S4, Ep 157: FLY TYING REDUX: Pat Cohen of Super Fly

Marvin Cash (00:04-01:18): Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm joined by deer hair master Pat Cohen. We take a deep dive into his life as an artist, his passion for stacking deer hair, and his new book, Super Bass Flies. 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 subscribe and leave us a review in the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out.

And a shout out to this episode's sponsor. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Bonefish and Tarpon Trust. Using a science-based approach, BTT and its partners work tirelessly to conserve and restore the flat species so many of us love to chase on the fly. On September 17th at 7 p.m. Eastern, BTT will virtually host its ninth annual NYC auction and award ceremony. You can attend this great event from the comfort of your home. Please visit btt.org to learn more, register, and support this great organization.

Now, on to our interview. Well, Pat, welcome to The Articulate Fly.

Pat Cohen (01:20-02:19): Well, thanks for having me, Marvin. I'm really looking forward to it, and we have a tradition here. We always ask all of our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

Oh, man, my earliest fishing memory. Boy, that seems so long ago now. I think I'm getting old. Well, I think probably it's very similar to most other people. I don't have a specific story, but, you know, drowning worms under a bobber with my dad, my mom.

I know when we were growing up, we moved from Long Island to upstate New York. And one of the first places that we lived was way out in the country and we had this little tiny farm pond that was kind of down the street or well it was right across the the driveway and right below the house and I know when my dad was at work my mom would take us down there and I don't know that she liked it so much but she definitely put all the worms on the hooks for us so that we could catch bluegills so that would probably be one of my earliest fishing memories.

Marvin Cash (02:20-02:23): Yeah very neat and when did you get pulled to the dark side of fly fishing?

Pat Cohen (02:25-03:40): I started fly fishing in 2008. Interesting and how did that come about? So I'd always fished on and off, you know obviously bait when I was young and then graduated to lures and soft plastics and all that kind of jazz. And then later on basically I was a terrible angler I never caught a thing or very you know not not very frequently.

So my brother and my dad and I were at the Schoharie Creek and we were throwing gear and my brother had an Eagle Claw fly spin combo rod in his trunk and I grabbed that thing I set it up as a fly rod and it was the very first time I'd ever even held a fly rod in my hand I mean if You can even call that thing a fly rod. So I grabbed it, set it up, and walked out into the stream and started whipping it around. And that was my very first experience with a fly rod. And I don't know what happened, why it happened, but I loved it. And really soon thereafter became completely obsessed and immersed in it.

Marvin Cash (03:42-03:45): Yeah, very neat. Who are some of the folks that have mentored you on your fly fishing journey?

Pat Cohen (03:47-06:00): So where I live there's not a whole lot going on as far as fly fishing in fact you know you go to the little local places to fish and people kind of look at you like you're insane when you're waving that around so there wasn't a lot for me to learn from.

So I had found there's an L.L. Bean and I know it's you know oh big box whatever but there was an L.L. Bean about an hour from my house and I had gone there and they had a, at the time, not so much anymore, but at the time it was a very, very active fly fishing department. And I met a couple of guys from there and I can't say that they mentored me, but they gave me some guidance as far as, you know, Hey, try this, try that maybe, you know, whatever. So I had learned a little bit more about equipment, not necessarily techniques or fishing skills or casting skills. I learned all of that on my own.

And then I had found another shop a little further away from my house. It's closed now, but it was called Goldstock Sporting Goods. And there was a man in there by the name of Tom Brewster. And Tom was an interesting guy. He was an old saltwater fly fishermen and just lived to catch stripers in Cape Cod. So we hit it off and he, if there was somebody that I would say had the biggest influence as far as fly fishing in my life goes, it would be Tom. He kind of took me under his wing, directed me, Introduced me, once you saw the flies that I started to tie, introduced me to Bob Mead and Dave Brandt. And those were like the first two people that were already active and established in the fly fishing, fly tying world that I had met. And, you know, they were super nice guys to me. And then it just kind of all, you know, went from there.

Marvin Cash (06:01-06:15): Yeah, very neat. And, you know, in addition to being a fly tier, you know, you're also a tattoo artist and an illustrator. When did you become interested in art? I don't know. That's a super broad term. And, you know, kind of what drew you into that world?

Pat Cohen (06:16-08:25): I've done art for, you know, my entire life. I mean, you know, ask any parent, I guess, right? Their kid is the best artist in the world. Yeah. But I had always drawn and then, you know, in high school started to take it a little bit more seriously. And then when I had gone to college, my first two years had nothing to do with art. They were psychology. Actually, I got a degree in psychology. And then when I went to further that education, I went to Binghamton. And again, I was there for psychology. And I had gotten lost in the sculpture studio trying to find classes, you know, my normal psychology class. And I was like, you know what? This is where I need to be, not psychology. And from there, I just really started taking art seriously and ended up with a bachelor's degree in sculpture.

And then when I got out of school, I realized that that's a pretty non-paying degree. So went back again and learned about computer graphics and graphic design. And I did that for actually quite a while. And then always in the back of my head, you know, I always illustrated and I always drew. I used to teach figure drawing classes and stuff. And then basically, I'd always been interested in tattooing. And it's not an easy field to get into. You have to do a traditional apprenticeship. And it's a lot of time. It's a lot of abuse. You earn your way into that world. So it took a long time for that to happen. But it was something that I really, really, really wanted to happen and just worked for it. So it's kind of always been something that's been in me, been part of me. creating in some form or fashion.

