S3, Ep 96: Tim Cammisa of Trout and Feather

**Marvin Cash (00:04):**
Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm joined by Tim Cammisa of Trout and Feather. Tim shares his fly fishing and fly tying journey and we have a chance to discuss Tim's new book, Fly Tying for Everyone. I think you're really going to enjoy this interview. But before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items. If you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a rating and review in the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out. And as we continue to create and distribute more diverse content, you may want to consider downloading our iOS or Android app. We organize our content by category so you can go straight to the content that interests you the most. The apps are free and the links are in the show notes. Alternatively, just search The Articulate Fly where you get your mobile apps. Now, on to the interview. Well, Tim, welcome to the

**Tim Cammisa (00:57):**
Articulate Fly. Thanks, Marvin. It's great to be here. And just so everybody knows, not only am I so excited to be a guest on The Articulate Fly, but I'm also a listener. It's been great to listen to your updates. I love when you have certain guests on, especially when you give stream updates all around the East Coast. So what you're doing has been awesome, Marvin. Thank you so much.

**Marvin Cash (01:18):**
Oh, I super appreciate that. And it's fun to watch your stuff on the internet. And it's also fun to bump into you and actually talk to you in person and looking forward to doing some of that

**Tim Cammisa (01:28):**
in this new post-COVID world, knock on wood. Oh, soon enough, soon enough. I'm hoping to maybe see you at the International Fly Tying Symposium because I know we've connected there before.

**Marvin Cash (01:37):**
Do you plan on being there too? Yeah, that's my plan. And I may actually, as opposed to flying up for the day, I may actually fly up and spend the night and stay for the banquet since it's the

**Tim Cammisa (01:47):**
30th year. Oh, awesome. Yeah, it's going to be a great banquet. I mean, the whole experience there, it's such an awesome fly tying community. And that's the big event, at least in my mind, that pulls everyone together. Like you said, Chuck Furimsky is holding the 30th anniversary. Let's just, knock on wood everything stays. We can have just a fantastic symposium and just see a bunch of incredible tiers sharing their creations with everybody.

**Marvin Cash (02:11):**
Yeah, absolutely. And, one of the things, since you're a longtime listener, is we have a tradition. We always ask our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

**Tim Cammisa (02:21):**
Well, let me jump right into that. So I don't want to disappoint your listeners. It's not fly fishing, but I was a fisherman-ish. I love to fish at times, but my father, he always was and still is just an early riser. And when I was younger, that was not my thing. Now, as an adult, I wake up every morning around 4:30, 5 o'clock and I'm ready to go. But at that point, I was around eight or nine years old. It was the first day of trout. This is like a ritual in Pennsylvania, which is where I'm from. And my dad woke us up as early as I can remember. We drove to his favorite trout stream. And then not only did we hike up that trout stream, but he wanted to go up this tributary as well because he felt that's where the fish were going to be. And I can remember just trotting up through the water. It's really cold. I'm tired. And eventually he set me down on this log. And I'm sitting on this log waiting for the opening bell in a sense, because whatever time you're allowed to start fishing, that's when you can make your first cast. And my dad was just really chomping at the bit. I was just there, along for the ride. I was going to fish, but I just remember being on this log and I made the big mistake of staring into the water. And it was so cool because it was just like looking into this aquarium and I could see everything going on. These little insects, the water rushing by. It was so fascinating. But then it was also really captivating in a sense that it started to make me very drowsy. And after about five minutes of staring into the water, I was now drinking the water because I fell right in. This was before the start of the season. My dad was furious because here I am, this little boy, first day, early spring, a really cold day and I'm dripping wet. So you can imagine what we had to do. Onto his shoulders I went and we trudged back to the vehicle because we had to change clothes and I had to warm up. So we missed opening moments of that first day of trout fishing in Pennsylvania. Thank goodness that has not happened since. That's the first memory I can really just grab a hold of, Marvin.

**Marvin Cash (04:24):**
Yeah, very neat. And so when did you get pulled to the dark side of fly fishing?

**Tim Cammisa (04:30):**
Gosh, I would say what's interesting, unlike a lot of people, for me, fly fishing didn't come first. It was fly tying. When I was around 10 years old, my parents enrolled me in this after-school program with a couple of individuals that taught us how to tie flies. It was so cool because it wasn't about catching fish. It was just about making these creations onto a hook. And I just fell in love with it. I was captivated by it. My Uncle John, he actually came and he helped out. And I found out he was really big into fly tying and fly fishing. But it was weird because we were making all these creations. And I'm sure they explained this at the time, but for the first two or three months, it was just all about the tying. And I never put two and two together that we were going to actually use those to catch fish. So unlike so many others, the tying came first, like literally. And then a few months later, once I was able to start to put everything together, then I realized, oh, fly fishing's a part of this thing too. Tell me more about it. Then I started down that really terrible pathway, as all of you know. I mean, that tying for me was the gateway drug that just trapped me.

**Marvin Cash (05:34):**
It was the marijuana of fly fishing for you. Correct. So you've been around the sport for probably, I think you've been tying for 30 years and probably been fly fishing that long. Who are some of the folks that have mentored you on your fly fishing journey?

**Tim Cammisa (05:51):**
Oh, gosh. I've been very fortunate. I think I've already mentioned my father. He likes to fly fish. It's not a passion like it is for me, but it's been great to have my dad there. He's been such a strong supporter of everything along the way. He's given me so much advice for my YouTube channel and just everything in general. So he was that start. I mentioned my Uncle John. My Uncle John just turned 90 recently and he's been featured on my channel multiple times. He's a really traditionalist. I mean, he doesn't believe in strike indicators. He wants you to only use your fur and feathers on your hooks. I mean, he's that type of an individual. And he was such a strong mentor early on. From that point, I had really two more that just really pulled me to that next level. And that's how I look at my mentors. Each mentor got me to that next stage. And that next mentor is a gentleman by the name of John Dunn. And he was the one who pulled me to say that fly fishing, though it exists in western Pennsylvania and some of these Delayed Harvest areas, it's more than that. And he started pulling me to central Pennsylvania. He pulled me all the way to Montana to the east coast. And he really brought me out of my shell and introduced me to so many other areas of fly fishing and fly tying because he was just an exceptional tier. He still is. And he's just really very meticulous with everything he does. And he taught me so much. But then most recently, I think I mentioned this individual as well, was Chuck Furimsky. He's the individual that started the fly fishing show before turning it over to his son, Ben. And Chuck and I had a connection because a number of years ago, maybe five or six years ago, he invited me to tie at the International Fly Tying Symposium. And to be invited was such an honor, but I had an obligation. So I had to turn him down. And I felt so just awkward having to call Chuck Furimsky back and turn him down. But I did. And I think that upset him because he doesn't get turned down very often. So he called me back the next year and we emailed back and forth and he said, hey, can you do it again? And he made this joke like, I only ask twice, you better not say no again. And I was like, absolutely. I was just so above the world to be invited to that symposium. And it was really cool because I got a chance to know Chuck a little bit there. But when he's at the show, he is just moving and introducing speakers and making sure everything's the way it should be. And you don't have a lot of time to talk to him there. So I don't feel that a lot of people really know Chuck Furimsky. But then he has this other event called the Fly Tiers Reunion. It's held in Seven Springs in Pennsylvania. Once a year, we're planning on having it this fall, maybe a private event. We're not quite sure yet. But at that event, it's a little bit more low-key. It's a free event for everyone to come. And he brings in a bunch of tiers and it's a celebration of the year. And I had a chance then to spend more time with him, to start fishing with him, to see that he's an exceptional tier. And we develop a friendship. We talk on the phone, I don't know, two or three times a week. We fish together as much as possible, even though he lives over in Ocean City, New Jersey now. But I mean, any chance we have to hang out, we do it. And whenever you ask the question about the mentor, he's that person that whenever I'm stuck, whenever I'm not quite sure what to do with my book or with the website or with this component, he really can pull that side in and really help me out. But then it's great because we'll be talking about that. We can just switch gears and go right into fly tying and start arguing back and forth about why this articulated streamer, while this is the other one. So he's that mentor that's really helped to pull everything together.

