S4, Ep 46: An Evening with Skip Morris

**Marvin Cash (00:00:04):**
Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm joined by fly fishing author, speaker, and fly tyer, Skip Morris. Just a few days ago, Stackpole Books released the 30th anniversary edition of Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple. It's a classic and the first tying book I ever purchased. Skip and I take a deep dive into his fishing and writing journey and the story behind Clear and Simple. I think you're really going to enjoy this one.

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 a shout out to this episode's sponsor. This episode is sponsored by our friends at Nor-vise. Their motto is "tie better flies faster," and they produce the only vise that truly spins. To see for yourself, if you're in the Boston area on April 22nd, 23rd, or 24th, stop by the Nor-vise booth at the Fly Fishing Show in Marlborough. It's their last show of the season, and all the event details are on the events page at www.nor-vise.com.

Now, on to the interview. Well, Skip, welcome to The Articulate Fly. Thank you. I'm really looking forward to our conversation tonight, and we have a tradition on The Articulate Fly. We always ask our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

**Skip Morris (00:01:29):**
Oh, boy. Well, I'll tell you this. My father was as fanatical about boats as I became pretty young about fishing. So I ended up around the water a lot. Plus, I grew up on a place that became very swanky after we moved there — Mercer Island in Washington State. When I got old enough to walk a couple of miles, I could walk to the water and fish. So it goes way back.

The earliest I remember actually catching a fish — actually remember catching one — was, I believe, at Knott's Berry Farm. I was about five or six or somewhere around there. There were, I think, bluegills in a pond or a tub or something. You could pay a dollar and catch a bluegill. And I caught one, and I just went crazy. I said, oh my God, can we just stay here all day? Mom said, but there's lots of things to see. All right, I'll go.

But I remember even then having just that fever, and I think I caught it literally on a cane pole with a worm or a fish egg or a piece of ham or something, whatever they stuck on there with a bobber. I just went nuts and I thought that was amazing.

**Marvin Cash (00:02:45):**
Yeah, that's pretty similar to some of my early fishing experiences too, Skip. When did you come to the dark side of fly fishing?

**Skip Morris (00:02:54):**
Well, I've used that term, the dark side, a lot in fly fishing. Usually I'm talking about nymphs and full-sinking lines and things that creep people out. But you mean just fly fishing in general, I assume?

You know, I really — and of course you've got to remember, I'm older than most of your listeners, I suspect. I bet you I'm 70, and I'll be 71 pretty soon. So I go way back. But when I was quite young, I started seeing shows like The American Sportsman and this really quirky one called Gadabout Gaddis, The Flying Fisherman. And I just — I already loved fishing — and then I saw that stuff and I saw fly fishing and I went, ooh, amazing.

So eventually, once I matured, I started tying flies. That would have been about age 10 or 11. And then it took me a couple of years to get up the gumption to actually put a fly — one of the flies I tied — in front of a fish. I don't know what freaked me out about it, but I finally did on one of my little creeks. I must have been 12 or 13 by then, and that was it.

I didn't just immediately give up other kinds of fishing, because back then — when would that have been? Early 60s, I guess — back then, fishermen were fishermen, to a large degree. I mean, my favorite fly fishing literary writer in the world, Roderick Haig-Brown, fished sometimes with all kinds of stuff, including a casting rod. And so it was kind of expected that you didn't just limit yourself to one thing, for the most part. Most fishermen looked at it that way.

So I didn't for a long time, but I did mostly fly fish. And then sometime in my early 20s, I just pretty much decided I didn't really want to fish other ways. I didn't have any resentment against them. I don't have anything against them now, but I just didn't want to —

**Marvin Cash (00:04:53):**
— that's the only way I wanted to catch a fish. Yeah. It's funny you say that. For me, I was just afraid I was going to mess up my casting. So I put all my spinning rods away.

**Skip Morris (00:05:04):**
Oh really? Yeah. It is a completely different concept. That's — I mean, that's the first thing when I teach. When I write about casting, I've written a book for beginners on fly fishing, for example. So one of the first things I explain is that if you already spin fish, you are casting the weight of the lure, and it's towing out the line behind it, streaming that line behind it. But when you fly cast, you cast the weight of the line, and it carries the lure or fly out behind it. Completely different mechanics.

**Marvin Cash (00:05:34):**
Yeah, absolutely. And so, there's been a little bit of water under the bridge since then. Who are some of the folks that have mentored you on your fly fishing journey?

**Skip Morris (00:05:45):**
Well, I can tell you who my heroes were — that's pretty easy. Roderick Haig-Brown in many ways, but especially as a literary voice. And that would be easy. Let's see. Joe Brooks, for sure. I've got one of his books, but I just kind of followed him and read his articles in the magazines like Field and Stream.

And who else? There was a guy around Seattle I kept taking his book out of the library — Enos Bradner. He fished other ways than fly fishing, but he was mostly about fly fishing. And I liked it because it was local. It was about the area I was living in, western Washington and Washington in general. I think he talked about British Columbia too. And then I back then read just about everything I'd get my hands on.

Once I got going — once I went crazy, about age 11 probably, maybe 12 or 13 — I just started taking every book out of our library at Mercer Island that was about fly fishing. We must have had — the guy who ran the, who selected the books — I suspect he was a fly fisher, because there was a pretty good-sized section. And then when I got old enough to drive, I started driving into the Seattle library, which is just a city library that was even then enormous. They had tons of books. They even had some old — I mean, I think probably books from the 1800s by Frederic Halford. I was able to take those home, which is amazing. The actual books, not reproductions. And they had those old color plates where somebody actually sat there on each book and painted them in. The outline was printed, and then they painted them in.

I got to take those home for a while. And the next day I went in there, they said, no, you can only look at them here, and you have to sign in. And then I did that a couple of times, and they said, no, you can't get anywhere near them. Maybe because I was still a kid, I don't know. But I got to take those home.

