Winter before last I found myself needing to tie up a bunch of more traditional stuff for a New Zealand trip. Like you, I had been in the salmon, steelhead, and AK trout mindset for a while. It was a lot harder than I would have imagined transitioning to small, detail oriented tying. I made everything too big at first, and even then it looked small. I started to get it after a while though.

My eyes and fingers hurt and my patience was thin, but I would like to think it paid off in the end?

Actually, I think I wound up catching more fish on the dolly lama there than all of my various bead head nymph creations combined. Hmmm...