Fly’s The Limit For 50 Years Virginia Splawn Has Tied Flies For Fishing Customers In A Shop In Her Living Room

To anglers, Virginia Splawn’s living room is like a candy store.

Tucked under a bench on the floor are more than 80 bins stuffed with feathers, fur, yarn, chenille, thread and a dazzling assortment of colorful materials used to attract fish to anglers’ hooks. One wall is lined with compartment boxes filled with fly patterns. “I don’t have any idea how many flies are on those shelves,” said Splawn. “I don’t really want to know how many I’ve tied. It would scare me to death.”

For 50 years, Splawn has tied flies and welcomed anglers into her small living room shop at 220 S. Custer. Terry Tyed Flys is, perhaps, the most enduring fly fishing business in the region.

She admits she’s threatened to quit. “But my customers say they won’t let me,” said Splawn, who, at 77, also runs a dog boarding and grooming business with her husband, Ray. “The customers have come to depend on me to have their flies in stock when they need them. We still try.”

Splawn began tying flies during World War II simply because they weren’t readily available.

To carry on with their favorite recreation, Virginia and her first husband, Terry Bryant, began collecting scarce materials and tying their own patterns. “Other fishermen would ask us to tie a few flies for them, too,” she said. Gradually, they expanded into a business that never got out of the living room.

“During the war, we tied only size 14 flies because those were the only hooks available,” she said. “But we’d tie any pattern a fisherman wanted on it.”

When Terry’s heart began to fail, they moved his bed into the living room so he could tie a few flies and talk fishing with customers while Virginia bellied up to the vise and spun tales, thread and feathers at the same time.

Virginia carries on the business with her loyal fly tying partner of 45 years, Veneta Sampson.

Originally, they sold most of their flies wholesale to numerous small shops. Almost ever major store had a fishing department. “But when many of these departments and shops started closing, we went retail,” Virginia said. “There was quite a period in Spokane when there were no fly fishing shops.”

After the war, more materials became available. One local veteran came back with sources for jungle cock feathers from India. “They were feathers from old birds that made great dry flies,” Virginia said. Fishing bloomed in a new era of convenience and leisure time. Along with the milk man and ice cream wagon, there were special services serving the fishing industry.

“A delivery truck used to come right to the door with a load of good feathers from California,” Splawn said. “I could pick what I wanted.”

While good feathers have become harder and more expensive to acquire, modern synthetic materials have unleashed unlimited opportunities for creating new fly patterns.

“We’ve bastardized the Muddler Minnow with all sort of synthetic variations fishermen have asked for,” Virginia said. “These guys have set ideas. Some want purple, sparkle or orange in the body. We give it to them.”

Fly fishers are a major part of the shop’s clientele, but so are trollers.

“The Muddler variations are mostly for people who troll for rainbows at Lake Roosevelt,” she said. “People have been coming here for years for Carey Specials they use for trolling.”

More recently, Woolly Buggers with a few sprigs of sparkle in the tail have become popular with trollers.

The most popular flies sold in the shop are long-time trout favorites, including the Adams, Renegade, Bucktail Coachman, Dragonfly Nymph and Muddlers.

Indeed, the shop is unique for stocking numerous patterns that have faded from favor.

“We still have a lot of flies that we keep around just for the old-time customers even though few people want them anymore,” she said.

She opens a bin of Grizzly Kings, a cartoonish fly with a green body, tinsel rib, mallard wing, gray hackle and a red tail.

“Hardly anybody buys it anymore,” she said. “But it would still catch cutthroat if anyone bothered to tie one on.”

Confidence and tradition play a large role in fishing success. Some anglers simply have confidence in fly patterns of yesteryear.

“A man who bought flies from us nearly 50 years ago called recently from Lind and said he wanted to help a friend start fly fishing,” Virginia said. “He said, ‘I want Brown Derby’s, Mickey Finns and Sandfly Nymphs - if I can’t teach him to catch fish with those, I can’t teach him.’ “

A couple from Ocean Shores pass through Spokane every year en route to the St. Joe River, she said.

“I can count on them to stop in at the same time in July to buy Blond Wulffs, Royal Wulffs and Renegades.”

Flies have always run in fads, she said. “There’s always been one material we can’t keep in stock. Black streamers used to be the rage on Badger Lake. I remember using every black hackle we had and scrambled on the phone to get more from back east.

Overall, the pace has slowed some at Terry Tyed Flys. There’s much more competition in the area now, while fly fishing at most area lakes isn’t nearly as good as it was in the shop’s heyday.

Eastern Washington has virtually lost its sources for stocking cutthroat trout in area lakes. Trout can’t compete with the burgeoning numbers of non-game species crowding the waters.

But Virginia has endured all the changes with her fur and feathers intact because of a secret she freely shares.

“To survive in the fly tying business, you have to be comfortable with coolie labor,” she said. “It’s just hard tedious work.

“People would start up and compete with us for a while. But when they found out how much work it was, they didn’t last long.”

Some people will tell you that Virginia Splawn’s flies aren’t in the same class as those sold in the upscale shops.

She agrees.

Perhaps that’s why flies that sold for 50 cents a few decades ago have only increased to $1.25 - still much cheaper than the more polished flies of newer shops.

“When you get older, your flies don’t look so good,” she shrugged, holding a Parachute Adams for close inspection. “But if they still catch fish, who cares?”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo