Lynn
You should see the fly Riley tied for his girlfriend for Christmas. I turned a walnut shadowbox to hold it and he mounted it on bugle beads inside. Not terribly big as display flies go, perhaps 2" long, and had no less than a dozen very expensive feathers in one fly... Lots of metallic blues, greens, and purple, and white, and black.
Some of the fairly ordinary feathers run better the $5 each...
Riley won both state competitions last year at 16. A number of those entered have been tying for several multiples of his age. And there were some very good entries in both... He smoked me...
Most of the best fly tyers happen to be women...
art