**Marvin Cash (09:22):**
Yeah, it's super neat. And younger people know him from the show, but some of, I'm older than you are. I can remember when he was writing articles in Fly Tyer, right? And there, you know, and still remember his patterns being picked when they were picked up by fly companies.

**Tim Cammisa (09:41):**
Absolutely. And he had some really creative patterns. I mean, I think he was known more so for his leather and he has all these crazy flies that really help to showcase that. I've had him tie a couple of his patterns on my channel and there's a couple more that we have in the wings that we just have to finish. We've started the video and we have a few more parts of the fly to go through. But, man, whenever you see him tie, I mean, he is very intentional in everything that he does. He's very precise and he has just an incredible finished product to this day. So I'm very lucky to have him, to call him a friend and a mentor.

**Marvin Cash (10:18):**
Yeah. Very neat. And coming back to 10 years old and your afterschool program, what was your first vise and what was the first fly that you tied on it? Even if you didn't know it was a fly at the time.

**Tim Cammisa (10:31):**
Yeah. Well, my first device, I actually made a video about this one because I love fly tying vises and I have way too many to count right now. But my first vise was a hand-me-down. I don't know the exact name of it, it was a fixed vise. It had this at the time it was this ugly green piece of metal that held it. It was a C-clamp. Gosh, it barely held a hook but it did. And probably like so many others I was just, I looked at it, oh can you really, I'm 10 years old, but you gotta give me something nicer than this. And it was just almost disappointing at the time. But the vise was a hand-me-down. It had been tied on by so many individuals and I didn't appreciate that at the time. And thank goodness I've held onto that vise all these years because I love it. And I still will pull it out and tie up flies on it every year, though I'm happy to put it in the back of the shelf afterwards and pull out my new one. And the first fly, Marvin, I thought I've really thought about this. I have a number of my first series of flies that I tied from that class when I was 10. I don't know which one was the first one, but I can tell you the one that I love, the one that really brought me into that class was when we had the chance to spin deer hair. And there was something just so fascinating about putting on these pieces of deer belly hair, wrapping thread around it, pulling tight and it just spun and went crazy and we packed it and we cut it and made these cool creations like mouse patterns and poppers. And then you stand up and there was just deer hair all over the place and no one was yelling at you to clean it up. That was really what pulled me back, just seeing those really cool deer

**Marvin Cash (12:05):**
hair creations. Yeah. You can get in a lot of trouble at home if you don't get the deer

**Tim Cammisa (12:11):**
hair picked up. I mean, I feel bad. I have a one-year-old daughter and my wife is always on me saying, you have to get all of these materials out of here. She can put this stuff in her mouth. And I'm like, I know, I know, but I've got to get rubber legs on this

**Marvin Cash (12:25):**
cicada pattern. Come on. Yeah, there you go. And so, it's interesting, right? Because fly tying is so collaborative and it's always interesting to talk to tiers. Because I always like to hear about who they watch and why they watch them and how

**Tim Cammisa (12:41):**
they influence each other. Oh, without a doubt. Well, what's really cool. And I'm sure we'll talk about this throughout the podcast as a fly tier. And I know you've been in this game as well for X amount of years. And can you imagine 30 years ago? I mean, I got into this a little bit over 30 years ago, the information that was out there was so tough to come by. And now there's so much of it and there's so many tiers that are willing to share like the keys to the kingdom with you. And that's the part that is just absolutely wild that you have access via social media to so many of these tiers that are like at the top of the game right now. I mean the ones that I love to follow and I'll give you some reasons for them. I mean in my mind one of the best is Tim Flagler. He has such great informational videos. He just has a sense of the vise. He knows what he's doing. He speaks with confidence and it's why his flies catch fish, which I think is the theme for all these, my favorite tiers. They all have patterns of catch fish. There's a younger tier out there that I think is doing really phenomenal stuff. His name is Gunnar Bramer. His patterns are really wild. They're for larger fish. They're not just for trout. In fact every time he and I are talking on the phone he gets a kick out of it, but he has so many YouTube subscribers that are more trout fishers than musky or pike, those big fish that he loves to chase. He gets a real big kick out of that because to him it's just, oh that's a small trout you're after, like I'm after the big boys. But some of the patterns he's coming up with right now are just really cool because he's tying these large patterns with some shed water. They're easier to cast. That type of stuff. So I love to see his current stuff. I guess a fellow Pennsylvania fly tier and fly fisher that really is the top of my list is George Daniel. He was a member of Fly Fishing Team USA. He's in my own state. He's coached the youth fly fishing team USA team. He's now one of the instructors at Penn State University for their fly fishing class. And you never know what he's going to come up with or share next. He's got a YouTube channel and he just, he's very free with information. So he's another one that's top of my list. I'll shout out a couple of quick names. I don't want to bore your listeners, but for anyone who's taking notes, some younger tiers that really, I don't know, they blow me away, especially on Instagram. Justin Aldrich is one. He is really known for his Euronymns and his Jig Nymphs. He ties these Jig streamers that are phenomenal. I actually cited him in my book because he just does some really great stuff. There's another person, their tier, his name is Justin Bruce. He ties this really cool thing called the Houdini weave with wire. So I follow Justin. Nicole March. She's another phenomenal tier. Her work with peacock quills is just phenomenal. I mean, I referenced her multiple times on a number of articles that I've written. There's somebody else. I can't remember what country it's from, but his name is Evgeny Barovin, spelled B-O-R-O-V-I-N. And he finds these, like, imagine a Catskill dry fly, but he also weaves in maybe a piece of partridge in between or in front of the hackle. So you have this fly that has really straight lines, but it has this beautiful Hungarian partridge feather weave within it. Just those fibers going all over the place. He just has something to his patterns that what's unique about him compared to so many others. When I see one of his flies, I know immediately it's one of his. And I think of all the tiers that I've mentioned, I have a couple more. He's the one that I click the save button on Instagram more than others. I'm blown away by his patterns. Devin Olson, he's another person that, he's another mentor to me. I talk to him as much as I can, but his flies are very functional. They catch fish and he's very thorough when he explains them. And I think the last individual that I'll mention as of right now would be Phil Rowley. Phil's been another mentor of mine. He's known mainly for still water applications, but he's a phenomenal tier. He's excellent. I mean, he lives up in Canada and I always look forward to hanging out with him at the symposium, too. So that's a few of my lists. I can come up with another half a dozen if you want, but we can be here all night talking about others and just the notion of collaborating and following them and being inspired by these people.

**Marvin Cash (17:01):**
Yeah, absolutely. And it's super helpful, too, because the curse of social media is there's no curation. Right. So you can lose your mind trying to find the needle in the haystack. So it's super helpful that you've given folks, I don't know, six or eight names if they're not familiar with these folks to go look, check them out on social media and know that they have the goods, for lack of a better word.

