Andy Dear | Monday, 20 January 2025
During my tenure here with Sexyloops, I have often referenced my admiration for Tim Borski. Not only as a fisherman but even more as a fly tyer. Tim, in my opinion, epitomizes what it means to straddle the line between artist and hunter. While many of the masters of this art go for the super realistic, ultra-life-like look, Tim's patterns in many ways do just the opposite....which is where the genius lies. They don't resemble anything specific in a highly detailed or imitative way. What they do resemble, is something that is ALIVE. Out of the water, they don't look exactly like anything, but in the water, they resemble in movement, color, and profile, just about EVERYTHING.
To say that I have had a 20 plus year love affair with the Borski Bonefish Slider would be an understatement. It is for me one of those flies that "if I were stranded on a desert island with an 8wt. and 3 fly patterns" he Bonefish Slider would be one of the three. In fact, I'd probably choose three Bonefish Sliders, just in different sizes and colors.
For me, the beauty of this pattern is the tyer's ability to manipulate the sink rate by varying the size and/or weight of the eyes with the amount of stacked deer hair around the head and collar. I hate flies that sink to the bottom like a boat anchor unless of course the depth of the water and the application requires that. Most of the water I fish is four feet or less, generally pretty clear and the fish are visible targets. The profile and material makeup of the Borksi Slider make it reasonably easy to cast under most conditions, and more importantly, allow for what I consider to be a very realistic presentation.
Recently I wrote a Front Page about a Podcast I am enjoying hosted by Andy Mill called The Millhouse. Andy is among other things a former Olympic Ski champion and a world-class saltwater fly fisherman, and now a podcast host. Not long ago, Andy was somehow able to coerce Tim Borksi into visiting The Millhouse for a deep dive into his life as an artist and an angler. At the beginning of the interview, Tim was asked to describe himself, to which he responded "Tim Borski is a hunter". That in a nutshell for me is the reason why the Bonefish Slider is such a radically successful pattern....because it was designed by someone with an innate and intuitive understanding of what it takes to convince a wild animal to try and eat something crafted by a predator completely in tune with the instincts of his prey.
You can listen to Tim Borski on the MillHouse podcast here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyZbvykQjq0
Hope you all are having a great week!
Andy