a “six fly ass” and if that’s the case his ass is five flies more patient than mine. I can tie a couple flies in a row then I am bored. The ADHD that has been a professional strength for me? Not so good for production fly tying.
What I’ve found, is that while I can’t crank out flies, I do a good job at trickling them out. I’ll tie one every half an hour working on the same pattern (maybe in different sizes, usually in different colors), sets of six, for five or more days in a row. End of the week I’m sitting on three plus dozen flies.