**Tim Cammisa (17:24):**
Absolutely. If they didn't hear me say them properly, tell them to reach out. Anyone listening, reach out to me and I can give you a comprehensive list of those that I follow, which the downside of this, and Marvin, I'm sure, I think you hit on it. There's so much content out there that I'm telling you about these five, six, eight, 12 people that I follow, but you can't keep up to date with everybody. And that's the tricky part. Even those ones, I know I'm missing stuff with them because it's social media. It's such a beast right now. And that content just keeps coming out. But it's easy to miss information from these individuals and others.

**Marvin Cash (18:00):**
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, one thing I always like to do, Tim, when I have tiers, whether they're, you're not a production tier, but you're not just a dude sitting at home tying flies either. I always ask folks like you to share two or three tips that mere mortals like me and other tiers can use to up their game.

**Tim Cammisa (18:23):**
Well, first of all, I'm a mortal too. So just because I got a book out and a little YouTube channel, that doesn't put me at that top echelon. I love to tie. And whenever I tell people I've tied for 30 years, that doesn't mean I've been tying professionally for 30 years. I've just tied for over 30 years. So I'll give you some tips though. I will tell you a few tips based on what I've learned over the years and what helps me move forward. Number one, whenever you're tying patterns, the first thing that I really recommend to others, when you tie X pattern and you tie a second one of X pattern, compare the two. They should look identical or nearly identical. If not, you have to say to yourself, something went wrong. And it typically all comes down to proportions or material selection. So whenever you're selecting material, cutting a material, selecting a hackle, cutting deer hair or whatever, you have to really find a way to reference it. So whatever you did on the first pattern, you'll make those same operations on the second pattern and every pattern thereafter. So in my mind, whenever I have a fly that I really love, if I just tie that Perdigon, this one looks just smoking off a vise, I'm going to set it aside and I'm going to look at it, constantly be using that to compare it to the other flies that are coming off my vise. I mean, if you look in my box of Euronymns, every tail is nearly identical going down a row. If I have three rows of 5/16", unless there's something I'm doing unique with a few of them, all the other ones, the tips should be all the same length going down that row, because I know what I use to guide my proportion for a tail. So that's tip number one, really make sure your patterns look as close as possible to ensure proportion, which leads into tip number two, be generous with your razor blade. And what I mean by that, when you tie something that doesn't look quite right, grab that razor blade and cut everything off a hook. Just cut it off the hook. I know many people say, well, hey, come on, Tim. Ugly flies catch fish, too. In my mind, they don't catch me. And what happens whenever I put those, I don't want to say ugly flies, but a fly that just wasn't up to that highest quality, when I put it in my box and I'm on the water and I go to select a pattern, that pattern that just doesn't look quite right to me, I probably won't put on my tippet. And when it does make it on there, I'm probably not going to have as much confidence in that fly as I would another. And I probably won't fish it to whatever degree it deserves. And knowing that I may not do that, it's probably not going to catch any fish. It's going to go back in my box and we're just going to have a terrible cycle with those flies versus just not putting it in there in the first place. I mean, like so many others, I had to learn that the hard way where I would tie flies that probably weren't my best when I was younger. But it was a fly. It was finished. I could get my tippet through the eye and it went in my box. And that was the biggest mistake I really made. So that would be tip number two. And then tip number three, I know you and I have done our best, we haven't jumped fully into social media yet, but I really tell people, let your experiences on the water dictate what you're tying, not outside factors like social media. Now, there are times where I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok, I'm watching fly tying videos on YouTube and I see a fly that just looks really cool. I want to tie it. I'm not sure what situation I'm going to use it in, but it just intrigues me. It inspires me. There's something about it. It's cool. It's got the cool factor. I want to tie it. But then there's other times where you'll hear people on social media or you'll read about it in a magazine article, this is the fly that you have to have. And it might be a great fly for that person on that water type in that situation. That probably isn't your situation, your water type at that moment for you. So whenever you're at your vise and you go to tie some flies, really just take a second to think about things. Say to yourself, what worked today? What worked in the last week? What worked in the last month on my water? What's probably going to work in the next three weeks, in the next month? If you're tying over the winter, think about those first flies you're going to need in the spring. And I would really just, and maybe I'm more of a functional fly tier, but I really try my best not to let those outside factors influence my tying. I really think about my time on the water, the water color. If it's a greener water color, then I'm going to have more green in my flies just to match those nymphs that are in that water. But I really let all of my experience on the water dictate what I'm tying, not just because this person said on social media that it caught fish for him or her that day, when in reality, that person probably wasn't even fishing that day. So be careful what you see and what you hear on social media because it's not always true.

**Marvin Cash (23:11):**
Yeah, and I think that's great general advice for fishing in general because my general observation is we need to work harder to understand why we're doing what we're doing. And we'd have to remember a whole lot less stuff to fish successfully.

**Tim Cammisa (23:27):**
Yeah, you're right. Absolutely. Well said, Marvin.

**Marvin Cash (23:30):**
Yeah, it's so, I mean, I that really, really resonates with me. And another thing we always ask tiers when we get them on the podcast is we always want to hear about the squirreliest tool that they use that they can't live without.

**Tim Cammisa (23:44):**
Gosh, Marvin, you do an excellent job with this podcast. So I'm looking over this question and it really bugs me. I actually went through my fly tying drawer and I was trying to pull out things that I thought were out there. And I have a tool that's out there, but it's nothing I can live without. So I decided I'm going to flip the question. Because unlike a lot of your listeners who tie flies, there are two tools that I don't live with that probably everybody out there does. And the two tools I don't use are a whip finisher and a threader for your bobbin. I don't use them. I use a hand whip finish. And for any of your listeners that do that, awesome. I feel like it's a brotherhood of those of us who just use our hands and not the whip finisher. I'm terrible. I mean, if I have to show somebody how to use it, I have to think to myself, how do I use this again? I'm like, oh, yeah, that's how I use it. Because I literally never use them. And when it comes to a threader, there was a fly tier in Pennsylvania years ago. I believe he taught the Penn State course back in maybe the 50s or 60s. His name was George Harvey. And whenever he would thread his bobbin, he would always stick his thread up through the bottom of the nozzle and suck on the tip to suck his thread through. And he must have shown so many people that in my area, it seems like so many people thread their bobbins that way. And just from watching others over the years, that's how I've always threaded my bobbin. Until one time when I was in the middle of a fly tying demonstration at a fly fishing show and my thread slipped out of my bobbin. I tried to suck it back through and it just wouldn't work. And here I am in front of an audience of like 50 and I have a bobbin. The thread's not going through. I don't have a threader. I mean, Marvin, how sad is that? Here I am. I'm a fly tier and doing a professional demonstration and I don't have a threader on hand. And thankfully somebody from the audience happened to have one. Because I was trying to make a joke. Like, can you want to borrow this? I'm like, you know what? Let's go with that right now. Because otherwise I'm going to be tying this with my, the bobbin in my lap. I don't think it's going to go really well. So those are the two that I don't use. So I apologize for changing your question, Marvin.

**Marvin Cash (25:58):**
No, it's all good. It's funny. So that's how I thread my bobbins, which the benefit is you never have to worry about anyone asking to borrow your bobbin. But I do use a whip finisher, but I can also say that I've done tying classes where everything comes to a crashing stop when you have to show everyone how to whip finish their fly.

**Tim Cammisa (26:19):**
Oh, that's the word. Yeah, and I feel bad because I think back to those days, too, when you've tied a fly, you have it nearly complete. And just when you think you're looking at your masterpiece and then that thread just starts to unravel. And you just see all of your materials going off. And that's like the worst feeling in the world.

