featured fly tyer patterns he tied, he says that he started out tying a lot of patterns that he knew caught trout in the waters where he liked to fly fish. These patterns included Wooly Boogers, Hares Ear, Adams, and the Cahill. He was delighted to discover that the flies he tied worked well on the streams he fished. This was the starting point for Terry. Once he knew he could tie flies that would catch trout, he really went to work as a tier, devouring everything he could find to read about tying. In his own words, “I was hooked.” A true Southern Appalachian fly tier to the core, Terry says that when he launched into tying trout flies, well-stocked fly shops were few and far apart. “When I first started tying trout flies, I obtained fly tying materials about any way I could get them. More than a few times I have gathered up road kill for feathers and fur. Of course then, and even now, I would buy mail order tying supplies. The young tiers today do not know how lucky they are to him to go fishing. It was then that he rediscovered fly fishing which, interestingly enough, was about the time he got married. This was in the early 80s. As fate would have it, somewhere along the way, Terry found himself in a trout stream casting flies to these cold water quarries. Life has never been the same since. “My wife and I rented a lot on the Tallulah River in Rabun County for about three years which served as a ‘home base’ for easy access fly fishing for trout at that river and nearby streams,” say Terry. “Thereafter we bought some property in Rabun County. It has been home ever since.” As with his introduction to fly fishing, Terry says he is largely a self-taught tier who never had much in the way of exposure to well-known fly-tying mentors. When asked to tell about some of the first trout fly
go into a fly shop that is stocked with tying materials that we older tiers could not even have imagined having access to.”
www.southerntrout.com | March 2014 | Southern Trout | 85