Marvin Cash (08:25-08:47): Yeah, that's really interesting. And I've watched your Instagram feed and I, so I see your tattoo work. And there seems to be kind of a definite style to that. And, you know, I've seen the work that you do, because I know you illustrate Big Cliff boxes too. And you know, I can start looking at those and I'd be like, Oh, that's a Pat Cohen box. Or, you know, I think if you showed me 20 tattoo pictures, I could probably pick your work out of a lineup, you know, how would you describe your style?

Pat Cohen (08:47-11:03): You know, it's funny. We, my other half, Miss Deed, and I had had this discussion not that long ago, you know, because I, living where I live, like I'm in upstate New York, there isn't a lot of opportunity to say, Hey, look, this is what I specialize in. You've got to kind of be able to do a little bit of everything because you've got a fairly diverse group of individuals that I do business with. So some people will come in and they'll want a black and gray portrait. Other people will come in and they're going to want some kind of traditional Americana piece.

So I don't know that I have, in my mind, I guess, I don't know that I have a very specific style. I have things that I enjoy more than others. I don't know if enjoy is the right word, but things that I respond to better than others as far as style goes. Like, I love black and gray tattoos. I think there's something about them that they're raw, they're natural. It's the way my brain thinks. It's also, it's one of those things where there's no trickery. There's no hiding anything. Either you can do it or you can't. And a really bad black and gray is a really bad black and gray. And, you know, anybody that looks at it would be like, oh, gosh, what do we do now? So I'm really drawn to that for whatever reason. I just I love the way they look. I mean, I like color and stuff, too. So as far as like a style, I would say I border on enjoying realism. but not photo realism, more of a graphic oriented realism because I like lines and I like contrast. So a little bit more punchy than just a straight photo realistic piece, if that makes any sense.

Marvin Cash (11:04-11:14): Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And, you know, you mentioned earlier, kind of your fly fishing mentors who are some of the folks that kind of helped you on your journey as an artist?

Pat Cohen (11:17-15:08): Oh boy so I guess in high school there was there was one art teacher Miss Magomer, Linda Magomer she had in high school she she kind of took me in and really helped shape my art, I guess, helped make me take things a little bit more serious. As serious as you can do anything in high school, you know?

And then when I had gotten to college, Jim Stark, he was a professor, a sculpture professor at Binghamton University. And he was such a cool guy. I wish I had, I stayed in touch with him a few years after college and then I'm terrible at keeping in touch with people when life gets in the way and you know how it goes but he really influenced the way that I looked at things as an artist I would say he had an interesting view on things he was this old hippie kind of dude that just had these really I don't know I don't even know how to describe his views they were just really interesting and laid back and very non-judgmental and you know I was at the time these these little sculptures that I was doing one of my favorite sculptors was Giacometti his last name is a very old sculptor he did does these like stylistic sculptures that are very elongated. The human figures are very elongated. And for whatever reason, I just, I responded to those. And I was doing a lot of stuff that was influenced by that. And it wasn't even on a conscious level necessarily. It was just something that was happening. And a lot of professors, you know, when I was, I had taken a lot of different art classes. So there was a couple of professors that absolutely hated the direction that that was going. You know, they didn't understand it. They didn't understand why I was seeing things that way and, and did whatever they could to kind of get rid of that. Where Jim Stark totally embraced it and was like, Hey, I don't, I don't know why, you know, you're going in that direction. I don't know what it is that you're responding to, but you are. So do it. Let's see where it goes. And everything was about, hey, follow what comes instinctually and then see where it goes. See what happens. See if it develops. See if it develops into something else. And that's eventually what happened. You know, I had taken that and because he let me run with it, I ended up going further and further and further and straight away from that into a new direction. But I wouldn't have gotten to that direction. I wouldn't have gotten to that point if I didn't have somebody that said, hey, it's okay to go there. now continue and and that's kind of what happened so I would say he was he was a big factor and then after that I mean I didn't really you know the tattoo world you know I had I did an apprenticeship I worked with a couple of different tattooers one of them's dead now the other two I don't have any idea what happened I don't care they weren't good humans. So, you know, after that, it's just a matter of who you look at and kind of get inspired by. There's so much good art in the world that, you know, if you ever talk to an artist and they're, they say they're not inspired by modern art and, you know, the things that are happening, they're just not looking hard enough.

Marvin Cash (15:08-15:14): Yeah. Very, very interesting. And when did you get interested in fly tying?

Pat Cohen (15:14-16:03): So fly tying happened in 2009 that's when I tied my first fly and it was it wasn't it was purely utilitarian I was going through I was only fishing basically with one fly I was using these Krystal Flash weighted like beadhead Woolly Buggers and I was tearing up the smallmouth with them and that was my you know that was my sole interest I mean it's still my probably my all-time favorite fish to catch but so I was going through so many of them and because I didn't have a fly shop or anything in the area I learned how to make them and that was the first fly that I ever tied and that was kind of what got me into fly tying.

Marvin Cash (16:04-16:05): Very neat. What was your first vise?

Pat Cohen (16:07-16:36): First real vise was Peak. But the first vise that I ever had came out of a Wapsi fly tying kit. That was the, gosh, I used that for probably the first six months, seven months, eight months, something like that of fly tying until I started figuring out that there's more than, you know, Krystal Flash Woolly Buggers to tie.

Marvin Cash (16:36-16:41): Yeah. Well, and speaking of that, what drew you to tying with deer hair?

Pat Cohen (16:43-17:52): So I had gone into, again, I had gone into the L.L. Bean store and they had these pullout drawers, these huge bins in the middle of the fly fishing department that were just full of flies. And I had just, you know, accidentally opened one one day and there was, well, not accidentally, but I stumbled upon it, opened it up and randomly this drawer was full of these Dahlberg divers. And I was like, what are these things? And bought one, paid an enormous amount of money for it, or at least it seemed like that at the time. And didn't know what to do with it, but I just thought it was the coolest thing. And talked to a couple of people about it, and they said, yeah, you use it to catch largemouth and whatnot on the surface. I said, neat. So I went home, I fished with it. And, I don't know, maybe a few fish later, it started falling apart on me. And I was like, what the heck? And then I set out to learn how to make them.

