Fly Tiers: Terry Hellekson

Fly tier Terry Hellekson, author of Fish Flies: The Encyclopedia Of The Fly Tier’s Art (Gibbs Smith, 2005, 832 pages), learned his art the old fashioned way. “Terry spent his youth in California. His father was a fishing guide on the Klamath and Trinity rivers at a time when there were few fishing guides in the West. ‘My father got lucky in that most of his clients were celebrities of some kind,’ Terry said from his home in Libby. ‘Everything from Bing Crosby, Harold Smith (founder of Harold’s Club in Reno), a great number of Hollywood executives, the governor of Nevada, and the list goes on.'” Peggy O’Neill in the Helena, Montana Independent Record.