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Fortunate are those whose hobbies lead them into their lifeâ€™s work, and by that measure Iâ€™m a fortunate fellow indeed. Fly fishing and fly tying quite literally threw open the door to a rewarding and fascinating career.

I started tying at age 22, shortly after I finished college and got a job as a television news reporter.

You have to really, really want to tie flies to start the way I did. I didnâ€™t own a vise or a bobbin. All I had was a few hooks and a haphazardly gathered handful of materials. I clamped a pair of Vise-Grip pliers between my knees, clamped the collet section of an X-acto knife into the Vise-Grips, and that collet became my first â€œvise.â€ For a bobbin, I slipped a plastic soda straw through the thread spool, folded the ends of the straw into a triangle, cut a hole for the thread to pass through, and started tying.

The first few dozen flies were awful, but the tying bug bit me hard anyway. Within months, I became a hard-core tier, cranking out dozens of dry flies, nymphs and streamers at a sitting.

My career break came when the leaders of my local Trout Unlimited chapter made me their newsletter editor. I discovered that I enjoyed writing about the outdoors.

A local newspaper started carrying my free-lance hunting and fishing column. State and regional magazines started offering free-lance assignments. Eventually, the editors of the newspaper that carried my column offered me a full-time position as environmental writer and outdoors editor.

Decades have passed, and Iâ€™m still an outdoors writer -- albeit with a larger newspaper. And to think it started with a pair of Vise-Grips, a soda straw and a searing desire to tie trout flies. Go figure.

In August 2005, as my 50^th birthday drew near, I decided to try my hand at tying full-dress Atlantic salmon flies. It was like learning to tie all over again. Mentors such as John McLain, Don Bastian and the skilled tiers who frequent the FlyTyingForum.com Web site helped to smooth the process considerably.

Today I divide my tying time between classic Atlantic salmon flies and classic wet flies, with a few Rangeley Lakes streamers thrown in for spice. Tying â€œart fliesâ€ is time-consuming, itâ€™s expensive and itâ€™s sometimes frustrating -- but itâ€™s mostly rewarding and itâ€™s always fun.

Atlantic Salmon Flies

Green Highlander

Gordon

Half Yellow and Black

Harlequin

Kate

Lemon Grey

Classic Wet Flies

Bergman Fontinalis

Cassard