STEPHEN WELSH – Melbourne

In the past 15 years or so it has been his great good fortune to fish with and learn from very fine anglers such as Tim Smith (www.flyflickers.com) and fly dressers such as Andrew Overton and Mick Hall.  He has also shared the water with fellows from far flung places such as Scotland, Peru and France.

Before family and work responsibilities severely curtailed his free time, Stephen was a major contributor to www.flyflickers.com and before that the Replete Mangler website.  His work at both sites has been reproduced in various club newsletters.  A keen fly tying historian, his efforts are now being cited in fly tying works such as Woolly Wisdom by Gary Soucie.

As often happens though, the wheel turns, and Stephen finds himself with time again.  He has become active in the Australian Trout Foundation (www.atf-online.org), overhauling its website and commenced writing again.

Though genuinely interested in entomology, his understanding of salmonid vision leads him away from producing artfully realistic representations of the six-legged whiskery things that live in streams.  Largely a book-taught tyer, the flies he ties and uses tend to be generalist and impressionistic, with an emphasis on size, shape and correct attitude in or on the water. 

Being a generalist, his flies tend to work anywhere and they catch fish, not just for himself but for friends and acquaintances in the USA and Europe.  They’ve even been known to take a fish or two in Tassie.  It will be interesting to see what he comes up for specific hatch matching patterns from this generalist background.