**Marvin Cash (26:38):**
Yeah, absolutely. And, shifting gears a little bit, we can talk a little bit more about social media. You've been on YouTube for, I went back, as a matter of fact, when I was researching for the interview, and it's legitimately 10 years, which makes you like really an early adopter because 10 years ago before the internet was super fast for a lot of people, it was a lot of work to be on YouTube.

**Tim Cammisa (27:03):**
It still is. It still is. Yeah. YouTube is, it's a really great platform. I love YouTube as much as I still get into some of the other platforms. At the end of the day, that's my main one. And I have to reinvest in my channel because I had to take a little bit of time away while I was writing my fly tying book. What got me into it at the beginning was the desire to share, especially I had a friend that was on the other side of the country who wanted to learn how to tie this fly. And you're building me up on YouTube. But I can tell you, I feel like I'm always the last one to get to whatever the thing is, whatever it is. And I was so scared of YouTube. I didn't know how it worked. I was afraid once I uploaded something, my computer was going to be watching me. I just had no idea. So I did this first fly tying video and I uploaded it. It was just for my friend. And then it went well. I had fun doing it, so I was going to make another one of these, see how it goes. I emailed it to my dad. My dad emailed it to a bunch of his friends and I forgot about it. So I believe if you look back, maybe my first two videos, which I recommend, don't watch those, they're terrible videos compared to my current ones. But those first two videos were on their own. And after so long, I got like a notification that said something like I had 25 subscribers or something like this and 100 views. And I was like, wow, I got 100 views. And at the time, that was a really big deal for me. I was blown away. Like, people were actually watching this. And I'm like, you know what, let me make another one and see where this goes. And then I made another one. And I kept going from there. It just escalated to where it is today. And for anyone who's out there who's saying, geez, I want to do that too. At the time, I had zero plan. There was nothing like I'm going to make these videos and then start writing magazine articles, then write books, I'm going to be a featured presenter around the world. None of that stuff was part of the plan. It was just to share fly tying videos with others because that was really cool to me. And I know when I got into fly tying early on, there wasn't a lot of information. And it's interesting now because knowing that I was one of the earlier YouTube fly tiers to stick it out, going through those first few years, there were a lot of people that were professional fly fishers and tiers that were really not, they were not accepting of it. And a few people commented back to me. They either called me or they talked to others and said, geez, can you see what Tim's doing? He's just giving this stuff away. And I don't think they had any idea that the internet was really about to shift the way that we learned about tying flies.

**Marvin Cash (29:44):**
Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny you say that because that story is very similar to the stories I've heard about how Tim Flagler started and that he was really just trying to get files to friends. And he looked, got a notification that a few thousand people had been looking at his videos.

**Tim Cammisa (30:00):**
It's so wild. Man, whenever I tell people now that I have like 25,000 subscribers, that just is, you have no idea how mind blowing that is. Like I can still remember celebrating like a hundred subscribers, a thousand subscribers, like 10,000 views, a hundred thousand views. Like whenever I hit a million, that was like, I'm done. I'm like, what else can I do? And it's cool to see how it just continues to grow and evolve.

**Marvin Cash (30:26):**
Yeah, I think the neatest thing, I mean, the analog for me is obviously the podcasting stuff. But it's always, it's such a phenomenal tool for finding your people, right? And that's what wows me about it is just the people that just, other countries, different parts of the country just reach out and they're like, hey, this, I like this or I didn't like this. And to me, that's really the power of the technology.

**Tim Cammisa (30:49):**
Well, speaking of that, I'm curious to get your thoughts on this. Whenever I talk about my first video, like how bad they were, and it's not that they were bad. It's just as you learn more and more about the platform and as I learn more about making videos and you with audio, what stinks about learning that is once I learn this about, we'll say, the editing of my videos whenever I'm looking at the lighting. Like once I've figured that out, I can't go back and do it the wrong way anymore. It's the whole ignorance is bliss. And I think that's what's really been, I don't want to say frustrating with YouTube, but it's something that definitely weighs on my mind because once I got my videos to a higher level, they had to stay at that level, which means you put a little bit more time into planning them, more time into filming, more time into editing, which means the videos aren't coming out as often as they were before. I don't know if you find a way to connect that to podcasting as well.

**Marvin Cash (31:43):**
Yeah, I struggle with that, right? So I'm pretty type A. I'm a lawyer. It's my day job. So I try to plan and have a pretty high idea of what I want to put out. I would say, what I find fascinating about social media and I don't have a really good answer, I push myself to ship regularly and not polish the apple too much. But you sort of see this tension between connection and quality. Right. And it doesn't mean that the quality can't be good, but I suspect there's stuff that you and I lose sleep over that no one cares about.

**Tim Cammisa (32:23):**
Oh, man, you have no idea. Right.

**Marvin Cash (32:26):**
Sure about that. Yeah. Right. And so you sit back, so I'm always struggling with, because I think the secret to being successful in whatever your digital medium is, is consistently showing up. So that's the struggle that I have, right, is trying to consistently ship and understand that some of the stuff that I get worked up about, no one cares about.

**Tim Cammisa (32:50):**
Yeah, that's great advice. That's really great advice.

**Marvin Cash (32:53):**
But, yeah, it's interesting. But being a one-decade dude on YouTube, you clearly, the platform has evolved and I'm sure your approach has too. How have you had to change the way you use the tool?

**Tim Cammisa (33:08):**
Gosh, that's a really great question and I'm currently, I'm attempting to evolve my YouTube channel a little bit. I ran into a snag recently and I think I have a solution. I'm not gonna announce that yet. But really what I've been, I've been focused on was at the beginning it was really about education, about information, tying flies, giving their background, talking about ways to fish them, that type of stuff. I was always, I'm a teacher by trade, so I teach sixth grade right now. And I knew I could deliver the information and I could deliver it with some enthusiasm and my passion because to me, I mean this is what I live, what I breathe, what I love. So I knew I could always do that part of it. But one area that I know is not quite there, at least when it comes to YouTube and fly tying and even fly fishing is the entertainment side of it. So that's been my approach, has always been make sure the information I give is solid information. It's information that has worked for me that at least if I put it on my channel, I tied the fly, I fished the fly, it's caught fish, I've gathered information on it or as much information as I thought I needed to do, which sometimes isn't enough. But I try to put a lot of legwork into all those patterns, into all those flies, into any of my suggestions ahead of time. I mean if you saw me tie it five years ago, I was fishing that fly five years ago. So I really believe that. But I also understand with a lot of the stuff that I watch too, you watch some stuff on YouTube, on Instagram, wherever and it's just putting me to sleep. And I want to make sure that I'm finding that balance between the information, but also make it a little entertaining for people. And at times I have to watch because I tend to be very sarcastic and I try not to come across that way in my videos. But if you try that approach, entertain others, sometimes it could be taken the wrong way. So that's been my approach, has always been deliver really just solid content. But now I want to make sure my enthusiasm shows through and also bring a smile to people's face. So I hope as my videos continue to move forward, that's the approach that you see within

**Marvin Cash (35:19):**
them. Yeah, it's interesting you say that, because I think the challenge is we feel this tension of what we think we need to do to, for however you want to measure it, be successful or impactful. And then you always had that thing, like you want to be entertaining, but you want to be entertaining in a way where when people meet you in person, they're like,

**Tim Cammisa (35:37):**
you're not two different people. Right. Yes. You're right about that. Right. And that was one of the

**Marvin Cash (35:43):**
things when I was reading your book that you write the way you talk. Right. Which some people don't. And so, I was like, having seen, knowing you and then seeing you on YouTube, it was Tim and it's Tim's book, right?

