Wim Alphenaar was born in The Hague, the Netherlands. In 1964 he started
to tie artificial flies. The necessary knowledge he mainly got from
foreign literature. After tying for which he made the course materials
himself.
In November 1979 Elsevier published his first book 200 Vliegbindtips.
He made the instruction drawings and illustrations in this pocketbook. Wim
has been drawing one of his favorite hobbies since he has been a child.
He took several courses at the Academy of Art in The Hague. He
illustrated 24 books on angling. The specialist knowledge on
microphotography however, he learned by self-directed learning and
practice.
Wim has been wrote four years the columns The Fly of the Month and
Artificial Bait of the Month for the Dutch magazine Sportvissers
Journal. Furthermore his articles were published in several Dutch and
foreign magazines. A few times his illustrations were published in the
American magazine Fly Fisherman. In the twenty years he has been writing
for several fly fishing magazines he wrote over 950 articles on fly
fishing and fishing in common. Most are on tying flies, but also wrote
articles concerning other subjects.
During four years Wim studied insects that are interesting to the fly
fisherman and the fly-tyer. He has been studying for insects in Scandinavia
and other European countries. In the Netherlands, Germany and Austria he
did a lot of research. The information from this research is the basis of
the flies he invents and publishes.
He wrote the books:
- Vliegvissen & Vliegbinden (Flyfishing & Flytying)
- Stijgnimfen & drijvend aas (Emergers)
- Fly Tying with Synthetics material
and the basic book in the Dutch language Fly fishing in practice
Fly tying techniques of Wim and several flies he creates are mentioned in
the book Micropatterns of Darrel Martin, published Swan-Hill Press.
Several of his fly patterns are being tied in license by Spirit River for
the US market.
In the 30-plus years Wim has been fishing with flies, he not only loves game
fishing for salmonides and other fish with nymphs. He also likes to fish
for pike with a streamer.
Wim maintains a web site which can be found here.