So I was reading everything I'd get my hands on. I was reading Halford, I was reading La Branche and Hewitt, and — oh, back then it was — I'm trying to think — Charles Fox and that whole gang. Let's see.

**Marvin Cash (00:07:59):**
Yeah, Vince Marinaro probably.

**Skip Morris (00:08:02):**
I was just about to say — In the Ring of the Rise — yeah, I had A Modern Dry Fly Code, Vince Marinaro, and others I can't even think of. So actually, once you open that can of worms, I mean, I read everything I can get my mitts on.

**Marvin Cash (00:08:13):**
Yeah, that's fantastic. And it's kind of interesting, too, that you started tying flies before you really started fly fishing. Most people kind of do it the other way around. What attracted you to fly tying before you were actually fishing?

**Skip Morris (00:08:27):**
Well, I just thought that once I discovered it — again, at quite a young age — I just thought it was kind of amazing, and I wanted to try it. So it was my birthday or Christmas, I wanted one of these little fly tying kits that you saw in the sporting goods stores, and they got me one. And I just went crazy.

I've got to say, though — oh, my God. I don't know how I tied anything. Those vises were stamped out of what my dad used to call pot metal. It's this real soft stuff. No pot I ever saw is made out of that metal — it's soft. They were literally stamped out, and each time you'd tighten it down on the hook, it would shave off a little sliver of the metal. So every single time you tied a fly, it would get looser. There was no way to tighten it, and the thing was just godawful. I'd have been a lot better off with a bench vise.

But that's how I learned to tie. They had some really horrible materials and some kind of hooks that I don't know where they got built. But I tied a bunch of flies, and then I started going to the one fly shop in Washington. Actually, I would start ordering stuff — not online. What am I saying? I started ordering stuff through the mail, because back then we had the Herter's catalog. That went away a long time ago, but they had all kinds of stuff in there for fly tyers. Very neat.

**Marvin Cash (00:09:44):**
Do you remember the first pattern you tied on your vise?

**Skip Morris (00:09:49):**
No. I really don't.

**Marvin Cash (00:09:53):**
Fair enough. What do you tie on today?

**Skip Morris (00:09:57):**
I have an HMH that I tie on mostly. It's been a great little vise. I've actually got a couple of them. I'm kind of on the pro staff loosely. I always say those things because I don't want people thinking I'm trying to hide that fact. But it's been a great little vise for me — easy to travel with — and I use it at the shows and things and here when I tie at home.

**Marvin Cash (00:10:17):**
Very neat. Yeah, it's funny. You kind of end up collecting them, you know what I mean?

**Skip Morris (00:10:21):**
I've got about — yeah, I've probably got eight or ten.

**Marvin Cash (00:10:25):**
Very neat. And so, when did you get the writing bug?

**Skip Morris (00:10:30):**
You know, I've had that all along, but it never — the virus was there, but it never — "virus" would be a bad word to pick at this time. Let's just say there was a latent thing, for the most part, going on.

From the time I was a little kid, I loved to read really good fiction. I mean, the great stuff — Hemingway, Faulkner. I didn't read it a lot, but I loved reading it, and I did read it. And I went for an English degree at a university, and I got it. But I didn't really work hard at writing.

I've worked at writing ever since my first article came back — it came out back in about 1984 in a magazine. That's when I kind of got half serious about writing. But honestly, it's such a monster. Writing is like any of the arts. It's like music or painting. It's like fly fishing — you're never going to explore it all or even come close to mastering it all. So you just do the best you can.

But I tried hard to write well, and write better than well, for — I don't know how many years. Let's see, my first book came out in 89. I was working at my writing then. And then about eight years ago, I quit music. I'd been a professional musician that whole time. I just put the guitars away and decided I was going to devote all that time to writing and more. Just see, how can I push my writing up one notch after another? What is it that Hemingway did that I'm not doing? And it's been an amazing journey. So I guess I got semi-serious about writing way back in 89. But I got dead serious about it about eight years ago.

**Marvin Cash (00:12:19):**
Got it. And I know you've mentioned Hemingway. Who are some other writers and authors that you like to follow?

**Skip Morris (00:12:25):**
My favorites — and in fact, this gives me a great opportunity to mention that this Saturday I'm going to teach another writing Zoom, online Zoom writing class. I've been doing that, called Becoming a Fly Fishing Writer. And in that, I do mention — quite often I use quotes from my favorite writers — so it's easy to think of who they are.

But I love a southern writer, a Louisiana writer named Tim Gautreaux. Love it. Writer of fiction. Roderick Haig-Brown I've already mentioned. Let's see. Ha Jin, who is a Chinese-American writer who's kind of amazing. After that, it's just kind of a mishmash. I mean, there's one writer who hasn't written a whole lot, but I love his essays, and his name is Gordon Grice. There are some other great essay writers — some of them are fiction writers as well. Joyce Carol Oates has written some wonderful stuff. Honestly, there are just so many amazing writers out there that I'll never come close to reading all the stuff that I could read and would thoroughly enjoy and could learn from.

**Marvin Cash (00:13:38):**
No, it's kind of funny. I probably buy six books for every book I get through, right?

**Skip Morris (00:13:43):**
That happens. I hope they're my books.

**Marvin Cash (00:13:46):**
Yeah. Well, actually I've got several of yours. I double-checked when I was doing research. But it's also funny, too, because I love used bookstores, just like I love old record and DVD places. And so I'm always kind of scrounging around for neat stuff there. And even though you say you've only really drilled in in the last seven or eight years, you've written — I don't know — 25 books, give or take?

**Skip Morris (00:14:14):**
Yeah, I think it's 19 or 20 with real publishers and several more that I've self-published. So, yeah.

**Marvin Cash (00:14:22):**
Yeah, so quite a few. And I was kind of curious — because I love talking to authors — did you have any editor or publisher that kind of jumps out as particularly impactful in your development as a writer?

