If you've got short, stubby fingers and wear reading glasses, any relaxation you would normally derive from fly fishing is completely eliminated when you try to tie on a fly.
Terrorism really doesn't strike at physical structures as much as it strikes at ideas, and its main fear is ideas. And cartoonists are particularly effective at distilling ideas.
Yes, I actually have a portable fly-tying kit in my vest. I spent hours putting it all together, with a special emphasis on midge materials as well as enough fur and feathers to whip out a half dozen of virtually every conceivable dry pattern nature can throw at me. I have used it once, in 1993.
I’m not much of a fly tier. I can do it—my friend calls it 'ham and eggs tying'—and I tie some cool flies that I can’t buy in a fly shop, but other than that, I would no more sit down and tie a dozen hopper patterns than I would do something absolutely insane, like build a rod.