Marvin Cash (17:54-18:08): Yeah, very neat. And so you start in like 09 and you get turned on to deer hair probably a little bit after that. And, you know, three years later, you know, you're a professional tier. you know, what allowed you to become so proficient so quickly?

Pat Cohen (18:09-22:21): My obsessive nature. I think, I mean, all joking aside, like when I do something, it doesn't really matter what it is. I try to absolutely learn everything and anything that I possibly can about it. If I'm interested in it, it is 100% what I focus all my attention to. So when I first started fly fishing, my very first year with a fly rod in my hand, I was on the water for 280 days. Oh, wow. 280 days. And it didn't matter if it was raining, pouring. It didn't matter if it was the wintertime. I didn't care. I went out and I fished at least a couple of hours every morning.

And it was the same thing when I started tying flies. Like, I started with those Krystal Flash Woolly Buggers. And literally, like, that's all I was tying for at least a few months. But now we're still in 2009. So by the end of 2009, I had become completely just overwhelmed with deer hair bugs. These things are amazing. I love fishing with them. I love tying them. And I was just, you know, starting to, the art style was starting to kick in and I was getting creative with them and having fun. And again, there was nobody to really teach me how to do any of it.

So I had gone in and I had talked to my friend, Tom Brewster, and I said, hey, I want to tie these bass bugs. I want to tie these divers and stuff. And he was like, look, man, I don't know how to tie them, but I can tell you what materials you need. So that was the big step for me because originally I, you know, I watched some video on YouTube or something and I was, you know, they were flaring this deer hair, but it didn't say, you know, it was belly hair or body hair or bucktail or whatever. So I had had these bucktails as part of that Wapsi fly tying kit. So I'm trying to make these bass bugs out of this bucktail and it's just not working and not working. And I was getting frustrated and didn't figure it out. and then that's when Tom said hey you know you really need really need belly hair and I said oh okay so I bought all the colors that he had and went home and put it on the hook and boom my hair flared and I was like holy crap this is what I needed and then forget it once I saw that I had the correct material, then, you know, the creative train just kind of took over. I was making all sorts of crazy stuff out of nowhere. And again, it was that first one that I had bought fell apart on me. So I needed to figure out how do I tie these? Because they're time consuming. I mean, I don't care how many you tie. They're still time consuming. I tie thousands of them a year and they're still unbelievably time consuming. So I wanted them to last. So I figured out methods and techniques, you know, again, on my own, how to make them durable. And it's just repetition. You know, you getting good at something is not about it's not about years or or or time necessarily I think that there's this big misunderstanding of the word experience because if you've got somebody that that says hey I learned this on you know monday of 2000 and I've been doing the same thing and now it's 2020 do you have 20 years experience or do you have a day of experience that you've done for 20 years? Because those are two very different things, right? Does that make sense?

Marvin Cash (22:21-22:43): No, it makes a ton of sense. I mean, you see the same thing where people are always amazed, like in the comp fishing world about how these young anglers on the youth team can just become fishing machines in such a short period of time. And they just have a very different curriculum for getting better, right? So it's not about doing the same thing. It's about really kind of broadening and perfecting your skillset.

Pat Cohen (22:43-24:23): Well, it's about doing it a lot and it's about doing it better every single time. And it's about saying to yourself, you can never stop learning or improving or getting better or learning a new technique or whatever. So having that kind of a mindset, every fly that I tie, I try to make better than the last one. I try to do, you know, maybe I can speed it up. Maybe I can tighten it up. Maybe I can, you know, get the hair to do something different or incorporate another material. I always try to improve upon the last fly. And I did it with everything that I did, you know, like maybe I had a successful tattoo today, but tomorrow if I have to do a tattoo that's similar, it needs to be better than it was yesterday. I always take the approach that you're only as good as your worst product. So I try to never have a bad product and then just keep improving from there. And I think that that makes for quicker experience, if that makes sense, or more experience. If I, I mean, take, take that first year on the water, 280 days fishing. How many people can say that they fish 280 days in 10 years fishing? So who's got more experience? That person that has that many days in a year or the person that's been doing it for 10 years, three weekends a year. You know what I mean?

Marvin Cash (24:23-24:39): No, I a hundred percent do. I mean, it kind of comes down to like when you watch, you know, elite athletes practice and they practice in a very, very different way from kind of, you know, amateurs or kind of intermediate level athletes.

Pat Cohen (24:40-24:41): It's all about focus.

Marvin Cash (24:42-24:42): Yeah.

Pat Cohen (24:43-25:22): They have a goal in mind. And to get to that goal, they have to do steps A, B, and C. And you can never skip A, B, and C. You have to do them every day. So when I started tying these bass bugs and all these other flies, I tied flies every day. I loved it. I mean, I woke up and I was like, got to tie a fly. Didn't matter what else was going on that day. Had to tie a fly. And I did that every day and every day and every day. I mean, I get asked all the time, like, how do you get good at tying deer hair flies? It's simple. Learn the proper techniques with the proper tools, with the proper material, and then make 500 of them. You'll be good by the last one.

Marvin Cash (25:23-25:41): And that's it yeah it's like I guess what is it the Malcolm Gladwell book it's about 10 000 hours to get good at anything sure you know I know you know being in upstate New York you're a little bit isolated and you're probably self-taught more than most anglers and tiers but you know who are some of the folks that have influenced you as a fly tier?