**Skip Morris (00:14:37):**
Well, for so many years I wrote for Frank Amato Publications. And my first book was with Nick Lyons, which has sort of become Skyhorse Publishing. That was clear back in 89. And then after that, I did a whole long string of books for Frank Amato Publications. That's where I really developed and got whatever name I've developed — that's how I developed it. And now they've kind of backed off of doing books, and about that time I'd always talked with Stackpole Books, so I've been publishing with Stackpole Books.

So really my formative years as a — I'm trying to think of the word for it — let's call it a how-to, how-to writer of fly fishing stuff would be with Amato, I would have to say.

**Marvin Cash (00:15:24):**
Got it. And so was kind of Frank the editor, or were there other people at Amato that worked with you on your books?

**Skip Morris (00:15:31):**
Oh, it varied. I worked with different people who did the copy editing and worked with them. And that's kind of always the way it is. Sometimes you don't even know who it is. But Amato was such a small, family-run company, a small publisher, that you knew everything. So I always knew who was editing, and it would usually be a fairly personal thing. We would talk on the phone and all that, instead of being — some of the big publishers, they keep you sort of distant, and they don't let you know who is on the other end. You only communicate through drafts of the manuscript.

**Marvin Cash (00:16:18):**
Yeah, interesting. Because I can remember, I've been a longtime subscriber to Fly Tying and Fly Fishing Journal. And I can remember back in the old days, I guess, there would be the catalog for the books. And I can even remember — I think when I first got my subscription, if you got a multi-year subscription, you got to pick like two or three. So I know that was — I think that really, really big fly tying encyclopedia that they published. It was huge. Like a benchside reference. Yeah, it was like a coffee table-size book. I think I literally got that for subscribing.

**Skip Morris (00:16:52):**
Oh, wow. Yeah. That's a hundred-dollar book.

**Marvin Cash (00:16:54):**
Yeah. Good stuff. But it's really interesting. And I'm always curious, too. I always like to ask creative people, in terms of writing — do you like to write a little bit every day, or do you kind of write in spurts around assignments? How do you like to do it?

**Skip Morris (00:17:13):**
I've always been — this would shock my teachers all the way through high school, because I was a poor student and a terrible studier, which is why I was a poor student. They would just be shocked to hear this. But I'm actually really quite organized as a writer and a producer of things, of projects.

I get up in the morning, and I have a whole process that I follow at least five days a week, typically — sometimes six — where I get up, wake up by looking at the Internet for a limited period of time, maybe 10 or 15 minutes, and then look up email, that kind of thing. Then I write, and sometimes I go an hour and a half, two hours — I just have no idea how long it is. And then I fix breakfast, I get breakfast going, and then I go back and write until breakfast is ready. Then I eat breakfast, and then I go back to writing for another maybe hour or so.

Somewhere around three, three and a half hours — maybe four at the most — I can really write. Because there are just so many of these connections going on in writing. How this word plays off of this word three sentences later, both in the sound of the word and in the meaning of the word. Do I want to use a different word, or do I want to repeat the word for an effect? I mean, there's just so much going on in a piece of writing. And I'm trying to do my best. Three hours after that, I just stare at the words and I can't write anything worth a darn.

I can still write some things. I can rough things out. I can get ideas. I can work on other things. I can tie some flies. I can do some business. But for me, three to four hours is about the max to really, truly polish and write.

**Marvin Cash (00:19:09):**
Right. And so at the end of that three or four hours, just to give folks an idea — and I know it changes a lot — how many words does that kind of translate into that are workmanlike, for lack of a better word?

**Skip Morris (00:19:23):**
Well, that's a really good question, and it's also a very difficult one for me to answer. I think everybody who writes or creates any kind of art has their own character, their own way of doing it that works for them.

But what I can tell you is that for me, there are days that I'll spend an hour and a half on something — on an essay, let's say — and I will end up with fewer words than I started with, because I don't like this and I don't like that. And I pull this and I pull that. I rewrite them and rewrite them and then take them out.

And the thing is, the first day I start a new essay — I started one this morning, as a matter of fact — I'll start working through it and I'll put down some words. But they're not the final words. So how do you count those exactly? And then later in the process, sometimes I really get stuck. There's a tangle, and I've got to deal with it, and I just keep working on it. Maybe I eventually do the best I can and then put a note there, and the next day when I go back to that piece, I start over in the same spot.

So it's really hard to say how many words a day. Now, I did have an assignment about two years ago — it came out — that I wrote, and did the book with Carol, my wife, who's a photographer and illustrator. And it was a big project. It's a thick little book. It's called 365 Fly Fishing Tips for Trout, Bass, and Panfish. And I had to figure out how to be plenty early on the book, because you don't want to write a book and end up finishing the day you turn it in. Otherwise something's going to go wrong. You're going to get the flu, or the book isn't going to go as smoothly as it was supposed to go, or something's going to happen. So you've got to have it done months early, really.

And so I figured that out, did the math, and I needed to get this many polished words out a day. And it's not the same kind of polish, because I wasn't writing essays. I was writing exposition — is that the right word? Now I can't think for some reason, but I think it's exposition writing. That one doesn't sound right. Anyway, how-to writing, okay? Clarity is critical. You want everything to be rock solid grammatically. Those are the main things. Expository writing — that's the word I was trying to find.

And so I could do that and get out 500 words a day. And I did that consistently through that period of time, five or six days a week, and I made it well before deadline. But on the other hand, that's not — it wasn't literary writing. The pressure wasn't to be creative. It was to be clear and to be solid grammatically.

**Marvin Cash (00:22:08):**
Got it. And do you prefer to do literary writing or do you prefer to do educational writing?

**Skip Morris (00:22:15):**
Well, the emphasis for the last eight years has been on literary writing for me. So that's what I do first in the morning, because it's the most demanding. So I do that first. But, I've written so many how-to books, as you know, and I actually really enjoy it. When I write a how-to — like that tips book, for example — man, I was collecting tips all over the place. So it was exciting, because I was writing down these tips and then throwing them out. Well, that's a tip. It's valid, but it's not that good — until I had almost 400 tips that were really good tips. And that's an exciting process to me, is chasing that stuff down.

