“Zen’s Gems”, Human Hair Flies

My modest online exploration of fishing materials revealed a few mentions of beard hair flies and a quite laughable reference to banning pubic hair flies from a European fishing competition for fear the hormones would give an advantage (yes, you read that right). But no significant leads regarding human head hair utilization for fishing materials beyond the one article I found in 1895 in the last post. I suspect more history is out there; I just haven't come across it yet and all the physical evidence has likely decomposed by now.

I had been bouncing this human hair fishing line and fly idea off my friend Grant (@theflyninja) for a while, so when the opportunity finally arose, he humored me and expertly whipped up a few unique "Zen's Gems" with my hair sheds on short notice. 

Grant's vast collection of premium fly-tying materials from around the world, coupled with his remarkable breadth of historical and scientific knowledge, was pure magic to watch and listen to. It's an art that takes a steady hand and a lot of practice to master.

He started by tying my hair snood material to a vintage blind-eye hook, employing it to create the hook eye. Grant described how people traditionally used silk gut for this purpose. He then built up the bodies with more of my hair and cleverly coiled shimmery strands of silver to make up the wings on one of them. Some flies have a little added peacock hurl, rooster hackle, or ostrich feather - each ingredient was purposefully chosen and skillfully plucked, twisted, rolled, and fluffed into its new buggy existence.

Thank you, Grant, for donating your time, materials, and knowledge to my eccentric little anthropological experiment. It was a fun and enlightening experience I’ll never forget.

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