**Tim Cammisa (35:59):**
Well, I'm a talker on YouTube. I'm not going to lie. I mean, there's definitely people who literally just comment, I thought this was a two minute video and you talked for eight and a half minutes. And that's it. I'm Italian. I love to talk. For anyone who's ever seen me at a fly tying or fly fishing show and I'm at my tying station, I don't tie. I mean, I'm there to meet and connect with others. I guess to me, I really love the notion that YouTube has been able to bring so many people into this smaller world. And whenever I'm out there, I don't want to be tying a Perdigon and have somebody watch it. And I'm just completely focused on the fly. That's not what it's all about. It's great whenever people just come up to me, they hear my voice and they're like, I know your voice. It's you. And I'm like, what's your name? And we can connect and talk about where they fished recently and the flies that they like to tie. Because that's what this is all about at the end of the day. It's just really making those connections. And it's just so awesome when we can put a face to that voice that we've heard. Or if it's somebody who's been commenting on my videos for years. I mean, it is just wow. Whenever I was in Denver a couple years ago and this gentleman, Russell, came up to me and I'm like, oh my gosh, you're the first person to comment on every one of my videos. And I was able to shake his hand. We were just able to BS for a little bit. It was awesome. So that, to me, is one of the cool factors of YouTube.

**Marvin Cash (37:21):**
Yeah, absolutely. And we've talked a little bit about some of the folks that you watch, but and we've touched on, it's awesome that we get to have all of these voices, but you kind of want a little bit of curation. So what are your suggestions for tiers about how to use social media to up their tying game?

**Tim Cammisa (37:42):**
Gosh, that's a great question. First of all, what are you trying to get out of it? So if somebody's using social media, what's your purpose? Because I have a ton of people that will reach out to me who want to know how can I do this? How can I get more followers? How can I get more subscribers on YouTube? How can I get a sponsorship deal? So I guess my first question back to others is really what are you trying to get out of it? So when I saw your question, it was about how can tiers use social media to up their game? And I guess I have to ask, I'll ask you to rephrase it. Are we talking about how to improve their flies or how to get to whatever their next level is?

**Marvin Cash (38:21):**
Yeah, I would say improve their flies. There are only so many problems we can solve with The Articulate Fly and turning everybody into a social media influencer is probably too much for us to bite off tonight.

**Tim Cammisa (38:34):**
Okay, perfect. Well, that's what I thought. So here are a few suggestions I have. You're going to use social media because in my mind, I think social media is a positive. There are definitely a bunch of negatives out there. I ignore them when I see negative comments. I delete them. I mean, that part of social media doesn't exist to me. For the positives, for someone who's into social media, first of all, connect with others for feedback. I don't care if you're in a Facebook group, on Instagram, if you're on Twitter, don't be afraid to share a picture of your fly and ask others for feedback. Don't be afraid to send that pattern to somebody that wouldn't even answer you and see what they say. I mean, send it to Tim Flagler. Tim will give you feedback on it, but be careful. Because what's tricky about this is whenever people send blind flies to me and they want feedback, I'm not sure if people can handle feedback. So that's a two-headed suggestion. Please connect with others for feedback, but also be careful, because sometimes if I see a fly and I can't even see the eye of it, my first comment is going to be, are you going to fish with this fly or is this just for a display box because we can't get tippet through the eye? So I guess there's so many people who want feedback, but I really try my best to make it constructive for them because I don't want to hurt someone's feelings because to them that might be the best fly they've ever tied. So I really, whenever people ask me for feedback, I try to give one positive and one area that they can improve. So when they're connecting with others and they're asking for feedback, try to be specific in what kind of feedback you're looking for. Maybe just say, hey, I tried this for the thorax. Is there another material you think I could have used or is there a way that you would recommend that I try next time? So ask people for feedback, but be very specific or detailed about it. Otherwise, I've seen this happen on Facebook where people just lambaste somebody. And it could be a 13-year-old boy who posted a picture or a 14-year-old girl who posted a picture of her fly. And you get a few people who are really, really positive. And you get others who don't realize the individual that posted and just almost go into attack mode, which is not what this is supposed to be about at all. It's about improving others. So that's what I would say. Have a little confidence. Put that fly out there and listen to the feedback because you're going to get some really solid feedback. And if you're afraid of posting it publicly, send it to some individuals and see if they'll give you some private feedback. That would be number one. Number two, if you're into trying out macro photography, try to do so. You can buy these little macro lenses for your iPhone or for your smartphone that will allow you to basically, it almost acts like a magnifying glass on your fly. Now, if you could upgrade some photography equipment or try to find a cheap macro lens and maybe a crop sensor camera, absolutely do it and start to take pictures of your flies. Because whenever you start to see them under the lens, and I learned this the hard way in a sense, you start to realize that you make little mistakes that definitely can influence the fly. Maybe not to the degree that a fish won't eat the fly, but you start to realize that there's a better way to do what you're doing and you can improve your pattern. But sometimes we're just tying, we're caught up in the moment, we're trying to crank out flies at the vise because we're going fishing the next morning. You don't care. You're not quite sure about it. But for anyone who truly wants to up their game, I absolutely recommend investing in some type of macro photography so you can really look at your flies throughout the stages and make changes and improve them later on. And then finally, I said earlier in this podcast, be careful what you see on social media because some of the stuff out there may not relate to you. But at times, get on social media, see what people are tying and as you look at that stuff, there's no way that you can't just be inspired and show more creativity in your own tying. And at times I love to just go onto social media, check out some other patterns and think about it. Evgeny Barovin that I mentioned before, oh, he's doing this really cool thing with a Hungarian partridge feather. How can I integrate that concept in another style of my fly? So I really just love to let social media drive new ideas and concepts and then try them out. And sometimes they'll work. Sometimes they won't. So that's what I love about social media. It definitely can help to improve your overall fly tying.

**Marvin Cash (43:01):**
Yeah, very neat. I always tell people, it's kind of funny because you have the dark side of it. And I always tell people, social media is like a shovel. I can dig a hole or hit you on the head. And so it's really up to each of us to use, it's a super powerful tool to do all these great things that you just described.

**Tim Cammisa (43:19):**
Yeah, absolutely. I love it.

**Marvin Cash (43:21):**
Yeah. And so, we're recording this at the end of June and at the beginning of July, your first book, Fly Tying for Everyone's coming out. And I've had the privilege of seeing an advanced copy. But why don't you tell folks where you got the idea for the book?