And so when I do a book about something, I do so much research and exploring and testing. And I test it all — tips to death — to make sure to figure them out, how to express them best, how they work, the mechanics of them and all that. When they work, when they don't work, all the nuances. So I enjoy both. I guess that's the simple answer — I still enjoy the expository writing and I enjoy the literary writing, although my emphasis is a little more these days on the literary writing. But when I do the expository writing, I give it everything I've got.

**Marvin Cash (00:23:36):**
Absolutely. And you know, as we mentioned, you've got 25 books, give or take, over your career, which is over 30 years. I was always kind of curious too, when I talk to authors and artists, what have you learned about yourself on that journey?

**Skip Morris (00:24:00):**
You know, that's a good question. I'm trying to think of a good answer. I mean, you're going to change in 30-plus years.

**Marvin Cash (00:24:12):**
Absolutely.

**Skip Morris (00:24:13):**
Because my first article came out in 84. So I don't know what that comes out to. That's going on 40 years. But I learned discipline. Definitely learned that, because you work with the magazines — actually, you work with the magazines or the publishers, either one.

And Frank Amato Publications was real flexible with the books. You could — a book, he wanted you to do it right. So you would set a deadline, but you would both agree that you had some time on that. If you were over, just let him know, because he didn't set anything in stone. He kept flexible. The bigger publishers can't do that. They have so many things to juggle, they have to be on schedule. So you agree on a deadline, and then you darn well have to meet that deadline. It's just live or die. It's your reputation on the line. And it's only fair, because so many people are depending on you.

And it's the same thing in the magazine business. The magazine business is always like that. And if you say I'm going to hand it in on May 1st, you hand it in a week before May 1st, and it's done, and it's ready to go, and you don't make excuses. And I think I've done an estimate on that — I think I published probably 350 magazine articles, and I think I messed up maybe twice. And I just apologized up and down, swore I'd never do it again, never did it again. It was some misunderstanding. It was some dumb thing. It was my fault, and I wasn't going to fool around and pretend it wasn't. But out of 350, I think that's pretty good. That's way under 1%.

But yeah, I had to learn discipline. And I had already kind of learned discipline anyway, and that certainly was a change.

And also, there was another thing too. I learned to promote myself, and Lefty Kreh kind of helped me with that very early on. And it was a real blessing for me. He basically — we just talked about all the things I could do to promote myself. And he said, if you don't do them, your name's not really going to get out there much, and then it's going to be really tough to make a living in this business. So there were a bunch of things on the list, and some scared the heck out of me. But I just gave myself some time, and I came around to it, and I decided, okay, I'm making a commitment here. And I did everything on the list. And the funny thing is that some of the things that were on the list that kind of scared me, I ended up liking the most. So I'd say all that adds up to a

**Marvin Cash (00:26:45):**
pretty significant discovery. Yeah, absolutely. And you have the benefit of having a long career in the industry. What are your thoughts on kind of how the writing business has changed over your career?

**Skip Morris (00:26:59):**
Oh, Lord. Tremendously it has changed. I tell you, back when some of my first books came out, it was about the time that what many people call in this business A River Runs Through It came out in theaters. And it just — the effect it had on people was crazy. And they were going to walk — I heard stories of walking straight from the theater to a fly shop, even though they'd never fly fished or had given it up. I mean, just the boom in fly fishing was insane.

And then, wouldn't you know, Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple comes out right after the movie, not too long after the movie. And not only did fly fishing explode, but so did fly tying. And it just — it was nuts. I mean, I was seeing my book in Costco. I was seeing my book at the airport in those little shops that carry a few books. I was seeing it in the front window of those little shops. I mean, it was nuts.

And it was a little taste, a miniature taste of what real celebrity is like, because I was getting people at the bank — my bank teller, or the guy next to me in line, or my new doctor. They all knew who I was. It was crazy. I'd go to a restaurant and the waiter would go, wait a minute, aren't you — And it was kind of funny in a way. It was partly because of luck, but it was partly because of all the stuff I did to promote myself. I was already doing that. And it was because fly fishing had just absolutely exploded. I'm sure there were a lot of people who would get recognized, too. It wasn't just me.

But fly fishing books were just hot, hot. And bookstores — I had bookstore owners tell me, I can't get enough fly fishing books in here. They just go flying out. As soon as I put them on the shelves, they're up at the front desk and somebody's buying them. But that was the 90s. And then the big change came when the Internet took off, which I would say was probably the late 90s, wouldn't you say?

**Marvin Cash (00:28:54):**
That's probably about right.

**Skip Morris (00:28:56):**
When it really got going, and you didn't have to sit there for a half hour waiting for what you put in to come up — when it really got going, then people could — expository stuff, how-to stuff really changed. Because people could go online and they could find five different ways to tie a Royal Coachman. And then YouTube came out and then they could find 12 more.

It's just life. It's the horse and buggy went through the same thing — you don't see a lot of those anymore. But fly fishing books and fly tying books, they still sell. People still buy them, that's for sure. They have to be really focused and they have to be good. You can't make a mediocre book and expect it to have pretty good sales. It's going to die. It has to be a real good book and the information has to be real good. It's just a much more competitive market, and the sales are way down from what they were. Even for the best, even for the top-selling books, they're way down from what they were back then.

**Marvin Cash (00:29:58):**
Yeah, it's interesting. That whole competition with free content seems to have really made it incredibly difficult to make a living as an outdoor writer.

**Skip Morris (00:30:11):**
Yeah.

**Marvin Cash (00:30:12):**
Yeah.

**Skip Morris (00:30:13):**
That's really true. And the magazines — I hope they stay around, some of them. But I think the literary ones like Gray's and The Drake and The Flyfish Journal, I think they'll be around. But the ones that are how-to have a challenge. And a couple of them — big ones — have gone in the last two or three years.

