It’s been a long time since I’ve actually tied a fly. It’s not that my interest in fly fishing and fly tying has waned but at first, I could not understand why it was such a chore to tie a fly. Finally, I decided I just have to get my stuff out, if not to tie a fly, at least to give them a good cleaning.

I realised what a difficult task that was. The fly materials were in the storeroom, stacked up high and my fly tying vise was somewhere else. I could not find my hooks… urgh! That was when I decided that if I want to keep this hobby alive, I have to find a way to organize all these stuff.

Well, as luck would have it, a fellow fly angler was also planning on moving house and needed to clear some stuff. He had a fly tying bench made by Oasis, and from the picture, it looked like just what I needed. After some discussions, the bench was mine… with some accessories thrown in. Was I excited with my “new toy”!

I came home and immediately organised all the materials I had. I’m sure I still have some stuffed somewhere which will appear some day, some spring cleaning day, but meanwhile, I managed to get maybe 70% of what I need. I knew that to have the motivation to tie a fly, all the materials, hooks, epoxy etc… have to be within an arms length away. If I had to get out of my chair to get it, I give up… ah, yes, spoilt!

Well, I finally got them altogether and I’ve included some pictures to show you what it looks like. Wonderful, in my opinion! Everything is where I want it. In fact the table is a little small, but still, it was way ahead of having materials in the storeroom somewhere collecting dust.

The Oasis Bench has a slot for almost everything; scissors, bodkins, spools of thread… anything you can name, it has a slot for. It even has a double carousel for storing tinsel and crystal flashes… amazing. Where am I going to come up with an excuse for not tying nice flies anymore? After I have organized everything, I decided I wanted to start immediately to tie a couple of flies.

I decided what I wanted to tie, took out some of my hooks, identified some materials and then sat down for some serious stuff!

That’s when I ran into my first problem. I don’t have space for my fly tying vise! You see, the Oasis Bench was designed with a space to clamp on a fly tying vise. However, mine had a solid metal base to be placed on the table and I do not have anymore table space left. Ok, I remembered the Fly Vise came with an option for a clamp base as well… I just have to make one more trip to the storeroom to look for it… and till I find it, I guess I’m going to have to postpone that fly tying adventure for a while.

Enjoy the pictures!

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