Developing new fly patterns – now that’s a cool job. And according to Brita Fordice, the best part, might be coming up with new names for them all.
We recently had the opportunity to chat with fly tyer and fishing guide, Brita Fordice. Brita works as a Product Developer for Far Bank (Sage, Redington, RIO), and she is the mastermind behind many of RIO’s fly patterns.
We asked Brita about her background and how she became a fly designer. We talked about the development and testing process, and what it takes to bring a fly from concept to production. And of course, we asked about some of those off-the-wall fly names…
Photo by Andrew Miller
The Background
“I grew up in Washington and worked at The Avid Angler, just north of Seattle for almost 13 years. I guided out of there mostly for sea run cutthroat, some steelhead and some trout.” Brita told us.
“My family had a cabin where we spent weekends and summers on the South Fork of the Stillaguamish and that’s where I learned how to fish,” she explained. “We used to hike up into the North Cascades lakes with those old donut float tubes.”
When we asked how she began tying, Brita told us that it had a lot to do with being bored in a cabin with no TV.
“All we had there was a VHS player,” She said. “And of course, you had to go into Blockbuster to rent videos at the time. There wasn’t much to do. We had a few coffee table books about fly fishing and fly tying. So I taught myself how to do it. I started tying flies by hand and then later got an old vice, and basically learned on my own. I was about 10 years old when I started.”
With no formal instruction, there was a lot of trial and error.
“Even now, I‘ll do certain things and people will watch and ask why I do it that way,” she said. “And I don't know, the result is the same. I just had no idea you could do it a different way.”
Brita was already looking for a job at Far Bank when they approached her about a customer service position.
“I transitioned out of that role very quickly,” she laughed. “I'm a poor person for that because I tell everybody exactly what I think. So that’s when they put me to work on flies. And along with Patrick Kilby, he and I are the ones that run flies for RIO.”
At that time, flies were a new category at RIO. Brita and Patrick were responsible for developing RIO’s catalog from the ground up.
“We started by looking through every single fly catalog out there,” Brita told us. “We had to pick out the fly patterns. Of course, we didn’t want to knock-off anyone’s original patterns. Any fly that had someone’s name attached to it was off limits. So then, we were just left with the staples. Those are the ones we came out with immediately.
“Next, we had to fill in the holes in all the different subcategories,” she added. “At that point, we’d look at a category like Bonefish. And we’d only have a few old, basic patterns. So then I had to jump in and design ten Bonefish patterns in five different colors and sizes. And Patrick did the same for bass, and we did steamers and steelhead and all that.”
Now, if you look at all the RIO fly patterns, unless it has a specific tyer’s name in front of it, you can assume it was tied by Brita and Patrick.
“Which is comical, because if we were making royalties on all these patterns, we’d be making six figures,” she laughed. “So we try not to look at that. But yeah, it has been a lot of fun.”
Brita says that their entire hallway at the Far Bank office on Bainbridge Island is like a fly shop.
“I order from Hareline weekly,” she said. “All the materials have their own pegs. And sometimes we'll get a wild hare and see something online, so we’ll just start tying it up. That's what we do for the day. And we can get away with it!”
The Development and Testing Process
Brita explained that when developing new patterns, they watch a lot of videos. But not many tying videos.
“I like to look at the actual thing, whether it’s a shrimp or a baitfish,” she explained. “I find that every time you try to tie something and you’re looking at a fly pattern, it just gets further away from the original thing it’s supposed to mimic. Whereas if you're looking directly at the actual animal or bug, it's going to be much closer.
“Sorry, this is totally ADD,” Brita interjected. “But I’m watching an underwater web cam on explore.org and there’s a trigger fish on there right now. It’s amazing, you can watch permit and all kinds of stuff go through here. Anyway…”
Brita explained that some of the very first flies they developed were the ones they were already most familiar with.