Pat Cohen (25:41-28:18): Oh gosh there's so many you know there's so many classic bass oriented fly tiers and and really I am a warm water fly tier I mean all the things that you know that I make yeah they can catch cold water species and and all these other fish as well I mean it's not as limited as we like to think it is but you know I was very inspired by by like Larry Dahlberg by Dave Whitlock Skip Hughes there's all these like old school bass bug tiers Chris Helm there's Jim Stewart Jim was that his first name stewart something or last name was Stewart there's so many I can't even I can't even think of all the names but a lot of the older original bass bug makers Joe Messenger in fact I'm good friends with Joe Messenger's son Joe Messenger also we chat all the time he's he's a great great guy great fly tier he has all his dad's patterns I've got several of them actually a lot of those those original bass bug tiers are the people that really have I mean whether I met them in person or not just the work that they did it, you know, everything can be, there's very few things in the world that are original. So everything can be brought back to a base somewhere. And, you know, all the flies that I tie, they're modern versions of flies that have been being tied for a hundred years or more. I mean, bass bugs date back to the 1800s. So, you know, they're all kind of a building process. You start out with something basic. It moves on from there, on from there, on from there. It just kind of grows. And people like to claim everything as their own. But really, I mean, you know, I've got some flies that are a little different than other flies. But when you break it all down, a deer hair bug is a deer hair bug. A popper is a popper. A popper can be brought back to Cap's bug. And, you know, we've changed it since then. But really, a deer hair popper is a deer hair popper at the end of the day.

Marvin Cash (28:20-28:33): Yeah, got it. And, you know, I know you fished gear pretty extensively before you found the fly rod, I guess a little bit over 10 years ago. Yeah, how does that gear experience kind of influence your tying?

Pat Cohen (28:35-30:40): Well, I try to make a lot of flies that imitate what lures do, especially soft plastics. There is no denying the effectiveness of a pro bass angler and a soft plastic bait. They will catch six-pound largemouth out of mud puddles with that stuff where there shouldn't be a fish. So to me, I always look at the tackle industry to see what's new, to see what techniques are out there. Because really, whether it's a fly rod or a spin rod, bass fishing is bass fishing. All fishing is fishing. The only difference is the delivery method and what we have to use to catch those fish with. I mean, a fly is a lure. It's all kind of interwoven. I mean, we like to separate everything, but it's really not. I mean, a lure is an artificially made thing that's used to fool a fish, and that's what a fly is. So to me, if I can take a fly and I can cast it with a fly rod and I can give that fly motion and action that are similar to something that has been truly tested and proven in the tackle world, and I can make it do the same thing, then the only thing that's stopping me from catching a fish with it is my mindset, right? So if you change your mindset and you say, hey, it doesn't matter if this thing looks like a traditional fly or something a little bit different, and you can go out and you can give that fly that action, then all of a sudden you are now catching fish the same way that somebody with a spin rod can catch fish. So to me, it's all kind of interwoven and interlaced. There's really no hard lines between the two.

Marvin Cash (30:41-31:27): So as we shift a little bit, Pat, and kind of talk a little bit more about tying stuff, and particularly tying with deer hair, I kind of know this because I've tried it, but I've also watched some of your stuff. Obviously, and I'm sure the reason you stopped tying with that Wapsi kit vise is because you couldn't get a hook to hold while you were spinning deer hair on it, that it's critical to be able to tie with deer hair, to have a vise that can really clamp down on a hook. And it was kind of interesting. I was looking at your Bloomberg article and video when I was doing research for the interview, and your vise was really interesting because it looked like you actually had a special set of jaws that you actually get to thread the hook through. So there's really absolutely no way it's going to come out.

Pat Cohen (31:28-32:41): Yeah, that's made by Peak. That's the LIRS jaw. That jaw system is, if you're going to do big flies or any kind of deer hair fly, whatever, you know, where you're putting an enormous amount of pressure on the hook, that LIRS jaw is unreal. When that first came out, I was at ICAST, and I actually put a one-pound jig. It was an 18-ought hook in that vise. and I picked that thing up and I swung the vise around by the hook and that hook didn't budge out of that vise, out of that jaw system. They've got three different sizes. One of them is just enormous. I don't know who would do that really. The smaller one is the one that I use. It's interchangeable with the standard jaw and the standard cam system. You buy a regular rotary vise from Peak And then you get this, this LIRS jaw also, and you know, you can, you can tie on any hook, between the two jaw system. It's, it's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't imagine doing deer hair work without that thing.

Marvin Cash (32:41-33:04): Yeah. And so I guess, you know, the the interesting thing about that is for people that are, you know, let's just say deer hair curious, right? So they're kind of want to get into it and they don't have that system or they're trying to wrap their head around when it's time to buy those jaws. What suggestion do you have for someone who isn't at the place to kind of super specialize their fly tying rig that way?

Pat Cohen (33:06-34:29): I mean, my, so I've tied on a Peak, a regular rotary Peak since 2009. It was the first vise that I ever bought. And honestly, I've tied on a bunch of other vises, you know, from everything from, you know, super high end expensive vises all the way down to, you know, whatever. And I know people don't look at Peak necessarily as a high end vise, but to me, it's that vise has for 10 years now, 11 years. I'm on the original vise. It's $155. It's made in the USA. It's made right in Colorado, one piece at a time. There is not a better vise for the money on the market. And I mean, I tie for the last nine years, I have tied full time commercially between 14 and 15, 16 hours a day on that vise. And never once have I said, man, I really need a different vise. So if you're ready to take the plunge into something, into a better vise, there's no reason to spend $500 on one. You're not going to get anything different. I mean, they're all made to do the same thing. They're all made to hold the hook. So get a vise that holds your hook, and that Peak does it.