**Marvin Cash (00:30:34):**
Yeah, absolutely. And so, if someone wanted to become an outdoor writer today, what advice would you give them?

**Skip Morris (00:30:43):**
I guess I would say diversify, because I don't see how you can make a living just being an outdoor writer now — at least a fly fishing writer. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's my sense. I've been doing this a long time.

I mean, it depends on what you call living. If you inherited a little piece of property and you have a pup tent and you're satisfied with that — well, yeah, maybe you can do it. But it's really tough. I made a good living — what I call a good living. I certainly wasn't wealthy, but I made a good living for a significant amount of time. And now I'm lucky enough that I was going during that time, because enough people know my name that I get quite a few speaking engagements. And it's easy for me to get an article published if I want, or write another book, and to teach.

But I would say more than ever, if you want to make a decent living as a fly fishing writer, you're going to have to do a whole lot of things. You're going to have to teach, maybe guide or work in a fly shop or something, or have a whole different job in a whole different area. Maybe — I don't know — be whatever. A golf pro or a CPA or a rodeo clown or something.

**Marvin Cash (00:31:59):**
There you go. And, you know, we talked about it a little bit earlier in the interview, but Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple — it's its 30th anniversary — and middle of April, it's getting ready to be re-released by Stackpole Books. I was really kind of curious if you could tell us a little bit about how the book originally came to be.

**Skip Morris (00:32:21):**
Yeah, that was my — not my first book, but it was my first fly tying book. And I believe it was the first all-color fly tying book, which is hard to believe now because there have been so many since. But yeah, that thing just went mad. As I was telling you, that's the one that I was seeing everywhere.

And what I did for that book — I had it in my head, which I was probably right to take it that way, but I thought, I've got this contract for this book. And if it isn't a really good book, maybe I'll never get another contract. So what I want to do for a career, I need to make this book the best it can possibly be. And I just worked on that book — that was all I did. I mean, I was still a part-time musician, but just part-time. So I was doing that, but otherwise I was working on that book every day, figuring out how to make the flies in the book — the instruction — the clearest it could be, and make the flies the easiest to tie that I could make them for my readers.

And so I actually got a couple of guys — I picked up a couple of guys, both musicians. One I worked for, the other I worked with. One is a keyboard player, the other a trumpet player. They both had the last name of Davis, and they're both named in there. And neither of them — they would tell you this themselves — neither of them was a gifted fly tyer, and that's exactly what I wanted. No experience, no natural gift.

And with only words, I went through every fly with one guy, took copious notes. I would try to describe it and say, well, okay, what if I describe it this way? Does that make sense? No, I still don't understand. So I'd try saying it another way. And then, bingo, I get it. Something would click and they would go, oh, I see what I'm supposed to do. They would do it. I would take my notes. Then we'd go through the fly, they'd go home. The next guy would come over the next day or a couple of days. And we'd work together, and I would throw up my notes and test them out on him. And he'd go, no, I don't understand that. And I'd go, well, he did. And so I'd try changing them a little bit, and then he'd get it. I'd change my notes. I'd had something new in — all handwritten notes back then.

And I did that through all the flies in the book. So I figured if I could get the instructions so clear that without the photos — without seeing me do it — somebody could tie these flies with no experience, that the book would work.

And then I also had a list of things to do if you're having trouble. So after each step in the tying, for example, you dub. But maybe you have trouble dubbing. There's a little section called Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions. And there will be a numbered list that will say, okay, if that didn't work, try this, try this, try this. These are all things I tested with these guys and tested myself afterward. And so there are all these ways to back out of a problem if you run into one. I just wanted it so that people couldn't go wrong.

And so to do that book — it's only 80 pages, but it's full of color photos. It's full of those Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions sections. And it is full of photos and captions and instruction. And I guess what I would say is I did my best. I can always say I did my best. I think I'm a much better writer now than I was then, but I worked very hard then to make the writing clear and understandable. And I think that comes across. And it just was very exciting — very challenging — for me to do. And I really loved it. It was exhausting, but I did it.

And I also was careful. I thought, I'm going to hope that this book is around for a long time. I had no idea it would be around for 30 years. But I was very careful to pick fly patterns in the book that would remain — if not popular, would remain really useful, practical ones. And I believe I did that. I mean, the Griffith's Gnat is in there. It's never lost its popularity, not even a shade. I still think that one of the best flies around is the Light Cahill Parachute, and that's in there. The Gold-Ribbed Hare's Ear is in there — that's still popular as can be after 30 years. So is the Pheasant Tail Nymph. So is the Woolly Bugger.

So I was really careful to winnow down the flies. But then I also — that's a long answer to a short question, but I'm about done — I really had to think about which flies are going to be the best to demonstrate different fly tying techniques, and to work progressively from no experience and then build on your experience from each fly as you move on to the next fly. So it was quite a challenge to pick out the flies and do the whole thing, but I'm glad I did it the way I did it.

**Marvin Cash (00:37:13):**
Yeah, it's very neat too, because — to your point — there's a progression. But I mean, they're nymphs, they're classic dry flies. There are some very classic streamer patterns, which, streamers now mean almost something completely different. And then there are — I don't know — probably four to six plates of flies in the back for people to kind of grow into when they're done with the book.

**Skip Morris (00:37:34):**
Yeah, I didn't want them to — it makes sense to me to have a selection of flies at the back where the dressings are provided — or what a lot of people call patterns, and some people call recipes, which always feels a little funny to me. But anyway, yeah, along with a good picture of the fly, so that they can use the skills they have. And they have all these other flies that are pretty closely related to the flies that they just learned to tie. And so they can tie a whole lot more than just the flies that are taught step by step.

**Marvin Cash (00:38:06):**
Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting, too, because I've got a review copy of the new book — inside baseball. And the legend at the top says sold over 150,000 copies. And I know there have probably been 25 or 26 printings of the original. There have been a lot of tying books over the years. Skip, what do you attribute the popularity and the staying power of Clear and Simple to?

