I started fishing with my father at 4 years old with live bait and spinning gear. At 8, before I began fly fishing, I became interested in the art of building flies, and self taught myself. Later I was lucky to find a great master in the art of tying flies, Carlos Govino, and Carlos was an exceptional instructor. Fishing is a philosophy for me and I’ve always remained in touch with it’s essence. Thus the spirit of my fly tying is always to catch fish. Over time I gathered scientific knowledge based on fish behavior and their habitat. I molded this into concepts that slowly shaped my work. Currently I operate from a simple concept: develop the best flies to fool fish. This may seem obvious, but it means design elements must work in an ornamental sense without sacrificing aspects that would make our decoy become a “small sculpture” beautiful, complex and admirable … but useless for fishing. I use any materials that allow me to achieve my goal; whether traditional or alternative, synthetic or natural, an exotic feather or scrap of plastic. A fish may take a fly as food, in irritation or transparency, reflectivity and light refraction. We are clumsy imitators in search of unattainable perfection, which is precisely the magic to trick a fish with a lure. See Ruben’s videos at www.youtube.com/rubenmartinflies or contact him here www.rubenmartin.com.ar.