One of my simple pleasures is tying flies. Loading my fly box in the winter sets up spring fishing trips.
I’ll tie dozens over three months. Part of the fun is tying enough to fill two boxes that are sold at the Trout Unlimited banquets in Mountain Home and Fayetteville. The second of those dinners is March 8 at the Fayetteville Town Center.
I might need 300 flies by the time I fill my personal box for my own fishing pleasure (with enough to pass out to struggling fly fishers on the water), then the two boxes to be auctioned at the charity dinners.
So when it’s time to tie, I’ll have a pile of beads and a pile of hooks to get started. But, I’ve learned, slow and steady is the best option. The faster I tie, the worse they look.
Lined side by side, some will be too fat in one area, or too slim in another. They should be more than just similar, perfect in uniform detail.
If I want each to last after a few fish chew on them and not fall apart, tie them slowly and pay attention to the details on every turn of thread. Especially, I need to get the final few turns exact with the complicated whip finish.
Then, the last step requires a steady hand to apply one drop of fly head cement, or super glue, to the final knot. Skip that step and often the fly will come unwound under fishing pressure, maybe on the first fish. I don’t want my name attached to that mess of a fly.
When you tie in the tinsel and rib thread, a single strand of DMC embroidery floss, pull the excess to the edge of where you bind it to the hook so nothing needs to be clipped and there is no buildup. Some skip this and they go faster, but leave a bulky spot in the middle of the fly.
There are sequences that must be precisely the same. The wrap of the rib over the red holographic tinsel for a ruby midge must have seven turns of black cotton thread for the rib. Six and too much red shows; eight turns and it is too black. I have learned to twist the black rib between my thumb and finger as I make each turn so it stays slim and stands up on the tinsel.
You can skip that twist on the turn and probably speed the process so that maybe one dozen more flies are tied in an hour.
I thought about all of this Monday as Chad Morris talked about the way he will put his Arkansas football team through their paces in his second spring as head coach. There will be a painstaking approach to the details. The fundamentals will be stressed.
For instance, with the offensive line, where there is finally some healthy competition, Morris said it will be about pointing to “one focus, not nine.” With the defense, Morris said, “We are going to get it right.” The stress will be on the fundamentals and “our standards.”
Morris talked about fundamentals last year, but the message that might have trumped fundamentals was tempo. Playing fast seemed to be more important. It won’t be this spring as the Hogs try to regroup after a 2-10 season.
“The main thing will be fundamentals,” Morris said. “You don’t have to hurry up to mess up. I don’t want to play so fast that we lose fundamentals.”
The Hogs will be trying to do it better, not faster.
Don’t make a mistake in thinking Morris doesn’t want tempo. It will come, said the coach that would like to snap the ball with 20 seconds still on the play clock. It just wasn’t possible last year with players still unable to grasp all of the nuances of the offense, especially the quarterbacks.
It took the quarterbacks a bit to track where the defense was lined up. You can’t execute reads if you don’t know where the guy is that you are going to read.
That won’t be the case as much this year after a year of growth with freshman quarterbacks Connor Noland and John Stephen Jones, but more because of the arrival of SMU transfer Ben Hicks.
Hicks played in the Morris offense for three years at SMU. Of real importance is the relationship Hicks has with offensive coordinator, quarterbacks coach and play caller Joe Craddock.
“Close is probably not the right word,” Craddock said. “Ben was more like family. Every practice and every game ended with him holding Charlie, my daughter, and getting their pictures taken. Charlie just loves Ben. Ben is like a member of the family.
“It was like he was coming back to our family when he made his visit here from SMU. It was like the first visit he made when we were at SMU. We all just knew he fit with us and he knew he fit.”
Craddock knew it was going to work when players would pass him in the hall with stories of what Hicks was doing in the January passing drills, the workouts coaches can’t attend.
“I haven’t seen Ben throw yet since he’s got here, but the players have told me about it,” Craddock said, noting that's against NCAA rules in the offseason. “C.J. O’Grady was really excited about it. He said Ben explained in one drill exactly why he needed the tight ends to be at a point, then how he wanted them to turn on the break so the timing would be right.
“It’s the finer points of the plays. It’s the stuff that has to be exactly right for the play to work. The other quarterbacks have heard it, but Ben knows it and has done it over and over. He’s coaching the quarterbacks, the wide receivers and the tight ends.”
Morris has heard it from players, too. They have welcomed Hicks.
It sounds like there is a new leader for the offense. The unquestioned leader for the defense is middle linebacker De’Jon “Scoota” Harris.
That was the top recruiting victory for Morris and defensive coordinator John Chavis last winter. Harris could have skipped his senior year and gone to the NFL draft.
Harris has been one of the standouts in winter conditioning, adding to his speed. The entire team is faster. Morris said the second winter with Trumain Carroll, the strength and conditioning coach, has produced needed bulk with no sacrifice to speed.
“Our bodies are noticeably different,” Morris said. “The expectations of where we would be in year two were great. We have a different culture. It was mandated and demanded of everyone in our building.”
Morris spoke of the bonding that has taken place over the winter. He said it came down to making sure the behavior was right in all areas of the team. He explained the definition of culture goes back to behavior.
“If you don’t like the results, check the behavior,” Morris said.
The bond includes a different attitude starting at breakfast before the early morning workouts. The workers at the Jerry & Gene Jones Family Student Athlete Success Center pointed out a difference in the way the players were seated at breakfast.
“The entire team was seated at two long tables,” Morris said. “That’s small, but it’s a big deal.”
Morris said it’s “evident that the team has become closer. I’m very impressed.”
There’s been a lot of social media attention to the decision Morris made in the winter to take away the Razorback logo on gear. The team had to earn the right to wear it on shorts, T-shirts and the rest of the gear.
“It’s earn everything, every day,” he said. “You have to earn that logo that so many before you worked so hard to wear. That goes for the trainers, coaches, water carriers and everyone else.
“I have yet to put the logo back on my workout gear. You’ll see Friday (for the start of spring drills). I’ll be in all gray.”
The team lost their locker room, but that is more symbolic than real. The locker room is being rebuilt this winter so the team was going to be in the visitor’s locker room anyway.
Morris said he’s forced his teams to earn their gear in past seasons, too, so it’s not a novel idea. Others schools have done it before, too.
Either way, it’s become a point of emphasis for the players. Morris said he noticed players making sure via Twitter that all players “were at breakfast so we can get points toward getting our stuff back.”
Getting stuff back is just one of the buzz phrases this winter. Improvement on fundamentals is probably the other that dominates. Morris spoke of the drills that will be run in spring to develop the core fundamentals in special teams.
“Those will be instilled from me on down,” he said. “The core of our fundamentals will be a buzzword.”
The quarterbacks will be improved. He said all “are more advanced” than last year. Morris said, “They have all done extra work.”
Competition has improved throughout the team. Morris talked about the way the depth has increased through recruiting both in the offensive line and at wide receiver.
“Because of (the competition), our wide receiver room has risen,” Morris said. “We are going to bring in more (wide receivers). It isn’t going to stop.
“I’m not trying to threaten anyone, but we are going to add more to the competition and continue to recruit.”
And, then add them to the mix, just like they did with their new quarterback.
Perhaps Hicks is the crucial ingredient to bond this team together. Maybe he’s like the super glue to finish my flies.
OK, I got finally got there, bonded all these non-related thoughts to spring football. Yes, maybe the final bond is really important.