**Skip Morris (00:38:31):**
Honestly, I'd have to say it's pretty much everything I just said. I think it lives up to its title. And I remember a wonderful essay writer — my memory is a very unreliable, strange thing — I'm trying to think of his name — John. Darn it. But he said in one of his books — it was a book on writing — that he writes and rewrites and works on a book until it's the best he can make. Somebody else may be able to write it better, but he's done it the best he can, and that's when he stops. And I think that's what I tried to do.

And I think — because maybe somebody could have written it better. There certainly were better writers around back then. But I don't know if there were better writers who also had been tying flies since they were pre-teens and had been basically fanatical about it for most of that time. So I think it's just that the book is pretty much — I hope — as I wanted it to be. And that is really easy to follow, doesn't leave you hanging, helps you when you're in trouble. I think that's probably what has made the book successful.

**Marvin Cash (00:39:51):**
Yeah, it's interesting too, because I know you had a career as a commercial fly tyer. Did that help you or hurt you in the sense of — was there stuff that you internalized that you didn't even kind of remember to tell people? And I know you had that troubleshooting process with your two musician friends, but was that a helpful thing for you, or did it actually kind of make it harder for you to write Clear and Simple?

**Skip Morris (00:40:13):**
No, I don't think commercial tying harmed my instructional abilities. You know, I think the thing about commercial tying is you start to — at least for me, and I think I know one other commercial tyer I would say the same about — but you start to lose touch with reality. I mean, you're tying so many flies. You walk in — I used to tie for Kaufman Streamborn, which was maybe the biggest outfit in the world as far as a mail-order operation. It's gone now, but it was huge. I used to tie for them, and I'd walk in and they'd give me an order for 50 — like, say, Zonkers, size 8 — 50 dozen, or 100 dozen. And I'll tell you, you get really good at tying size-8 Zonkers after about the first three dozen.

But I don't think it hurt me, and it taught me things. But if I had done that from then up until now, full-time, I would need a lot of therapy. It's a really weird thing to do for a living, and it's really tough on your brain and your psyche.

No, so I don't think it hurt. You are absolutely right — that's one of the hardest things about instruction for people who have done something for a long time. I believe that is true — to not forget what it's like to not know what the heck you're doing, to start out just completely lost. And when I write books for beginners, which quite a few of mine are — the Survival Guide for Beginning Fly Anglers is truly for beginning fly fishers. And same thing with Clear and Simple. That is a huge goal of mine, is to tap into that beginner thing.

In fact, when I did the book for beginning fly fishers — Survival Guide — I also had a — I'll call him a test subject instead of a guinea pig — but a guy who had never fly fished. And I did the whole same thing I did with Clear and Simple, and I took him through the book step by step, explaining things, casting, tying knots, the whole thing, without actually doing it or showing him or letting him look at pictures. And that, I think, is the best thing I could have done. It tuned me in so well to what a beginner's mind is doing, what they're feeling and what they're going through. And that's such a help in writing how-to stuff, because it's so easy to think everybody knows how to tie a whip finish, or everybody knows how to make the pinch, or everybody knows what a backcast is. You can't do that if you're writing for newcomers.

**Marvin Cash (00:43:04):**
Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of funny, because I've taught some fly tying classes and things generally come to a screeching halt at the whip finish.

**Skip Morris (00:43:13):**
Oh, yeah.

**Marvin Cash (00:43:14):**
So, you know, and it's interesting too, because I can tell from our conversation that you really like to revise extensively. And I was really kind of curious, how did you resist the urge to focus that penchant for revision on a new edition of Clear and Simple, in light of new materials and all sorts of stuff that have happened in the last 30 years?

**Skip Morris (00:43:34):**
Yeah, we really debated that. My publisher and I, because there were two aspects. One is I am a better writer, and I could improve the book. Not really many of those flies need updating, especially the ones that are actually tied step by step. As I say, I mean, it doesn't need to retell the Woolly Bugger. But I could improve it. At the same time, the other side of that was that it was so well established — as you say, it sold a ridiculous number of copies, and people loved it the way it was. I mean, it was a crazy seller right up until Amato decided that they were going to do other things.

So kind of the old — why change it? If it isn't broken, why fix it? And we debated about that. We decided, okay, let's call it the classic. And they wanted to change the cover, which I think is kind of a cool cover. Carol and I really worked hard on that one when we took the photo, because she's a pro photographer as I mentioned. So they changed the cover to sort of suit their style. But right on there, we agreed they need to put "the classic original," and it is. That's exactly what it is. And that was the thinking behind doing that.

**Marvin Cash (00:45:04):**
And we mentioned before we started recording that the original was spiral bound. And even though this edition is not, the way that the binding works, it will behave just like a spiral bound book.

**Skip Morris (00:45:19):**
Yeah, I would have liked to have seen that on the cover. But their philosophy — which I can understand from an artistic perspective — was you can get a cover cluttered with stuff and it just loses. It drains a little bit of the force of the artistic quality of the cover. And so that's fine. But I wanted to write on there "lay flat binding," which means that the pages are attached to a backing which is separate from the spine of the cover. And so if you do lay it flat, that flexible backing just bends and the pages can lay flat. So you can literally lay the book out open flat and it won't harm it. But it doesn't say that. You just kind of have to figure that out on your own — or have to listen to this interview.

**Marvin Cash (00:46:11):**
There you go. And talking about tying stuff — you're a professional fly tyer, you've written a lot of educational books for us mere-mortal fly tyers. Skip, what are three tips that you could share with us to help us up our game at the vise?

**Skip Morris (00:46:29):**
Okay. Well, I'm pretty mortal, too. If I'm tying a fly in a hurry, it can be pretty ugly. If I'm tying a fly fast to get out the door and catch some fish, I can get pretty sloppy. But I have taught a ton and written a ton.