Marvin Cash (34:30-34:50): Got it. And kind of a related point is, at least I know for myself, when I buy natural materials, I always try to do it in person because I've gotten burned a couple times. you know what suggestions do you have for people when they're ordering natural materials like deer hair online or from a catalog to make sure they get what they really want?

Pat Cohen (34:52-36:32): So all right so I sell I sell a lot of natural materials I mean I sell a lot of deer hair on that let's say so before I got into offering materials to people I did a lot of that also I did the same thing. I would go to the store. I would try to handpick everything that I wanted, but then you've got to go, you know, you've got to think, okay, you know, how far am I traveling? How far am I whatever? And whenever possible, of course, you always want to support your local fly shop. But if there's not a local fly shop, my recommendation is to go to people that specialize in certain things. There are general online businesses that kind of sell a little bit of everything and that's that's perfectly fine but there's not necessarily an area of specialty there where they're going to go through and look at everything that they're selling you or whatever so like when people buy deer hair from me I actually sort all of that belly hair that comes in I sort all of it out and I only ship out to my people you know the the best of what I can bring in. So when I buy materials from, from other retailers, I try to find people that have an area that they, you know, that, that they specialize in, or at least a level of customer care where I know they're not going to send me whatever comes into them. They're going to, they're going to kind of handpick that for me. If I tell them, Hey, look, this is what I'm looking to make. Can you grab me a bag or two of, you know, whatever that, that looks a little bit nicer than maybe the average stuff that comes in. And that's how I go about it.

Marvin Cash (36:34-36:51): Yeah, I got it. It's kind of funny because I always keep a list. And so when I go to fly fishing shows, I usually am on a fly tying materials collection mission too. And also to your point, you know, building relationships with people like you so that, you know, I can call or email and say, Hey man, this is what I'm trying to do. And you kind of get that, you know, extra quarter turn of focus to kind of make sure you get what you need.

Pat Cohen (36:51-37:21): That's where I think small businesses win. You can go to big box stores and you can go to giant online conglomerates or whatever. But if you look to somebody that's, I mean, I'm a one man show. So every single thing that leaves in a box from my office was put there by me. So I try to do business with companies that are very similar to that.

Marvin Cash (37:21-37:33): Yeah, got it. And, you know, Pat, in addition to having a good vise, you know, what other tools do you think are absolutely critical to being successful tying with deer hair?

Pat Cohen (37:33-41:09): So you need a good vise without a doubt. You also need some form of packing device. I mean, of course, I developed the Fugly Packer. There is no way to tie a deer hair fly tight without some form of packing tool. You need to be able to pack thread and hair back on your hook shank. You also need good thread, the correct thread, and that was something that I learned the very hard way. I was trying to tie deer hair flies with like flat wax nylon and basic tying threads, and it just led to an enormous amount of thread breaks and frustration. So you really need GSP. I tie a lot of bigger bugs, so I use 200-denier GSP. You need belly hair. Belly hair is essential to the making of bass bugs. And there is a difference between belly hair and body hair. Belly hair tends to be a lot more coarse, and it has a lot less underfur than the body hair. Body hair is great for things like Galloup-style streamers and Muddler heads and things that you want to be a little bit softer and absorb a lot of water. The whole idea behind a bass bug is to keep them kind of floating and you want that coarseness and a little bit of rigidity in the hair to hold its shape. Although, I use belly hair for Muddlers and stuff like that as well. I just pack it a little bit less tight. That way it will absorb water. So belly hair, GSP thread, a packing tool, a good vise, and you really want good strong hooks. There is nothing worse than getting halfway through a bass bug, going to pack the hair, and having your hook bend in half on you. So I use, at my personal preference, I like the Ahrex hooks. I tie a lot on the TP610s. but there's a lot of great hooks out there that that you can certainly that you can certainly use but I go for a heavier wire hook whenever I'm tying any kind of any kind of deer hair fly and then the basic stuff you know I use thread cement you know head cement I use that in between my stacks of hair just as a little bit more durability now bad tying technique glue will not make up for bad tying technique but it will certainly aid if you have good techniques a little bit of glue mixed in will just add durability of your bug and razor blades you need razor blades to trim that hair if you want that nice smooth finished look of of a you know a popper diver or a slider or any of those types of flies then you need to learn how to trim with a razor blade. And then the other thing that I really like, I developed some scissors that both blades are serrated. I find that cutting hair off the hide with blades that are not serrated, the hair tends to slide down the scissor blade as opposed to catching and cutting. So I've got these scissors that I have made that both blades are serrated. It makes a world of difference in cutting the hair.

Marvin Cash (41:10-41:15): Yeah. And speaking of those, I think you've got a special on them right now, don't you?

Pat Cohen (41:15-41:29): Yeah. Yeah, actually I do. I just got a bunch of them. It took a long time to get them. This COVID is making havoc with manufacturing and shipping.

Marvin Cash (41:30-41:57): Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I just wanted to touch on kind of two things from that list, and that was super generous of you to kind of share all that because there's a ton of information And there, you know, it's interesting because I think I mentioned to you before we started recording, I just bought your junior packer. And I mean, it's a it's it's a weapon. Right. And so, I mean, you know, compared to those, you know, look like they're kind of cut out of sheet metal and folded packers. I think, you know, you buy one and you're probably good for the rest of your life.