“We started with steelhead and sea run cutthroat,” she said. “Those were easy because we knew that stuff and we were confident in that. But then we had to dive into the more unfamiliar. One that is still mind-boggling to me is the time we tied up a bunch of flies for a trip to Louisiana. We were going to test out flies for winter redfish with Simon Gawesworth and Zack Dalton.
“We ended up fishing with this guide named Rich, who's been guiding down there for decades,” she continued. “He crammed us all into his single-cab Ford Ranger from like 1998. Whoever was in the middle had to be spread eagle, it was pretty funny.”
When they got out to the water and began rigging up, the local guide was not impressed with the new flies.
“He looked at these flies, and he said, ‘No, those aren’t heavy enough.’ And Zack, thank God, said, ‘I don’t care, we’re still going to throw them on here.’”
And in the end, it paid off. The new pattern that ended up getting almost every single fish for every angler on that trip, was what became RIO’s Hopedale Crab.
“That fly is probably one of the best-selling flies we've ever done,” Brita said. “And it was sheer dumb luck. We almost didn’t fish it at all because the guide didn’t like it at first.”
Brita explained that they are always out testing flies. “Even right now, Patrick has gone out to the pond here for a few hours every day to practice or to do some bass testing. We are always out testing. We are very lucky that way.”
She says that one of her favorite memories was testing a baby bonefish pattern for Christmas Island.
“The guides were walking behind us with the 12-weights in hand, ready for any GTs that would come by as we were waiting for everything else,” she told us. “My guide was falling further and further behind, and I kept looking behind me to see what he was doing. I realized, he was there with the bonefish gamechanger I had tied up and was putting it in the water just looking at it, watching it. He was amazed by how it swam. He could not get over it. There's always some weird little story about these patterns that we've done. And that always makes me smile.”
When we asked about refining a pattern, Brita explained that she and Patrick approach that part of the process differently – and therefore, complement each other.
“When I tie a fly, it tends to be that either it works or it doesn’t,” she said. “I’ll do maybe two or three iterations of something. If I mess up on two or three of them, they’re dead to me. Whereas Patrick, he’s more meticulous. For example, by the time he was done with his Pip Squeak mouse, he had bags full of variations.
“As we are working on something, we will walk it around the halls here at the office,” she added. “Luckily, everyone around here really knows their stuff. It's nice to be able to gauge ideas in that way. And then of course when it’s time to really test them out, we'll send them out to guides who can thoroughly test them for us.”
How to Name a Fly Pattern
“Naming flies might be my favorite part, and Patrick's favorite part too,” Brita told us. “We go about it a couple of different ways. First, we have a huge board in the fly area where people can write ideas. Everyone will stop by when they think of something fun, and they'll throw it up on the board. Some great ideas have come from doing that.
“Then other times, we will look at things like roller derby names, which can be kind of dirty,” she laughed. “Or even race horses, which can be funny as well. Lately I've been on a nineties rap bender. So we’ve had some ideas like Jiggy Smalls, Busta Seamz, Baby Got Bead, or the Slime Shady. When we have a fly pattern that really fits with one of those names, it’s a lot of fun. Sometimes we’re like toddlers doing this. It's the most fun thing ever. I do think that we have the best fly names.
“Out of all the names we ever came up with, there was only one that they wouldn’t let us use,” Brita laughed. “And that was when Patrick did a foam hopper. And I asked that we name it The Me So Foamy. And they were like, ‘Oh, hell no.’ That was the only one.
When naming any fly, it takes some research as well. “Of course, we have to search the bowels of the internet to make sure there’s not already a known fly with that name,” she said. “One that I did was called the Bead Off (yeah that one got approved, I'm not sure how). But we discovered there’s some sort of water repellent with the same name. But because it’s in a totally different category, it wasn’t an issue. But that’s the sort of thing we have to look out for.”
Photo by Andrew Miller
Brita’s Favorite Flies
We asked Brita, out of all the patterns she has helped develop, which ones are her favorites.
