Michal Zapal
My adventure with fishing started in the 80’s when, under my Grandfather’s watchful eye, I took my first steps by the river of Wisła (Vistula), trying to outsmart barbels, chubs, breams and wels catfish. As the time passed by, my passion and interests slowly turned into something else – I changed spinning and float rods to fly fishing set and started to chase after trout and graylings using my first home-made flies.
I spent hundreds of hours on fishing escapades and, by this, had a chance to carefully observe aquatic environment, which, along with having tied thousands of flies, has given me the knowledge to start tie flies professionally. From 4 years, I have been tying flies for anglers from all over the world. Yearly I tie thousands of flies, and it still gives me pleasure. And that’s why I decided to create my own brand of flies, materials and other fishing stuff – „Live 4 Fly Fishing”, to connect pleasure and passion with work. Except traditional patterns, I also make a lot of patterns created by myself. Maybe I will expose myself to traditionalists now, but for the production of my flies I use synthetic materials very often. I try to combine everything what is good in tradition with modern look for fly tying.
Today’s access to the materials allows for almost unlimited creation of new designs, duplication old ones and combining them. And this ability to create by combining and mixing of styles gives me the most joy in my tying. Very often, deliberately, I go beyond the traditional fly tying, but I have to say that I appreciate tyers who perform classic, beautiful patterns of flies, which are undoubtedly the foundations of the interpretation and creating their own bait.
To all Fly Punk’s tyers I wish a lot creativity, patience and perseverance by the vice.
Contact Details: https://www.facebook.com/live4flyfishing
