Devising patterns and tying to a high standard are not the same. Watch a skilled tyer work and we are seeing a performance. If we know a little about tying, we value how they handle their tools and materials, how they get that taper or attach that wing or coax that strand to stay put. Their techniques may be completely conventional or have a creative twist; the way they bend this or hold that may be something we’ve not seen before or done the way we do, but better. When I’ve watched a tyer work it’s their tying ability I envy and admire and which inspires me. The pattern is, more often than not, well known.

With basic tying skills and a healthy assortment of tying materials it’s relatively easy to adapt patterns or even ‘invent’ flies. Take an established pattern add a few knotted legs, or change a colour or change a material and you have a ‘new fly’ based on an existing pattern. The intellectual effort involved in simply adding or subtracting to devise a variant is not exactly huge. For example, in my humble opinion, switching material, eg substituting a polypropylene wing for a deer hair wing, or changing a colour, or changing a proportion, or adding a tail or butt does not create a new pattern. Dignifying minor changes to a pattern by calling flies ‘variants’ is fine, if tedious. Claiming intellectual property by renaming a fly for that type of change is frankly sad and can, understandably, insult the tyer who devised the parent pattern.

In fly tying driven by fishing, things get interesting and can become genuinely creative. Combine a realisation that trout and grayling feed more sub-surface than at the surface and you have an opportunity to identify a problem. That could lead to a simple suggestive Sawyer pattern or a more complex, more detailed and suggestive Oliver Edwards Nymph. Realise that trout and grayling also eat fish and we might understand why streamers are effective river flies. Realise that caddis larvae are available all year round and form a significant part of trout or grayling diets and you have Bugging, Czech Nymphing, Polish Nymphs and the rest.

Realise that salmon are alerted to their prey both by sight and by vibration and you have an opportunity. Creative tyers have addressed that in a couple of ways, by attaching diving veins, or placing discs at the head of flies so their flies wiggle and dance.

Watch saltwater fish slashing into bait balls, cutting and chopping their prey. Then see them come back after the carnage and take half fish as they flutter downwards and you need a fly – heavily weighted flies sink too quickly, slim sleek flies don’t flutter through the water – again fishing guides’ tying.

When we think of fish as predators and know a little about how they hunt, where and how their prey lives and we strive to work out flies and fishing techniques – we identify problems and try to work out solutions. When that leads to a new fly, or even more, when that leads to a new type of fly and opens up fresh fishing possibilities that commands my respect. Changing the colour scheme of a trout fly, whether it be a dry or nymph or lure, whether it is used for wild fish or stocked fish, is the tying equivalent of re-decorating the kitchen – nice, fresh, but not exactly mind boggling.