Pat Cohen (41:59-43:31): Yeah, it's a one time the one time tool purchase for sure. I mean, when I made them, I started playing around with the idea of a more rugged Packer in 2010. And then 2011, I actually had a finished prototype that I was like, yeah, this is the thing we need. And I still, to this day, am using my original finished prototype. It's the first Packer that ever came out to look like this. Now, there's been some changes since then as far as, you know, they're made. I mean, they're made in the U.S. too, actually. They're made right in Colorado. But they're powder coated now. And then the spring steel changed a little bit. You know, things like that, little minor things that just make manufacturing better and cleaner. Originally, what a story on those packers. I mean, we can get into that another day. But basically, when they first started, they were being made by a buddy of mine in his garage at night. like 25 of them a week with a hand press hydraulic you know a hydraulic press that was hand pumped and to bend all the metal and then they were coated with with an automotive enamel clear coated and there was a million steps now they're made by a big machine shop and they're powder coated but it took a very long time and a lot of groundwork at that point yeah yeah yeah.

Marvin Cash (43:31-43:46): Yeah, very neat. And, you know, I also wanted to ask you, too, because you were talking about you prefer GSP. And, you know, I know some people, you know, there's that Kevlar versus GSP kind of question. And what made you go in the GSP direction as opposed to using Kevlar thread?

Pat Cohen (43:47-47:06): So what I like about GSP is it's very thin for its strength. So you can work it easily through the hair. It's also very slick, which makes working with the hair really kind of nice. I mean, there's things like with any material, there's things that you need to be aware of. Like GSP is actually made of individual strands. So when you hear 200 denier GSP, that's actually 200 little strands of fiber that are woven together to make one piece of thread. So if you don't have constant tension on your thread, you end up with little thread fibers all over the place that will catch your hair and fold your hair and make a mess. But if you keep tension on that and you work it kind of like you would work almost like dental floss through your teeth. You know, you can't just grab a piece of dental floss and jam it straight down between your gums without, you know, bleeding and making a mess. So you kind of wiggle it back and forth a little bit. You do the same thing with GSP. if you keep the tension on that thread and you move it back and forth sideways just a little bit, you slide right between all those hairs, and you don't catch any of them. If you have no tension on that thread and you let it kind of come apart, you end up with a mess. What I found with Kevlar is Kevlar is a little bit thicker, and it has a tendency to cut through the hair a little bit more easily than GSP does. You're putting an enormous amount of pressure on hair. The whole idea when you compress the deer hair is that you want that thread to get down to the hook as close as possible. The more tension on the thread, number one, the tighter your bass bug is going to be in the end, but the more durable that bug is going to be because you've got an enormous amount of pressure on that hair so that there's no way that hair can actually pull out. But it also, the tighter you pull, the more that hair will stand up at a 90 degree angle to the hook shank. So you need thread that you can really put tension on and not cut through all that hair. And I'm not saying that you're not going to cut through. I mean, you will eventually cut through some deer hair with GSP. It's bound to happen. I mean, not all hair is the same. And, you know, it goes through a process where it's bleached and dyed. And if it's over bleached, the hair will dry out and become a little bit more brittle. And you'll find out real quick how much tension you can put because you'll be in the middle of a bug, go to pull down and you cut through your hair and you end up with this poof of hair all over the place and in your lap. And it's going to happen. I mean, I do it all the time. Yeah. But GSP is really easy to work with over Kevlar. And what's nice about it is it's flat so when you're building a thread base you can build a flat thread base and then if you want to build a head like a thread head with GSP you can actually spin the thread and now now you've got a round thread and then you can build up a thread head that way also so it gives you some options.

Marvin Cash (47:06-47:19): Yeah very neat and I know and I know too that you prefer to stack hair as opposed to spinning it. And I was just kind of curious kind of how you came to that way of doing things.

Pat Cohen (47:21-49:48): Stacking hair gives you 100% control over every single piece of hair that is in your bug. Spinning, spinning is a little bit by chance. You're taking one giant clump of hair and you're making three or four wraps of thread around that and you're pulling down and you are winding your thread around that hook. And the theory is that when you spin a clump of hair, that hair will evenly disperse all the way around 360 degrees, all the way around your hook shank. Now, very, very, very, very seldom do you get an even spreading of hair by doing that. And the other thing is you only get, you've got the same color of hair all the way through the bug that way. So it's, you're working in the round all the time. Now stacking hair, you're working, well, you can work many different ways actually stacking hair, but let's, let's the most basic and it's, in its most raw form, you're working from the bottom of the hook shank to the top of the hook shank. And the theory is if you use, let's say three pencil thicknesses, you're always going to hear about deer hair tiers. all they're all going to talk about pencil thicknesses of hair very rarely for the record is is it ever a pencil thickness they just that's what we use like you know to talk about it but it's if you really look at the clumps of hair we're using it's most of the time it's much bigger than that but anyway so three pencil thicknesses on the bottom you're going to want the same amount or a little bit more on top. But if you spin that, you've got that three pencil thicknesses in theory spread all the way out. But then when you pack that back, you're going to see there's more density on one side. Maybe there's a clump over here, a clump over there. When you're stacking that, literally, that three pencil thicknesses, that first clump, all of that will be on the bottom of the shank. and then from there you build up your color patterns your bars your spots your dots whatever it is that you want the top of that that bug to look like and now you've got symmetrical hair top and bottom because you've controlled every bit of hair that goes on that hook shank. That make sense?

Marvin Cash (49:49-50:00): Yeah it makes a lot of sense and I guess you could in theory stack only if you want to kind of monochrome and you wanted to kind of roll the dice on like a Muddler head or something like that right?