The first thing I would say — and I have asked a lot of people who have also written fly tying books and articles and who teach fly tying, they almost always say the same thing. I ask them: what's the first thing, the most important thing you would tell fly tyers if you had to tell them one thing that would improve their tying? And they say it different ways. They'll say, leave room for the head, don't crowd the head.

It's basically this: most of our flies, especially trout flies, have a tapered thread head. And if you don't leave a space for that — typically it's going to be about the length of the hook's eye — behind the eye, it can have a layer of thread on it, but basically no materials on it. If you don't leave that space, then building the head without having the space to do it is going to be slow, sloppy. The head is going to be ugly. But even more important, the head is going to be unstable. It's likely to fall apart and fail, and the fly is going to unravel.

So you leave room for the head. That's all you have to do. And then when you go to make the head, you've got a space to do it. It's going to be neater, quicker, stronger, and faster — which I guess quicker and faster are the same. But anyway, it's going to be better in every way. So that's the first one.

I have noticed that beginning fly tyers especially are kind of too casual about proportions. And if you don't mind, I'll give a little plug to something, but it's something free. Is that okay?

**Marvin Cash (00:48:14):**
A hundred percent.

**Skip Morris (00:48:16):**
Okay. On our website — and you just put "Skip Morris fly tying" into Google and it'll come up — there is a free fly proportion chart. And all you have to do is go in on the opening page, click on it, and you can print out all you want. I spent months on that thing. It's free. And I did it because people need that.

Because proportions on a fly are really important. It can mess up the way it rests on the water so it doesn't look like the insect it's supposed to look like, the way it moves in the water, whether it hooks fish or not or holds them or not — just all kinds of problems. And this is especially true, probably more than any other kind of fly, of trout flies.

So I made up this fly proportion chart. Go get that and then pay real close attention to it. I researched the heck out of that.

But my point here is to be circumspect about proportions in your flies, because they really are important. I mean, don't be neurotic about it. But just measure using your scissors like calipers — your scissor blades — and then often double-check so that you've got the tail the right length, the legs the right length, the abdomen the right length, the wings in the right location. That's all what we call proportions, and it really does matter.

What would be the third thing? There are so many things. When I teach fly tying, there are just so many things I can tell people. It's hard to pick which one.

I guess I would say learn the pinch. The pinch is — I wish I had come up with that title, but Dick Talleur, I think, was the first one to use it. He used it just before I came up with it on my own. I was working on Clear and Simple, and I opened a book of his, and there was the term, "the pinch." And I went, doggone it. So it's not my original title or name for this technique. But it's a way of tying a material, binding it onto a hook, so that it binds neatly into place and does not keep rolling around the hook — which used to drive me nuts before I discovered it for myself.

I invented it, but it had already been invented. But it's a great technique. You're going to use it all the time. Get good at the pinch.

**Marvin Cash (00:50:38):**
Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting, too, about proportions, because I think two things I've noticed. One, there are a lot more hooks than there used to be, right?

**Skip Morris (00:50:48):**
Oh, yeah.

**Marvin Cash (00:50:49):**
So all those tricks that we learned 15 or 20 years ago about — the length of the shank is roughly where the barb is — some of that doesn't really apply, particularly with barbless hooks, anymore. But also, I find — and you probably find this too — sometimes people are a little casual with nomenclature, and it makes it very difficult to actually get the proportions correct if you read what they wrote when they were telling you how to

**Skip Morris (00:51:15):**
tie the fly. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, that's one of the tricky things about writing an article or a book, is you have to carefully define a term. If it's a term you're going to use and it's important, then you have to be careful about defining it. And then you have to be consistent about how you refer to that, using that name and not using a different term for the same thing, because now the reader has got it in his or her head that this is what you mean when you say "the pinch." But if you call it something else later on, you just mess them up. They go, well, is that the pinch maybe? Or is he talking about something else? I don't know.

One of the best things that happened to me as a writer of how-to books was to learn through the how-to books of my time. And some of those went way back. When I was learning in the 60s, mostly through the 60s, when I first learned my basics of everything — fly casting, fly tying — some of the books were pretty awful. And it would just be like they'd drop into a foreign language. Might as well have dropped into a foreign language for a paragraph, because I didn't know what the heck they were talking about.

And it illustrated to me what needed to be done to make a book or an article — or just writing, actually — that was clear, that made its point. As a musician, I always felt — because I taught at a college and taught in a music store, and taught and taught, and wrote for a jazz guitar magazine — one of the things I really learned for myself and I often told my students, and this is true of fly tying and everything else, fly casting, is: pay attention to the bad stuff.

In other words, if you want to become a really good writer, read great writers, analyze them, really tear their stuff apart, spend a lot of time with them. But also read weak writers. This is nothing against those writers. I don't want to be critical. But some writers write horribly. And you learn so much — or I do — from them. And the same thing is true with fly tying instruction or in music. You hear somebody who's got a time problem, they're not locked into the beat, and you go, oh my God, that's why it's so important to nail your time. You feel it, you see it, you understand it at a much deeper level. And so you're letting that poor person suffer so that you can grow. And that's unfortunate, but it's reality.

You can't go up there and tell them, hey, I learned something. You want me to tell you about your time? He's not going to do that — he's going to punch you in the face. So yeah, those books were so helpful to me.

And I think I also had this advantage, which isn't going to sound like an advantage. But I have a difficult time understanding — you're not going to believe this — I have a difficult time understanding expository writing. When people write instructional writing, it has to be really good for me to understand it. So that actually has worked for me in my own writing. If it's not crystal clear to me — I mean, I'm the best test of all, in a way, of my writing. Because if it's not really clear to me, then what am I trying to say? I'm trying to say that I am the easiest to mess up. So I'm the best test. That make sense?

**Marvin Cash (00:55:03):**
Yeah, it does. It's funny you say that, because I'm a lawyer by training. And so I get in trouble reading fly fishing and fly tying instruction books because I tend to be too technical and analytical sometimes. And I get myself in a lot of trouble. And so I get it, I really do.

