You have to wonder who tied the first fly for fishing, but when I lived in Maine I thought it might have happened there.

Winters were so long. By Labor Day you'd need a jacket at the picnic campfire, and the first snow would fall and stay in October, lasting until May. I found out later that I'd been the subject of a "betting pool" started by a couple of the locals, with the topic "On What Day Will the Lady from Pennsylvania Get Her Plow Truck Stuck" along with a secondary pool, "What Equipment Will Be Needed to Get Her Out."Answer: Dec. 16., and logging skidder.Anyway, that first year I started trying to teach myself to tie flies during the winter months. My efforts were complicated by injury - I'd fractured my kneecap while trying to spackle drywall seams on a ceiling. (And I still believe there should be some sort of skills test before construction stilts are rented to people who think they can use them to balance themselves at the correct height for spackling ceiling drywall.) I was taking two Percocet every four hours, and the flies I tied during that time were, well, outlandish. They didn't look anything like the pictures.But when spring came I was out on the water as soon as the ice melted, kicking around one-legged from a float tube, a flipper on my right foot and my left leg floating gently in neoprene waders. The doctor had said to keep it elevated.And then one wondrous day, I caught a nine-inch native brook trout on a fly I had tied. The thing actually pulled me around a little; of course, in the retelling of the catch to the same group who had predicted the plow truck snafu, the mighty fish had created a wake. I got myself to the shore area of the pond, beached the float tube and reeled in the fish just long enough to marvel at it. After I let it go, I was moved, truly moved somehow, by the fact that the wild fish thought my wooly bugger fly was real.Proper instruction makes a huge difference, as I found out Sunday afternoon. Volunteers from Schuylkill County's Trout Unlimited offered a free fly tying class at the Tamaqua Art Center. It was awesome. Not only were the instructors extremely knowledgeable, they had a way of presenting the techniques that was understandable. They also seemed to have a sixth sense about where we'd have trouble, and would be ready to get us through."That'll catch fish," they'd say, even when our flies weren't exactly correct. "Things aren't perfect in nature either," our table's SCTU instructor, Ed Motley said.So, this column is for you, Ed Motley, and the rest of the Schuylkill County Trout Unlimited Volunteers (www.schuylkillcountytu.org). Thank you so much for giving up your own free time to teach so many people, and give us our start to pursue this complex, relaxing and beautiful hobby.The winters back home in Pennsylvania aren't nearly as long as the ones in Maine, but it could be that no matter where you live, winters are only as long as you make them. All I know is, I'm making colorful, fake bugs and worms, and somehow those little creations are exuding the promise of spring.