Fly Tying Material Sources

[ironicbrew]

Hey all,

 

I'm tying more and more recently and am having a great time seeing my hand made creations slowly gain majority government in my fly box as well as finally having a legitimate excuse to play with feathers.

 

It's a great feeling to catch a fish on a fly you tied and also nice that when you snag up and lose your whole rig you don't think to yourself "There goes $6-9 worth of flies" and instead think "There goes my children... That's ok. I'll make more".

 

I've already come to the realization that I'm in no way ever going to save money tying but I am interested if anyone can point me in the direction of slightly less expensive sources of fly tying materials if there exists such a thing, or just where everyone is getting their materials in general.

 

I've tried the search function before posting, a couple places mentioned here and there but no comprehensive post of fly tying material locations.

 

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Cheers.

 

 

[Flytyer]

I stay away from all but one place on line to buy; I prefer to handle material and visually inspect before purchasing. I buy local except for the one case where I need special feathers for certain fly types.

[ironicbrew]

And what online place is that?

[Flytyer]

John Maclean, not cheap but quality is top notch

[SilverDoctor]

If you buy bulk like a full capes, hides etc as opposed to packaged feathers from a cape it is much more economical (unless you are a hobby tier that only produces a few dozen X a year). The down side of buying volume is that you may never use up the materials. In that case buy what you need in small lots, you have more expensive flies but can still enjoy making and catching with what you make.

 

I'm with Flytyer, after buying online for years I'll only buy from local shops where I can see the product. Bought too many poor products some that I threw out. I tried craft store materials materials and found the materials to be low quality and I just don't do it. Quality materials will go much farther and tie higher quality flies. It really depends on your tying volume. Tying commercially is very much different from just filling a a box for yourself yearly.