“That Hopedale crab is one that I like because it's such a simple pattern that works really well,” she said. “And then the Soccer Mom is one of the best flies that we produce. It's also a simple fly and I do like that one a lot.
“Then I really like the Pocket Rocket. That’s a name I probably shouldn't have been able to get away with,” she laughed. “I like The Suppository as well. That one has a rattle shoved into its butt that you can remove. It works well for redfish, especially in Texas. I get a kick out of explaining that one at tradeshows. I tell the guys if they want a bigger rattle, they can just lube it up and shove a bigger one in there. They never know what to say!
“There are also a few of them that make me wonder, why the hell did I do this?” She added. “There's one or two that I think to myself, ‘This is stupid.’ I don't know why I did it. But then sometimes other people will get excited about it, so you never know.
When you're creating a new pattern, how different is different enough?
“As I’m sure you can imagine, it's really tricky these days because there's really not any new patterns,” Brita said. “There are new materials. And there are some new techniques. But a lot of times, they are not really that different.”
Brita explained that they will try and substitute new materials to make a fly more functional and more effective. “If it’s not going to do either of those, then it's not worth it,” she said. “It’s not worth the effort to upgrade something just to make it look somewhat cool. There must be improvement - to the way it fishes, the way it moves in the water, or maybe the way it casts. We have tried some patterns and then decided, ‘nope, that’s not good.’
“I tend to start from scratch,” she told us. “Generally I don't even look at other patterns that are out there. For example, somebody on the east coast might say that we need glass minnows on a heavy hook. So I look at the actual glass minnows, instead of looking at other patterns out there that mimic glass minnows. And then of course, I have to make sure it didn't end up with one that looks like somebody else's.”
Among the different fly categories out there, which do you enjoy tying the most?
“Saltwater,” Brita answered quickly. “Yeah, I love it. I love tying shrimp of all kinds - bonefish shrimp, any kind of shrimp. I sound like Bubba from Forest Gump. I love tying game changers. They're just so fun and they look so cool. And then squid. Pretty much anything like big baitfish.
“I love matching baitfish by tying something that looks close. That’s by far my favorite. I don't even do it that often, so I can't say that I have that much experience. I’ll get to do that kind of fishing maybe once or twice a year. But those are still my favorite flies to tie.”
What are you working on right now?
“Right now I’m spending more time managing the signature tyers,” she said. “I'm not doing as much tying on my own. And it’s a lot of fun. We literally get recipes sent to us on bar napkins. I love them all, and at times it's like herding cats. But these tyers are the authority in their fisheries, and an incredible depth of knowledge.
“One of my favorite people that I’ve ever worked with is Joe Webster from All Points Fly Shop and Outfitters in Maine. That guy is probably one of the most innovative fly tyers. His patterns are pretty simple and they fish extremely well. His pattern, the Webster Crouser, won Best Saltwater Pattern at this year’s AFFTA Awards. It's basically like a Clouser on crack. It's an awesome pattern. It’s simple, and it fishes like no other.”
Brita added that RIO has a couple of new patterns from Joe Webster that will be coming out in early 2024. “We have his shrimp and a crab pattern coming out. And those are even cooler.
“And then there are people like Jeff Feczko, who fishes around the world, all year round as a traveling guide. He's impossible to get a hold of,” she laughed. “I’ll get voicemails randomly from Jeff in the middle of the night. He knows how to fish for obscure types of grouper and all kinds of fish you've never even heard of. It’s so much fun to work with different people like that.”
Thanks, Brita!
We’d like to extend a big thanks to Brita for taking the time to chat with us. As one of the lead designers behind so many of RIO’s flies and as an accomplished guide and angler, we could sit and listen to Brita tell stories for hours. For more of Brita’s designs and photos, follow her on Instagram @seafly907.
Have questions about flies or how to tie your own flies? We are here to help. Stop by and see us at the fly shop in Littleton. Or give us a call at 303-794-1104. We’d be happy to answer any questions and help point you in the right direction.