**Tim Cammisa (43:36):**
Gosh, well, thanks, Marvin. Fly Tying for Everyone was not my idea. So I want to make sure I preface that. My game plan was to teach for X amount of years and then retire, fish all the time and write a book, John Gierach's style. That was in my head, that was the way it was supposed to be. And I ran into Jay Nichols and he's the owner of Headwater Books. He used to be the editor of Fly Fishing Magazine. I mean, he's really big in the industry. I've been in situations with him before, tying shows, fishing situations and we've even shot sporting clays together. We just always talked. And I love books. We've talked books together. And it was nothing more than that. And one day I got this random Facebook message. And it was from Jay. And he was like, hey, Tim, do you know anyone who would be interested in writing a book on fly tying? And I stared at this message, Marvin. I'm thinking to myself, is this a joke, number one? Or did he send this to the wrong person? Because there's no way he's sending this to me. So I sat on this message for I don't know how long because I was waiting for him to say, oh, sorry, wrong person. Or I would track this. It was that pinch me moment. So we eventually had a conversation. And it turned around the notion of social media. Because I love books. I love fly tying books. There's not a lot of current ones out there right now. But more importantly, as we talked about 30 years ago, there were few resources out there, but those that were out there, they were vetted. Like, you could trust them. You knew that, for the most part, they had been edited. They had gone through the proper sources. And now, we live in a time where our resources in fly tying and fly fishing nearly appear infinite. But they're not vetted. We don't know if they really work or if it's just a random creation. And at times, we don't even know where to look. So Jay and I really agreed on the concept that there's so much out there, but there's not a fly tying book where basically if I say you can go on social media right now if you're into tying flies for trout and maybe some of the bigger fish, maybe bass and streamer patterns. But if you start watching what you see on social media, my book will help you tie, I don't know, 75, 85, 90% of those patterns. You'll learn the concepts through that book. It's a vetted book. It has a modern approach though. And that's what we really wanted to do. So Jay was very clear. He was like, we don't want to write a book that teaches someone how to tie the Adams dry fly. Been there, done that, maybe too many times. So instead, we want to look at it from a modern approach, modern materials, techniques, keeping all the content in an organized manner that's easy to read, but also valuable information. So that was the concept behind everything, if that makes sense.

**Marvin Cash (46:26):**
Yeah, it absolutely does make sense. And it's interesting because it flows into my next question, which is, who did you write the book for? Because this really isn't your typical tying book.

**Tim Cammisa (46:37):**
No. Well, listen, come on. It's called Fly Tying for Everyone, Marvin. I wrote it for everyone. That's the title. Yeah, but I mean

**Marvin Cash (46:45):**
But I guess what

**Tim Cammisa (46:46):**
No, I know where you're going.

**Marvin Cash (46:47):**
Yeah, I mean, I guess what I mean just to help people understand is, this isn't wind the thread away from you and that sort of stuff. Because, I mean, the first pattern you and I were talking before we started recording is you're doing a dubbing loop with CDC. So, I mean, it's not a first night at the vise type of a thing.

**Tim Cammisa (47:06):**
No, it's not. It's not like a here's step one of fly tying, here's step two, here's step three. I would love to say that I wrote this book for beginner, intermediate and advanced tiers because in my mind, there's something for everyone in there. There is. It's not going to take you through step one. Here's how you put thread on a hook. That's not what it does. But I guess as I go through the book in itself, I wanted to start off and I wanted to give an overview of 21st century fly tying. And that's really what it is. What's going on in the 21st century in the world of fly tying? What are some of the most popular vises? What are some of the essential tools? And I put it in a way that it lists tools that to me are essential, but then there's also other tiers or categories of them. So I've tried my best to pull in some modern materials and tools. And then I went into 13 patterns. It took a lot of time to select these 13 patterns. It was the baker's dozen because I wanted to find a way to select flies that were unique, were different from each other, caught fish, but also taught fly tying technique. So I looked at this as if I'm a person who's new to fly tying, but I know some of the basics. I know how to get my thread on the hook. I know how to whip finish. And I can get through that at least initial stuff. And I want to say, what's next for me? That's where my book comes in. So I hope that helps make sense to people because at the end of the day, I look at this book as a way to reduce the learning curve for both tiers and even for fly fishers because I give a lot of fly fishing tips throughout it too. And that was the toughest piece of information whenever I was first getting into tying, was that everything was just so new. There were so many materials out there. There were so many techniques. And it was tough to just want to digest them all because that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to learn everything today. And it's nearly impossible in fly tying. So whenever I put this book together, I wanted to put it together in a way that if you can tie these 13 patterns, you're doing really good. So for someone who's saying, geez, which one should I tie first? I would scroll through the book and say, if you fly fish already, which fly do you catch a lot of fish on? Which of these flies look like it and start to master that one pattern and then expand from that

**Marvin Cash (49:20):**
point. Yeah. And I would say too, I think the book is one of those books that you can come back over your tying career because you're going to get something more out of it every time you tie the pattern. And there were some things that jumped out at me. First of all, I would say folks that just to get Tim's honest assessments of gear and materials is worth the price of admission. But really the neat thing, even more so than the really structured tying tip, feature technique, materials and how to fish the patterns, is there these little tying nuggets in the pictures. And they remind me of those little nuggets that you pick up when you go to the fly fishing show and you spend time with the tiers and those little tricks that you could spend months by yourself trying to figure out why you can't get it right and there's a little bold face tip like, I mean I can think about your first dry fly pattern and you were basically telling people how to keep tension on the material to keep the material on top of the hook so that you didn't end up with a lopsided wing. And that's just one of those things where there are lots of different ways to skin the cat, but it's a whole lot easier for you to tell us and then we can go on and learn something else. Absolutely, yeah and I'm

**Tim Cammisa (50:35):**
glad that you noticed those four things, the tying tips, the techniques, the fishing suggestions and materials to consider. I thought to myself, if I had a fly tying book sitting in front of me, what would I want to get out of that? And I knew it couldn't just be, here's how to tie X dry fly or this Euronymns, this articulated streamer. It had to be more than that. And I knew the step-by-step was going to be critical because I thought to myself, some people are just simply going to go right to step number one and tie these flies from step one to wherever the pattern finishes. But I also reflected on my own fly tying videos on YouTube. And within those, once I finished tying a fly on YouTube, I like to talk about, here's a tying technique that we did. Here's something that you could vary your pattern with. And also, here's how you fish the fly. Because at the end of the day, that's what this is all about. We're tying these patterns to catch fish on them. So these are fishing flies. So I really wanted to make sure that these flies caught fish, but also that I told people, hey, here are some ways that I fish these patterns. If this is an emerger, I want to tell you what that means whenever I say an emerger and here's how I fish my emergers. So I really, like you said, I felt like I gave a ton of information within those and I hope the readers really are able to take it all in and it makes sense to them as well, because I'm glad that the format resonated with you.

**Marvin Cash (52:02):**
Yeah, absolutely, too. And back to what we were talking about earlier is trying to learn, as opposed to just spending your entire life memorizing steps to tie flies. To think about, when you talk about materials to consider and say, well, we use Material X because this is the behavior we want. And maybe you want to tweak it and change the behavior so you can try some other stuff. Or not all of us live next to a fly tying emporium. Right. And you have to substitute. Right. And I mean, I can think in my own life where you talk to people and they're like, well, I don't have a Tiemco 5623. So I can't tie this fly. And you're like, well, what is it? And it's like a 2X or 3X long nymph hook and those types of things. And I think it's really, really valuable to people to break down those barriers to help people tie more. Right.

**Tim Cammisa (52:53):**
Yeah. Yeah, I think the notion of being able to substitute is really essential. I mean, I don't know about people who are listening right now, but if I watch a video and it's Lance Egan tying the fly, I want to use exactly what Lance Egan's using. That's me. That's my OCD. I want those exact materials. If he says that's a good material, I want to buy every color of it. That's how I tend to roll. But it's funny because whenever I'm the one tying on YouTube, I say, oh, we need a peacock dubbing. I have nine different brands of Peacock dubbing. I'm going to grab whichever one's closest at the time. But if that's the one that I held up in front of the camera, I start to get emails from fly shops like, hey, Tim, thanks for showing that dubbing. It's been flying off our shelves. And it's just like, that's the one I happened to grab that time. So it is funny because I'm the person that when I'm the viewer, it's like, tell me everything precisely. And then when I'm the person that's recommending it, it's like, hey, it doesn't matter. You can use any of these 16 things. But it's funny to look at it from both ends.

