I feel fortunate to have met Martin Bach of Denmark. Martin is pictured at right in a pose he calls “Working”. Judging from his pictures I suspect he could earn a living tying flies at Fly Fishing Shows but I believe he has a daytime job. I’ve become slightly better acquainted through emails and pictures since we first made contact on the Fly Tying Forum. I’m sure we all will benefit from Martin’s efforts and studies. To say I’m impressed with his work would be a major understatement! As many of us who have tied these flies for a while have done Martin has tackled the craft and become enthralled with one of the many chapters. Martin and I share a passion in the Flies of William Blacker. We have shared a little correspondence on the subject and with his help (and others) I hope to shed a little more light on the two flies discussed in Are These Blacker Flies?

As I do with all new friends, I asked Martin if he would tell us a little about his hobby and himself and consider putting something together to assist others in their tying. He was kind enough to supply the following glimpse of his Salmon Fly Journey. He was generous to a fault when he compiled a fabulous step by step on tying a Blacker Mixed Wing Fly . Click on Blacker's Wings & How to Make Them to see it.

Martin has written the following:

My first attempt to tie a classic salmon fly was about 12 years ago. I started to tie inspired by flies pictured in what for me then was fancy magazines. First I tied with all kind of materials I got for wet flies, saltwater flies etc., and put in no particular order on the largest hooks I had. Man, I was proud of myself and my flies.
After a while, I bought the salmon fly tying bible at that time: Poul Jorgenson’s book “Salmon Flies”, and realized I had to collect other materials and learn new techniques. Then came a horrible time when my flies had to be correct classic patterns and still fully dressed, but there was always one material I didn’t have, so most of the time in the tying room was spent hunting a pattern, I had all materials for ( never thought of tie more simple patterns instead! ).
As the material collection was growing, so was my skills and I started making my own patterns, nice flies it was, but I always thought they were missing something, they were well tied but with no life.
So, about 8 years ago I saw the excellent Swedish flytyer Sven Olof Hård tie a fly. It was a turnover for me. Sven tie his flies exactly like they did 100 years ago, same materials, same techniques and with no vice. His flies look like they are taken directly out of Hardy’s catalogue from 1895. They are full of long gone skills, full of history, full of life. I realized this was the way to do it, so when I came home I got a copy of Kelson’s “The Salmon Fly”, read it, put my vice away, and started practicing.
I found out, the most difficult thing to do, if you want to understand the old literature and learn from it, is to stop looking at it with modern eyes. Forget all of your skills, doctrines of how a fly must look today, modern married wings, pre-waxed nylon thread, everything you can think of newer than what you are reading. When Francis, Kelson and Pryce-Tannatt wrote their books long time ago, they were the most updated you could get. An important thing not to forget is that they tied fishing flies, not exhibition flies.
Today, I love to lean back in a good chair when tying a fly, with a good scotch within reach and feel the whirr of history for a moment.

Martin Bach


To see the some of Martin's stunningly beautiful work click on the thumbnails below to see a lrger image:



Martin also supplied me with the following:

"Last weekend we had a flytying symposium here in Denmark. If you wan’t to see some pictures, you can find them on: Danish Fly Design

Even though it is in Danish, you can see we had a very good time there. In fact it was also a whisky tasting, everybody brought a bottle to share."

In spite of being 1/4 Danish Blood I don't speak the language. I don't need to as I can see exactly what is going on. In fact that type of setting looks quite familiar. Due to public demand there has been an English version of the site now available Danish Fly Design (English Version)