My name is Normand E Frechette and I currently live in southeastern Connecticut, USA where I work as a Senior Structural Designer on the best submarines that the US Navy and your money can buy.
I began fly-fishing and fly tying in 1981 when I was living in Colorado and working for Martin Marietta Aerospace in Littleton, Colorado. I worked there from 1980 to the end of 1991. During that time, I was able to fish some of the best rivers the west has to offer. I learned fly tying from a guy named Ed Buchanan, who also worked at Martin Marietta and was teaching the course for the recreation department. Free! Ed taught us the basics. Thread management, proportions, dubbing techniques, winging etc. A few months with Ed and you became a decent tier.
Ed Buchanan also taught the fly-fishing class the recreation department had to offer. Free! The classroom for that class was the South Platte River in Deckers, Colorado. This is one of the west’s finest trout streams and also one of the more difficult. If you can catch fish here, you can catch fish anywhere.
After an end of year (1991) layoff at Martin Marietta, I returned to Southeastern Connecticut and was rehired by the Electric Boat Company, a division of General Dynamics where to this day I am currently employed.
The rivers I now fish are the Farmington & Housatonic in Connecticut and the Kennebec in Maine.
I hope you all enjoy the flies I tied.
All of the recipes in my section are the basic ingredients and can be changed to suit the waters that you fish. Sizes and colors can be changed to suit your preferences. Hooks are a matter of choice and economics. If you like Mustad, go for it. If its Targus, Orvis, Eagle Claw its OK. The choice is yours to make. Are the red Daiichi 1273 hooks required for the bloodworms, absolutely not? I just had them on hand a decided to try them out.