I told Damon Matus, a fellow BlogFlyFish.com teammate, that I was going to break my “fish only what I tie” rule.

For articulated streamers, I was planning on throwing store-bought ones. After all, they’re reasonably priced, take a long time to make, and require some investment in new materials. I was resolved to do the prudent thing.

Well, that lasted about three days. I am a weak man.

After scouring a bunch of online videos, I kept going back to Kelly Galloup’s instructional ones. Many years ago, when I was very new to fly fishing, I was fortunate to spend a week at the Upper Madison in Montana and met Kelly at his fly shop. He has a world’s worth of wisdom.

His videos are extremely long, but they’re full of insights and fly-tying hacks. So, after reading that his Sex Dungeon streamer did well with big fish, I saw his video (below), ordered some materials, and got to the vise.

It was a struggle.

I’ve never spun deer hair. I didn’t have a flexible razor blade in the house with which to trim the streamer’s head.

My first streamer, which I posted on Instagram here (we’re nearing 950 followers!) was lame. My second one was a bit better, and I’m resolved to do better. Here are photos of the two, side by side.

I’ll be slinging big streamers tomorrow morning with some friends, fellow blogger Ashu Rao and Scott Meador (small world: our families last summer met in Dublin, and we learned that we both fish the same rivers).

I have to say that throwing and making big streamers has been a fun change of pace. Fly fishing offers a lifetime’s worth of knowledge, effort, and potential rewards.

I hope to report good things about tomorrow’s outing. Stay tuned!