**Skip Morris (00:55:25):**
Yeah, this is something that's been kind of a problem in our marriage sometimes, because Carol will say something and I'll say, well, I don't understand what you're trying to tell me. And she'll go, it's clear what I just said. But I don't understand English that well. So it helps me to be — I make the best critic in the world for my own rewriting and polishing of my writing.

**Marvin Cash (00:55:50):**
Yeah, very neat. And, Skip, as we kind of wind down this evening, do you have any other projects? I know you mentioned one of them earlier in the interview, but do you have any other projects you want to share with our listeners before you go tonight?

**Skip Morris (00:56:03):**
Let's see. Well, I'm working now on another self-published e-book that I think will eventually go into — become a print-on-demand book. I've got a book that went up a few years ago, and I just rewrote it about a year ago. It's a little book called Top 12 Nymphs for Trout Streams. And it's done really well as an e-book. So we got it on print-on-demand, and it's doing really well. And so I spent another year writing a similar book, sort of a sequel, and it's Top 12 Dry Flies for Trout Streams, except that it's really floating flies because it has a lot of emergers, dry flies.

But it takes you fly by fly through these 12 flies I very carefully picked out — flies you could get in almost any fly shop. And then I provide the dressings if you want to tie them, and then I talk a little bit about the history of the fly. But mostly it's real brass tacks — I use a cliché. It's about the top 12 nymphs and the top 12 dry flies, which will be out in the next six months or so, I would expect.

Very to the point. Here's what this fly does. Here's how it works in conjunction with these other flies to fill a niche. And here's where you fish it, when you fish it, why you fish it — which is part of the title, actually. I can't remember the order, but it's like when, where, and how to fish them. And then it goes through situations — several situations — and it says, okay, situation one, this is happening. What fly would you fish and how would you fish it? There are also illustrations in there on different techniques for fishing the flies, really — for a little book, it's pretty complete. But it's very, very practical. It's not a book with a bunch of stories in it and so forth. It gets right to the point, very simple, very straightforward. But you should be able to get those 12 flies, go out, and start catching even some pretty smart fish, because it's got really everything you need, I think.

So that's a project, and that's out. And then we're soon going to have the top 12 dry flies out. And other than that, there's the writing clinic that I'm doing this weekend. We've still got one space available. That's been fun. It's very intense. We cover a lot of stuff, but it's a lot of fun, too. And I don't pick at people. I'm not there to judge them. I'm there to share with them and to have fun with them and to try to teach them and encourage them. So that's the attitude I take. It takes about four hours to get through everything, but we take a break, and it's kind of a kick. So if anybody's interested, they can go to my website — again, Skip Morris fly tying — and take a look and see if they're interested.

**Marvin Cash (00:58:56):**
And I'll drop that in the show notes, too. And, Skip, when the book comes out in the middle of April, where can folks find it?

**Skip Morris (00:59:06):**
Well, I'm sure it'll be on Amazon. I hope it'll be in their local fly shop and their local bookstore. But certainly they can order it through Amazon, or I assume Barnes & Noble will carry it. They've carried a lot of my books over the years. And pretty much anywhere they want to go and get it, where fly tying books are carried, I would imagine it'll be there. That's kind of up to the publisher and their process. As you said, this is a big publisher now. They are owned by a big conglomerate, and they have a lot of horsepower. So I imagine it'll be in a lot of places.

**Marvin Cash (00:59:42):**
And are you going to be doing, like, signed copies through your website? Or are people just going to have to find you on the show circuit to get a signed copy?

**Skip Morris (00:59:51):**
Yeah, on the show circuit would be the way to go. Because, yeah, we don't sell them directly. And in fact, I'm glad you mentioned that, because the book will be available — I assume, because they carry all my other books — through the mail-order house, The Fly Shop in Redding, California. And the other one is Feathercraft Fly Fishing in St. Louis, Missouri. So I assume they will both carry it, because they carry all my other books. And so that would be a great place to go. Those are two real reputable places. I'm very happy to be associated with them.

**Marvin Cash (01:00:21):**
Yeah, 100%. You're covered on both coasts. And, Skip, you mentioned your website, but do you want to kind of share that one more time? And if you've got any kind of favorite flavors of social media — like Facebook — if you want to share those with folks so people can keep up with your fishing and your writing adventures, that'd be great.

**Skip Morris (01:00:39):**
Sure. I do have a Facebook page, and I don't get too involved in it, but I'm always happy to bring people in who aren't ranting too much. People who like to fly fish and aren't ranting all the time, I accept them as friends.

And then I've been doing a thing — I don't know how much longer I'll do it, but it's called Third Thursday Shorts. And I write a real short essay and put it up the third Thursday of every month, and I usually get quite a few people commenting on it. It gets pretty fun because they share their opinions and their experiences, and we all do, and so that's kind of a kick.

I'm looking at — I'm trying to think — is it Instagram? I haven't done that yet, and I might do that. But anyway, I'm definitely on Facebook. And there is my website, which has got pretty much everything that's me going on there. If you just go to Google and put in "Skip Morris fly tying," it will come up. It lists all my books and it has a bunch of articles on there and stuff that's new and stuff that's going on. So there you go.

**Marvin Cash (01:01:55):**
There you go. And I'll drop all that stuff in the show notes, Skip.

**Skip Morris (01:02:01):**
Okay, great. Perfect.

**Marvin Cash (01:02:01):**
Well, listen, Skip, I really appreciate you taking some time out of your evening to talk to me.

**Skip Morris (01:02:07):**
My pleasure. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Take care.

**Marvin Cash (01:02:07):**
You too. 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 rating and review in the podcatcher of your choice. And if you're in the Boston area this

**Skip Morris (01:02:23):**
weekend, please swing by the Nor-vise booth at the Fly Fishing Show and say hello. Tight lines, everybody.