The eye of your hook has glue in it?? I'm sorry . . . . . . well not really

Oh, the eye of your hook has glue in it. . . . . . too bad. I remember one of my fly tying mentors telling me that he intentionally would glue up the eye of the hook on flies that he sold so that his clients knew that he used head cement. It is annoying to try and thread a hook on a tippet only to find that the eye is plugged with cement, but I must confess. . . . . I won't always clear that eye out for you. I take pride in tying a durable fly. I like to incorporate redundancy steps into the production of flies. I recently counted seven applications of adhesive in the construction of one of my patterns. Flies aren't bulletproof and sometimes you are limited to the durability of natural materials. I do enjoy controlling the factors that I can tho and adding redundancy steps to assure a long-lasting bug. Fly design is a fluid thing, continually evolving. Currently, I'm fishing and refining flies that may not be available until next year or beyond. Not only do the bugs have to be fishy, but they also have to be cast, dragged through the rocks, frozen, beat off the bank, whapped off trees and branches before they ever reach the bin. Field trials, I suppose. So next time you have to unclog the eye of a fly before you tie it on, don't groan about it. Be happy that whoever tied it had added a redundancy step for you.