Pat Cohen (49:59-50:43): Even Muddler heads I I stack Muddler heads too if I want one color Muddler head that's fine but I'll still stack it because then I know exactly how much hair is on the bottom and the top got it it's all about controlling your materials any any fly you tie is all about having control of the material that you're choosing to use at the time and stacking for me in in my opinion and I mean you talk to other fly tiers they may tell you something different and that's okay but in my opinion it's the easiest way to control your hair is stacking yeah it got it and it's it's interesting you know you we touched briefly.

Marvin Cash (50:43-51:18): On kind of the COVID supply chain problems you were having with getting your scissors and I suspect that your book release that came out in May was probably, delayed a little bit by COVID as well. And, you know, for folks that, yeah, I mean, and, and so, you know, for folks that don't know, and I, you know, we talked about this a little bit when we were together in Edison, earlier in the year before everything kind of fell apart, you know, and around, I guess, Memorial day, you released, your first book, Super Bass Flies, how to tie and fish the most effective imitations. And I was just kind of curious, what made you want to write a book?

Pat Cohen (51:21-54:56): You know I don't know so I had had the idea a while ago about just kind of sharing my experience and and you know experiences of other bass anglers in in one collective from going from top of the water to the bottom of the water and just saying, hey, look, this is all the stuff that we use. This is what we're imitating. And this is why we're imitating. This is how we're imitating. And these are the things that you may run into when you're on the water as far as food source. When I was looking around at other fly tying books, there was nothing that I found in the bass world that was really completely comprehensive as far as covering all the general foods that, you know, bass pretty much across the country in one form or the other, we'll see. Whether it be, you know, adult dragonflies or hex nymphs or whatever. I mean, these are all things that I would say the general bass fly angler may overlook. And they're things to me that were very important. And, you know, being in the warm water world, I've got a lot of fly tying and fly fishing friends that are also, you know, of the same mindset. And they all chase the same fish and tie flies for the same thing. So I got chatting with a bunch of different fly tiers and I said, hey, what do you think about this? And, you know, everybody was pretty stoked on it. And, you know, they all kind of agreed that there wasn't a lot out there as far as one comprehensive resource for a fly angler that was looking to expand their knowledge or whatever. Again, it goes back to that kind of obsessive nature that I had. When I first developed my love of chasing smallmouth with a fly rod, I became completely obsessed with that fish. And I learned, I read everything that I could get my hands on as far as biology. And, you know, I wanted to know everything about their behavior. I wanted to understand them. I wanted to think like them. I wanted to know, hey, I can go to any stream anywhere and I can find a bass. And that's kind of what I focused in on. And when I decided to try to write a book about that, I wanted to include all these other phenomenal anglers and tiers that I've met along the way. And I mean, of course, I can't include everybody in one book, but there's a lot of fly tiers in my book. There's, you know, a hundred and something patterns in there from tiers all over the world. I mean, bass are not only in the United States, bass are worldwide. So there's all these tiers from everywhere that kind of contributed. It was just an awesome experience, really. I mean, it was a lot of work, but it was pretty cool to do. I wouldn't do another one.

Marvin Cash (54:56-55:02): Yeah. No, I could tell literally when you reacted to my question that you weren't going to write another book.

Pat Cohen (55:03-55:18): Yeah, I mean, it took me two years to put it all together. And I mean, I'm so happy that I saw it through. And believe me, there were many mornings when I was sitting there ready to write that I was like, why am I doing this again?

Marvin Cash (55:18-55:18): Yeah.

Pat Cohen (55:19-55:38): But I really think that it was, I don't know that it was something that necessarily needed to happen or anything like that. But it was just, I don't know, I guess it was just something I felt that I could maybe contribute. positively to the bass fishing world. And so I did it.

Marvin Cash (55:38-55:47): Yeah, absolutely. You know, so it's a two-year journey. You know, what's the, I guess, what's the greatest thing you kind of learned about yourself in that two years writing the book?

Pat Cohen (55:51-57:22): Boy, you know, I don't, I don't know. I guess, you know, it's like anything when you put your mind to finishing something, you've got to. It's easy to be self-defeating, right? Easy to sit there and be like, well, I don't want to do this. This is stupid or whatever. Or this is too much work. But I guess, you know, really, you set a goal, you make a commitment and you follow it through. And that just kind of goes through my entire life. I set a goal, make the commitment, and I watch it happen, or I make it happen. I don't watch anything happen. Nothing just happens. You go out and do it. And this was just one more thing like that. You know, it's a knock on your belt. It's an accomplishment of a lifetime. I never in my life thought I would write a book. It was never something that was on my radar in any way, shape, or form. Actually, I was, long story short, like I said, I had thought about it and then didn't really do much with the idea. And somebody that I had written, I wrote an article. I've written a few articles. One of the publishers actually had reached out to me and said, hey, what do you think about doing a book? And then that got the gears really turning even more. That's how I ended up. A couple weeks later, they sent me a contract. I was like, oh, this is real now.

Marvin Cash (57:22-57:23): Yeah, there you go.

Pat Cohen (57:26-57:45): So, you know, I don't know that I learned necessarily anything specifically about myself. But, I mean, if you see something through, that's huge. And if I can do it, anybody can do it. Just set that goal and get up.

Marvin Cash (57:46-57:48): Yeah. find a way or make a way is what I always tell my boys.

Pat Cohen (57:50-57:52): Yeah. Yeah. You just got to stick to it.

Marvin Cash (57:54-58:16): You know, and you know, our paths have crossed many times over the years at fly fishing shows. And I know from talking to you that you really kind of like to get out in the field and teach people, everything that you've learned. And I was just kind of curious, kind of what your plans are for the upcoming show and teaching season. So maybe people can, can meet you in person, get a book autographed and kind of, learn in person from the master?

