Alan Bithell

Fly dressing and fly fishing have been my passion now for more years than I can remember, or care to count. Within that broad spectrum I specialise in wild brown trout in small streams. Mechanical engineering is the area I trained in but have had a go at most things. That included a spell as a production fly dresser. I learned a lot about dressing flies in that time. Most of all I learned that you really can't make a living at it here in the UK! When I was first taught to dress flies the instructor constantly repeated the same rule to me. Get one stage right before moving onto the next. Good advice I have used to build my fly tying on. My approach to tying is not that of "exact imitation" but to create the impression of life in the fly. Having a background in engineering, I find that I can design solutions to fly tying "problems" based on sound, design principals. On the rivers I could be described as a presentationalist. Presentation of the fly being much more important than pattern.