Words by Gordon van der Spuy Photographs by Leonard Flemming Materials maketh the fly. Most people buy fly tying material the way they do groceries. People walk into a shop with a fly tying ‘grocery’ list, picking packets off the shelves like one would do when visiting Pick’n Pay. The problem with fly tying material [...]
I know Gordon personally, so while enjoying the privilege to write a review about his movie, a step-by-step and informative fly tying DVD called Fundamental Fly Tying, I had to separate my emotions from it. Therefore, this is an honest review about my personal experience while watching Fundamental Fly Tying. Even though I chat to [...]
Most of our readers will know Gordon van der Spuy by now - search 'Fundamental Fly Tying' on this site to see some of his articles that have featured so far. Gord is a proactive fly fisherman and he has just released a fly tying DVD. He strives to make better fly tiers out of all the [...]
By Gordon van der Spuy, photos by Leonard Flemming In the last issue I spoke about hooks. This time I want to tackle thread. Thread is possibly the most neglected aspect in tying today. Most tiers don’t give it the attention it deserves, probably because they don’t understand thread and its application properly. “What’s there [...]
By Gordon van der Spuy The parachute RAB (para RAB in short) must rate as my all-time favourite fly. It is delicate and everything I look for in a dry fly is optimised in this pattern. I love tying it, but more importantly, I love fishing it. When trout commit to this fly they really [...]
Text by Gordon van der Spuy, photos by Leonard Flemming In my last piece (Tools of the Trade) I spoke about fly tying tools that will make tying life easy. Initially I thought of doing a piece on hooks, threads and basic materials but in retrospect I’ve decided against it. I’d rather cover each separately and [...]
By Gordon van der Spuy This is a series of articles that will feature on fly tying made simpler, better, faster… A free swimming caddis larva of the family Hydropsychidae - photo by Wolf Avni Fly tying, like heart surgery, requires the right set of tools for the job. Attempting heart surgery with [...]
By Gordon van der Spuy I dig how things sometimes just happen. A few months ago I was sitting at my pal Nick van Rensburg’s spread; we were babbling about fly fishing and messing around with fly tying equipment. I may be weird that way, I know, but I like the funny side of life [...]
FlyBru and Fanie Visagie (a.k.a., Gordon van der Spuy) recently released the 2nd fly-tying video demonstration of a long series I suspect. Again, Fanie shows some fancy tricks with locally collected, natural fly tying materials, this time displaying amazing multi-tasking skills while tying his "bef@#te" Zonker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4ulOksIb0M
I really enjoyed watching this FlyBru production of Gordon van der Spuy (Fanie Visagie) tying a popular Western Cape trout fly; Gordon shares some good fly tying tips in this 'tongue in cheek' movie. Rumour has it that the FlyBru team is working on the next Fanie Visagie fly tying demo - we are looking forward to [...]
