New To The Tying!

[Guest Foster]

allright so im new and well i have lotta downtime with my job so i wanna take up fly tying so i have alot of flys for the summer/spring! so can you guys sugest some stuff i will need thanks

[ladystrange]

oh, where to begin...

 

go to fly shop and take one of everything...

 

ok seriously. what do you fish the most on your store bought flies? look at what you use most regularly and breakdown the materials. lot of materials are duplicated in many of similar patterns.

 

all items in various colours

dubbing, threads, strung hackle (cheap but passible for learning), marabou, chenielle

 

deer, elk, buck tails, calf tail and/or body.

 

beads for nymphs, silly or zebra legs (if something you would normally fish with), gold and silver tinsel, flat and oval, krsytal flash if you like streamers, red/copper/gold etc wire, lead or lead sub, golden pheasant tippet

 

i could go on.

[SanJuanWorm]

What she said and tieing is tying.

 

Yes im a pain in the ass.

[Guest Foster]

so perdy much get everthing then lol

[SanJuanWorm]

Yes be afraid. My kit is worth about 4000 bucks.

[Guest Foster]

well help me out then toss sum your old stuff this way =)

[SanJuanWorm]

Dude thats almost like asking me to ride my motorcycle. Somethings are just not meant to be touched by others.

[ladystrange]

ah well, not exactly... as i said, i could go on.

 

what you might really want to do is go and pick up a beginners tying book, ie: anything of skip morris. i have one of his books, someone else mentioned another. it was a recent post,, like yesterday or the day before. there are a few names of books to look at.

 

read through them. being with basic materials and basic skills. really you need thread and dubbing and you have a fly. then add hackle, or a hairwing or a parachute or, or, or and so on. tails, ribs.

 

i think my first fly was a brassie. 1 bead head, a little peacock herl and brass wire. i brushed my dog for dubbing, i also have a cat available in white AND black.

 

look at what you normally fish with, take those materials and learn the patterns, build on your skills and then advance to a different pattern with similar materials.

 

sure you could go spend 5K on tying stuff, very easily, or you can start with about $500, less if you have a taxidermist.

[Guest Foster]

haha yea i supose eh , ahh okay well ill be picking up some books next time i go down to calgary which should be soon! =)

[Inconnu]

Beacause the materials tend to be so prolific I would suggest one of two courses of action. Either check for a local flyfishing club and join them or ask at a fly shop. They will be able to help you with tools etc. you do not need a top of the line vise, actually I have an older one you can have if you like. Nothing fancy but it will work until you decide to move to a better one.

Pick two or three local patterns and buy the materials you need to tie them, again you can check with the shop ast to some easy patterns to start with. The materials you buy for them will also be useful for other patterns as well and doing it this way you get just the stuff you need and there is less confusion than with a lap full of materials you do not know how to use. So for example, maybe pick up hooks and materials for a black Woolly Bugger, Haresear Nymph and say a leech pattern. That leaves you with a small handful of material and three patterns to work on until you are comfortable, then move on to something else.

Pick up a book on tying even if you join a club as you will want to learn what you can even when there is nobody around to help out and check here often for help as well.

Let me know if you want the vice, you can PM your address and I'll mail it to you....Kerry

[cheeler]

When I started a few months back I checked with Dave at Fishtales, and he sold me one of the kits they put together for their courses in the fall and winter. Alot of stuff in it, but the packages were cut down to keep the price to $75, i think. Just needed to buy a vise and a couple tools on top of that. There's also a book by Peter Gathercole called the The Fly Tying Bible (check Chapters for it, picked it up at Sunridge) that has some beginner's steps and a ton of patterns to get you started.

[headscan]

When I started a few months back I checked with Dave at Fishtales, and he sold me one of the kits they put together for their courses in the fall and winter. Alot of stuff in it, but the packages were cut down to keep the price to $75, i think. Just needed to buy a vise and a couple tools on top of that. There's also a book by Peter Gathercole called the The Fly Tying Bible (check Chapters for it, picked it up at Sunridge) that has some beginner's steps and a ton of patterns to get you started.

 

I'll second the Fish Tales kit. Just enough of everything you need to start tying some useful flies. There are mass-marketed starter kits you can find, but they tend to include things you won't necessarily need if you only fish for trout in Alberta. Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple by Skip Morris and The Benchside Introduction to Fly Tying by Ted Leeson really helped me out, although I have to admit I haven't looked at either one since I picked up The Fly Tier's Benchside Reference.

[Inconnu]

The Fishtales kit sounds like it was made locally for local tying, that would be a great start I would think.

[KnotLikely]

I’d recommend starting with the following patterns and the listed materials and tools below to get started.

 

Wolly bugger http://www.westfly.com/patterns/wet/woollybugger.shtml

Gold Ribbed hairs ear http://www.westfly.com/patterns/wet/haresear.shtml

Pheasant tail http://www.westfly.com/patterns/wet/pheasanttail.shtml

Prince Nymph http://www.westfly.com/patterns/wet/prince.shtml

 

Griffiths Gnat http://www.westfly.com/patterns/dry/griffiths.shtml

Elk hair Caddis http://www.westfly.com/patterns/dry/elkhair.shtml

Adams http://www.westfly.com/patterns/dry/adams.shtml

Stimulator http://www.westfly.com/patterns/dry/stimulator.shtml

 

And of course the BAW

 

I think the biggest mistakes I made when starting to tie, and things I still have to watch out for are 1 proportions, especially crowding the head, and 2 using to much material. I found it easier to buy 1 of each of the patterns that I wanted to tie, and copy the proportions and amount of material on the store bought flies. My first flys were complete garbage, but they caught fish.

 

I’d say a good starter supply list would be:

 

- Black/Brown/Red 6/0 thread

- Black/Brown 8/0 thread

- Black/Brown/Olive/Grey/Yellow/Orange dubbing

- Gold beads in various sizes

- Black/Brown/Olive chenille

- 22 guage Red/Copper wire

- 26 guage Red/Copper wire

- 30 guage Red/Copper wire

- Grizzly Hackle

- Brown Hackle

- Black Hackle

- Deer and Elk Hair

- Pearl Crystal Flash

- Brown/Black/White Goose Biots

- Hare’s mask Natural

- Peacock Herl

- Pheasant Tail Natural

- Turkey flat

- Assorted Mustad 9672, 94840, 3906B, 37160 TMC 200R hooks

- At least one good ceramic bobbin

- 1 good pair of scissors, and one crap pair (cutting and trimming hair)

- Hair stacker

- Matarelli whip finisher

- Bodkin

- Head cement

 

Once you get hooked, you’ll be buying stuff you need, you will need in the future, and stuff you’ll never need, but think you need.

[Flytyer]

Everybody seems to keep forgetting one important question. What do you want to tie most? This is what you have to base your decision on what you need to get.......you may not need what others have suggested right away.

[ladystrange]

hey i said that ok, it was a round about sort of way, but that is what i was getting at.

[Inconnu]

Moi aussi