The Headless Rusty Rat for Advanced Tyers with Steven Fernandez (Buszek Winner)

Description

• Friday Morning March 22nd, 8:30am – 12:00pm 
• Location – Conference Room 3
• Please bring tools, thread and a portable lamp. 
• For Advanced Tiers only.

This is the tenth year that Steven Fernandez will be doing a workshop for advanced tiers. This workshop will be special and will feature the headless Rusty Rat. It has been suggested that around 1911 Roy Angus Thompson came up with a style of hair wing salmon flies. These became known as the RAT series for Angus’s initial R.A.T.  Later in the 1940’s Joseph Clovis Arsenault tied a version of the rat for Joseph Pulitzer rust color thread. This became known as the Rusty Rat. This fly will involve several advanced techniques to include a complex palmering and a headless design. There is no better instructor in the world for teaching advanced techniques than Steven Fernandez. His attention to detail and his ability to explain is unparalleled.

Steven Fernandez, one of the most renowned fly tiers in the world, who is unmatched in tying Classic Trout Flies, Atlantic Salmon and Catskill Style Flies, will share his knowledge and expertise.  In Steven’s workshop students will have the chance to learn from a true master, the art of tying the classic trout fly. A word of caution, this workshop will be very intensive and is intended for fly tiers with advanced skills. Steven Fernandez has been tying flies for over 40 years and started tying professionally at the age 13. By his sixteenth year he was demonstrating and teaching fly tying locally and then nationally. By 17, he was featured in the April 1977 edition of Field and Stream. While pursuing an architecture degree in the 1980’s, he challenged the notion of artistic salmon flies by tying flies on straightened out hooks with atypical materials and techniques, raising a few eyebrows in the process. Judith Dunham included him in her book The Atlantic Salmon Fly, The Tyers and Their Art ( 1991), which helped lead to international demonstrations, classes, and feature articles. Currently Steven is the Fly Tying Co-Director for the Southwest Council of the FFF and also received the prestigious FFF Buz Buszek Memorial Award in 2012. We invite you to attend Steven’s workshop for a truly unmatched and unique fly tying experience.