Finding art supplies at the flyfishing store

Once a year I make a pilgrimage to Bob Marriott’s Flyfishing Store in Fullerton, California, in order to buy a gift certificate for my brother-in-law’s birthday gift. It’s all he wants. Usually, I zip in and out the door, the act of obtaining the gift certificate taking me less than five minutes flat.

But this year, I actually stopped to look around at the store’s contents, primarily because earlier in the week I was reviewing an old book on polymer clay with a photo of a spectacular Tory Hughes necklace employing fishing weights as jewelry components. In addition, I had recently used fishing swivels to make Hearts for Heroes attachments, so I entered Bob Marriott’s with a new eye this time.

I wanted to run off with most of the tools in the fishing store, but what I zeroed in on for myself were spools of wool and metallic threads in a variety of colors. I snapped up about four of these and I’ve already woven threads from a couple of these into Kumihimo cords custom colored to match some of my polymer clay pendants.

Sculptors and dollmakers would probably be pretty happy with the variety of feathers available to fly fishermen. Tying flies is an artform in itself and the store is full of colorful items, all of which are designed to lure a fish to Papa. There’s plenty of stuff there for the crafty Mama, too.

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