Pat Cohen (58:16-59:14): You know, I got to be honest, this coming season, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing. Normally, year to year, I've got a very set plan. I've got events. I've got classes that I teach. I've got shows that I attend. But our world is kind of in turmoil at the moment. And I am in close quarters with people one-on-one on a regular basis. And I've got people around me that are susceptible to illnesses that I don't know that I want to be around large groups of people this year to take any chances with the COVID situation, honestly. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing this year. If things clear up, I would love to back to doing shows this year if things don't clear up this may be the year that I sit out show season.

Marvin Cash (59:15-59:18): Yeah you could write another book.

Pat Cohen (59:21-01:01:31): I could but I won't yeah yeah so I mean you never know I I may one day I don't know I have a love for pike too and carp and stuff like that but I don't know that I I don't know that I'm passionate enough about them to sit down and make that kind of a commitment like I am truly passionate about bass I love bass fishing yeah passionate enough to the point that you know when I was writing it I sat down and I made my outline and the the hardest thing about writing a book and I'll I'll tell you it's it's it's going back through your memories and and thinking about when you get to the water and all the things that you do on the water that you just go and do naturally so whether it's observing what's going on around you whether it's systematically approaching the water systematically approaching the piece of structure checking the barometric pressure checking you know flows there's there's all these things that they almost become ritual you don't think about them you just do them and you go on about your day and then you go fish and catch fish or you don't because sometimes they win and that's okay too but you know when when I sat down to do this I had to actually break all those moments down into something that I could talk about and write about and explain to other people like this is my process so I've got a very specific process when I go bass fish when I go chase these other species and I I mean I chase all sorts of fish all over the place but I don't know that I have enough to say about that stuff to write you know I mean, that bass book is 400 pages, you know, I mean, I think there's an enormous amount of information that I didn't even know that I knew. Well, I don't know.

Marvin Cash (01:01:31-01:01:33): Yeah. Maybe you just need to fish more.

Pat Cohen (01:01:35-01:01:36): It feels like it lately.

Marvin Cash (01:01:37-01:01:53): Yeah. So, you know, you may not be out for completely understandable reasons. People may not be able to see you kind of this winter, early spring, but I know you have a YouTube channel, which I'll drop a link to in the show notes. but you also have some instructional DVDs that you sell on your website, right?

Pat Cohen (01:01:54-01:02:19): Yeah, yeah. I've got the Stack Deer Hair Divers on there that teaches how to make, you know, my kind of style of Dahlberg diver, how to stack. It teaches you all the techniques of how to work with the hair. And then, of course, the book is available on my website. That goes into tons and tons and tons and tons of stuff. But the two of them in conjunction, you could basically make any bass fly that you want to make.

Marvin Cash (01:02:19-01:02:24): Yeah. Plus you can also, I remember checking your site, you can get them bundled with packers and all kinds of good stuff too.

Pat Cohen (01:02:25-01:02:45): Yeah. Yeah. I try to discount things where I can and help people out. I mean, you know, it's a fly fishing is expensive. So fly tying is expensive. So I try to make things reasonable for folks, you know, still make a couple of pennies to pay my rent with or my mortgage or whatever with, you know.

Marvin Cash (01:02:45-01:02:51): Yeah, there you go. Well, listen, is there anything else on the horizon for Superfly that you want to share with our listeners?

Pat Cohen (01:02:53-01:04:05): You know, so right now I'm actually taking a little break from the production side of tying. I tied full-time commercially for nine years and change now. So I'm going to be doing some small runs of some pretty customized flies, some really more elaborate, more detail-oriented stuff. And I'm hoping down the road in the near future I get some more graphic-oriented things together, some images, maybe some shirts, that kind of thing, or some stickers that you can actually put on, you know, put on fly boxes. And I'm going to be doing a lot more of the fly box art and that kind of thing. So more in that direction in the future, more of the art creative side of things. I'm not made to sit at a vise all day long and grind out the same things over and over and over again. I've done it. It was great. I enjoyed it. but now it's back to the roots of creativity and art.

Marvin Cash (01:04:06-01:04:16): Yeah, very cool. And so why don't you let folks know the best place to buy your book, your DVDs, and all of your other stuff, and how to generally follow the adventures of Pat Cohen?

Pat Cohen (01:04:18-01:05:09): You can go right on my website, which is the letters RUSuperfly.com. I'm also on Instagram, and I am on Facebook. I've got a personal page on Facebook. I also have a Pat Cohen business page that you can check out. And I've got that YouTube channel. Unfortunately, I'm terrible at video, at making videos. So I have not updated any new videos in quite some time. But I'm hoping that at some point I will have some time and maybe somebody can teach me to edit a little bit better and I can get some new stuff up on that. But don't hold me to the YouTube. But definitely the other stuff you can check out. And that's where I'll post when I've got new flies and that kind of thing up for sale. Yeah, that's about it.

Marvin Cash (01:05:10-01:05:15): Yeah, I'll drop all those in the show notes. And Pat, I appreciate you carving a little bit of time out today to chat with me.

Pat Cohen (01:05:17-01:05:19): Yeah, Marvin, thanks for having me, man. This was awesome.

Marvin Cash (01:05:19-01:05:21): Yeah, no, I had a lot of fun. Thanks so much.

Pat Cohen (01:05:22-01:05:24): All right. Take care now, guys. Thank you.

Marvin Cash (01:05:25-01:06:22): Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Again, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a review in the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out. And again, a shout out to this episode's sponsor, our friends at Bonefish and Tarpon Trust. Please visit btt.org today and learn more about their upcoming virtual auction and awards ceremony and other ways you can support this great organization. Tight lines, everybody.