**Marvin Cash (53:52):**
Yeah, it's funny you say that, right? Because for Lance, you can click on the button and you can literally order every single thing from those guys. But it's funny too, right? Because when I talk to people that have written books, I'm always curious about the writing and editing experience. And I either get like, I'll never, ever, ever write another book again in my life, or I'm ready to write another one. And so how did it shake out for you?

**Tim Cammisa (54:16):**
Well, I'm in the latter camp. I really enjoy the writing part of it. That to me was just, it was awesome. It was really cool just telling the story of the pattern, trying to make it, I tried to make it, and I think you mentioned it, I tried to get my voice in there. And I can tell you that I woke up really early in the morning. So this, we're talking like 4:30, 5 o'clock in the morning. I made coffee and I would write for an hour every day or an hour every other day. And I really had to just get that information out there. We'll say the background on the fly or that initial part or even my acknowledgement. I mean, those were all sections that just took time. You had to really think about it. I had to have a format and an organizer for all of that. So the writing part was really, it was really cool. I absolutely love that aspect of it. And then I guess you also mentioned the notion of the editing too. That was the part that really blew me away because once the book was finished, I mean, I'm telling you, I was just like, it's done. This is great. It's done. I can email it to Jay and it was all on him. And then it was so funny because he's like, well, you don't have these 25 pictures yet. You get those done by Monday. Oh gosh. So it wasn't done. So I got those. Then it went to a copy editor and that person sent it back to me and they had about 60 questions. So I answered those 60 questions and then it came back and there were 20 more questions and I had to read it each time because as I was going through this, I knew that each time, even if it was a month from the last time I read it, there would be something new that I would pick up. And going back to these YouTube videos and your podcast, I didn't want to miss anything. So I would read everything from start to finish until I was satisfied and until we agreed that that's how it should look. So the writing part of it was a blast. I love putting the words down. And to be honest with everybody out there, since the book's been published, I haven't been able to read it from start to finish. I'm just, I'm nearly afraid to read it, if that makes sense. I mean, I think I mentioned, I love John Gierach. He's just like my favorite author out there on fly fishing for sure. And I met him one time at one of the fly fishing shows in New Jersey. And I remember he was going to be reading a chapter from his book after lunch. Well, during lunch, I thought, we're eating a burger or something. I look and there's John and he's sitting at a table by himself reading his own book. I thought, this is weird. Why is he over there? He's by himself. Like he has all these fans around him. He's reading his own book. And it just was so weird. And about a half an hour later, he showed up in this room. I was there with a packed room for him and he read the chapter. And then we got to ask him some questions afterwards. And he said something that didn't make any sense. And he basically told the audience he really couldn't stand reading his books afterwards because at that point, he'd already moved on to a new book. He'd learned new writing techniques. And it's terrible for him to look back and realize all those mistakes that he made and how that book could have been better if he knew what he knows now. And I thought, come on, John, you're an incredible, award-winning author. Your book was awesome. Be proud of it. And now I'm in his shoes and I don't want to look at the book because I'm thinking, if I find something that I could have made better for that reader, it's going to kill me. So it's been really tricky to have these copies of the book around me. And I skim it every now and then and we'll look at a page. I'll be like, all right, I'm happy with page 27. I wonder what page 28 is like, but I just haven't been able to go through it yet to start to finish.

**Marvin Cash (57:45):**
No, I totally get it. Because, God forbid, if you found a bad semicolon or a misspelled word, you'd lose it. Oh, gosh. Yeah, that's for sure. So, also, I always like to ask authors, the greatest challenge or surprise in the process.

**Tim Cammisa (58:03):**
Easy. 100% macro photography. That's why I tell people, if you can get into macro photography, it will make you a better tier. But it will just, it's just another area of life. Like there's just a steep learning curve for photography in general, to videos, audio, all that stuff. And macro photography is something that I have never done prior to this book. I took pictures with my old Canon camera with a crop sensor and just whatever the lens was on it. I knew nothing about lenses at that time. I took pictures with my cell phone and I was happy with them and life was good. And then Jay was telling me about macro photography and I had to start to research that. And geez, talk about like a rabbit hole that just doesn't end. That to me was the trickiest part because I knew that with each thread wrap, people could see my previous thread wrap. They could see everything. And it didn't bother me knowing that, but I knew that if I said you make four wraps, I wanted to make sure that if somebody counts my thread, they see just four wraps there. So I had to be very precise in everything that I did because I knew it would be captured in its entirety. And the one thing that I'm most proud of with this book, every fly from step one to step 20, that's the hook. That is the fly the whole way through. It's not like I tied on one fly these first five steps and I swapped it out and I put it in this book. Like it didn't work that way. It was everyone to start to throw, which I can tell you that that's a challenge because at one point there's a fly in there, the Perdigon. I tied the Perdigon the whole way through whatever its final step was. I'm not sure what that number is. And on the Perdigon, this Spanish nymph is known for a very slender body and it has this very dark wing case, black. And you can put it on with nail polish or UV resin or even a Sharpie. Well, I decided to use this black UV resin for my book. It's a newer material. I went to showcase new material. So I tied this Perdigon the whole way through. I mean it looked fantastic. It was just, it looked like a fish would find its way to my basement to eat this fly. It was just being tied so well. I was so proud of it. And I got to the last step and I just touched it with the brush and the black wing case just extended past the halfway point and it's not supposed to. Would it still catch fish? 100%. But it was no longer a presentation quality fly. And that was, to me, that was the biggest challenge because it was tricky. I mean, whenever people say, well, how do you write a book? You can't even tie this fly. When I'm writing, when I'm tying these flies, you have a giant camera with a giant lens in front of you. I have these two lights that are flashing. There's four lights that are flashing. I have two other lights that are on the other side. I have a background. So you're really working in a very confined space. It's almost not fly tying as you're tying a fly, if that makes sense. For me, I mean, I remember I finished that fly. I was sick because that was like a half a day thrown away. I had to restart that whole pattern. I went upstairs. I was so bugged by it. And that's where, I mean, the person who's really got me through this entire thing, my wife Heather, she was like, Tim, if you want to fly, you can move on from this. You know what you're doing. It was a mistake. Everyone makes them. It was something that was going to happen at some point during the process. Just take a night off and get back at it tomorrow night. So she was the one that really pulled me back in this because that macro photography was tough. Man, now that I know it, it's awesome. And that's why I recommend it to others.

**Marvin Cash (01:01:27):**
There you go. And, was there anything else you learned about yourself going through the entire process?

**Tim Cammisa (01:01:34):**
Yeah, I mean, what I was surprised at the beginning of this, when I started to tell people privately that I was writing this book, so many people looked at me and they just said, what took you so long? And that really made me take a step back because even though I've been tying for all these years, I've made these videos, I'm a trained teacher, I had to remind myself that it was me in this book. I was the main event. And at times, I mean, I would research methods to tie certain patterns because I had to find out what's the correct way that you tie this fly. And then at the end, I realized, and that was at the research point, I threw all that stuff away because it wasn't somebody else tying that fly. If you want to see that individual write this book, well, go get their book. This was my book. And I believed in myself. And I wanted to share with everybody my experiences, the flies that I use, the tying procedures that I use. Just like you said, there's a lot of ways. I mean, you can tie a parachute fly 35 different ways. They're all going to catch fish. In this book, you're going to learn my way. And it's worked for me for all these years and I know it will work for others. But that doesn't mean it's the only way. So I learned that throughout this. Gosh, the key to my success is just I continue to always push myself with new styles, new fish, the new species that I would fish for and the friends that I connected with. So as I finished this book, I looked at this like this was a celebration of all my knowledge, all of my experiences to that point. And then now to speak on what we've previously talked about, since it's been published, like my personal database has grown considerably, which is why we love fly fishing and fly tying. Like there's something else now that's pushing me in another direction. So that's what I've learned about, I'm not sure how I could sum that up in one word, but that's really what I've learned about myself going through this process.

**Marvin Cash (01:03:26):**
Yeah, no, it's really neat. It's not just a distillation of your journey, but it's basically this tapestry of all these people that have mentored you along the way.

**Tim Cammisa (01:03:36):**
Oh, without a doubt. You have no idea how tough it was to write the acknowledgments just to rethink the people that have just come into my life, the people that continue to be in my life, my family, my friends. I mean, some of my initial family members, when I first started posting on YouTube, used to send me text messages like, Tim, you better get a manicure. Your fingernails look terrible on camera. I mean, hysterical stuff. And now they're like all these friends. I mean, I feel so fortunate. You talked about the notion of people who would write reviews for the book. And the advanced reviewers, the praise came from Tim Flagler, Devin Olson, George Daniel, Gunnar Bramer and a legend, Joe Messinger. I mean, I had those five people who said, yes, we would love to write a review for you. Some of them read the book and they wanted it to be a review. Others were like, I don't want to see the book until it comes out. I'm just going to tell about you because I know who you are. And I know that if it's you doing this, you're going to do this job. And that was the part, like whenever I had these people that I looked up to that were like, yes, like they were just, there was not even a question. Like it was, yes, I'd love to do this. And that's really what, that's what resonated with me throughout this.

**Marvin Cash (01:04:46):**
Yeah, very, very neat. And so, literally within days, people are going to be able to put their hands on these things. Where can folks order them?

**Tim Cammisa (01:04:54):**
You know, they're all over the place. I mean, if they're looking for an autographed copy, they can buy them from me through troutandfeather.com. So especially for individuals living in the United States, that's the easiest way. I'm fortunate to have a lot of fans around the world. It's a little bit trickier for me to do shipping around the world, but I am willing to work with people that way. You can find it on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Target. I mean, any place that sells books, they're there. Fly Tying for Everyone is going to be in a lot of fly shops as well. So there's lots of places. And I can tell you when I first, I logged into Amazon one day and I was looking for something in fly tying and I typed in fly tying and it was a list of books. I was like, cool, let me look through these books. And I saw my book and it was before anyone told me it was there. I was like, this is something's wrong. I took a picture of the screen. I'm like, I can't believe there's my books on Amazon. It was, it was so wild to see that. So those are some places where you can find it.

**Marvin Cash (01:05:50):**
Very neat. And I'll drop a link to your site and some of the other places in the show notes. And obviously we're a few months coming out of the COVID darkness. So you may not be quite as primed to do promotion stuff. I had Monty Burke on when his book came out and he's like, I'm doing an all virtual book promotion tour because I can't go anywhere. But I suspect you're starting to line up events and places you're going to be to promote the book. You want to share those with folks?

**Tim Cammisa (01:06:19):**
Yeah, you know, I'm happy to. It is tricky for me to do some promotions because I am a teacher. So it's tough to take off a day of work to travel somewhere because I am pretty active on social media. People know, my students would say to me, hey, good luck at the Denver Fly Fishing Show. So it's pretty obvious where I am at all times. But I can tell you, I plan on going to some of the big shows because I'm a regular there and I'm a guest speaker and a feature presenter at most of them. So this year coming up, I'll be at the International Fly Tying Symposium. I'm planning on the fly fishing show in Edison in Denver. I have a lot of Trout Unlimited and Trout Club events lined up already. For those people who are interested, if you're looking for a speaker, I can speak to this book, fly tying. I also do PowerPoint presentations. I do book a lot of public and private events. And because of what we've had to go through through the pandemic, I'm able to do that remotely via Zoom. So if there's anyone who's interested in doing that, you can find out all about that stuff through my website, which is troutandfeather.com. There's a little link called Speaking. If you click there, you can figure out some ways that we can interact. And also on that page, I have my public schedule. So one thing that I'd love to do in the social media aspect, every Monday through the spring into the early summer, I was live on Instagram at 9 p.m. And it's been so cool to connect with people during a live show. So for my book release, I plan on, it will be in the wind by the time this show airs, but doing a couple of live events through YouTube, through Facebook, through Instagram. And I plan on doing a few more of those through the fall as well.

**Marvin Cash (01:07:56):**
Very neat. And do you have any other non-book announcements you want to share with folks? Like I know you've got some pretty sexy trips this summer.

**Tim Cammisa (01:08:03):**
Yeah. I mean, number one, I'm going to Iceland pretty soon. That's going to be a lot of fun. I mean, I do a number of hosting trips and that's my favorite one. We weren't able to go last year and those fish are just going berserk right now. So I'm hoping to go and catch a few of those. Other announcements, I mean, today is the day my daughter just turned one. So that's been just awesome to see her last year. So, yes, I did write a book through a pandemic and while my wife was pregnant. So you can imagine my life during the last couple of years. And then the only other announcements that I have, for any of your listeners that have been following me, who have sent me an email or watch any of my YouTube videos, thank you, because that support is unlike anything else and I truly do appreciate it.

**Marvin Cash (01:08:45):**
Yeah, very neat. And you want to let folks know the best way to follow your adventures at the vise and on the water on the internet?

**Tim Cammisa (01:08:53):**
Yeah, I mean, it's up to them, whatever their favorite platform is. Obviously, if they need to contact me, website's the best way, troutandfeather.com. But I love social media. You can find me on YouTube. If you search for my name, that's probably the best way to find me on YouTube. But you can also find Trout and Feather on Facebook. I post quite frequently on Instagram, occasionally on Twitter. And there's another app out there called TikTok. It's like addicting because I can make fun of fly fishing and fly tying through TikTok. So it's a new format for me. But that's another area that I've really had a lot of fun with.

**Marvin Cash (01:09:28):**
Yeah, I was afraid maybe you had joined a K-pop band or something.

**Tim Cammisa (01:09:33):**
It feels like it at times, but it brings us, I don't know. It goes back to what I said originally. Sometimes we take this a little too serious. We're just tying flies and catching fish. And there's also an entertaining side of it, but I think we miss out on a lot. TikTok brings in that side. It's having fun. That's really what it's all about.

**Marvin Cash (01:09:51):**
Very neat. And I'll drop all that stuff in the show notes. All right. Thank you, Marvin. You bet. And, Tim, I really appreciate you, particularly on your daughter's one-year birthday, to join me this evening and to talk about your life and fly fishing and fly tying. And we got a chance to chat about your book and I'm looking forward to our paths crossing soon.

**Tim Cammisa (01:10:13):**
Thanks Marvin. And again, just like I said, at the top of the show, everything you've been doing with your podcast, blogs, I mean, your fishing reports, it's phenomenal. And I'm not sure if people out there understand like the work that Marvin puts into this to keep The Articulate Fly going, just the work away from the family. I mean, everything you're doing is just an incredible resource for all of us. So thank you, Marvin.

**Marvin Cash (01:10:34):**
Oh, I super appreciate it. And thanks again for joining me. Have a great evening, Tim. All right. Thank you, Tim. Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.

**Tim Cammisa (01:10:45):**
Again, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on the podcast of your choice. Tight lines, everybody. Thank you, everybody.