What is a good book for a beginner or intermediate tier? Thanks
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What is a good book for a beginner or intermediate tier? Thanks
the best tying book right now for a beginner is charlie cravens new book "basic fly tying"
http://www.charliesflyboxinc.com/fly...m?parentID=167
I am self taught at fly tying. I started with one of Skip Morris's books "Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple" (here). I thought it did a great job giving me the basics and is excellent for starting out.
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My go to book now is "The Benchside Introduction to Fly Tying" (here). You really have to see this book to see how cool it is. The pages are split in half, the top section is all the fly patterns, and the bottom half are the techniques. It has been a very helpful book for me.
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The next book I am going to purchase is "The Fly Tier's Benchside Reference" (here).
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Hope that helps, and I am interested to see what books others recommend. There is always another good book.
Normand has a larger fly tying library than all of the libraries in my state so I will defer to his thoughts on books. I haven't seen the new Charlie Craven book yet, but I will now have to keep an eye out for it. I can recomend the Benchside Introduction to Fly Tying though. Schollmeyer did a grand job on that one. Shop around for pricing on that one though since I have seen it go from $27 to $45 for the same book. Think Ebay.
I really liked this one:
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Fly Tying For Beginners: How to Tie 50 Failsafe Flies
There are a lot of good beginner books. I don't think I've found one that I would call "bad". I also like "The Benchside Introduction to Fly Tying" although there is a lot of overlap between the two.
Once you get the basics down I do have a favorite non-beginner book.
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Essential Trout Flies by Dave Hughes. For each fly he shows a 6 photo step by step process for tying the fly, then he gives 6 recipe variations. So once you know how to ty one fly you really learn how to tie 7.
Terry
The best tying book free for a beginner is right here on the site!!!!!!!!! On the left side of the screen click fly tying, when the next screen comes up click on Beginning Tying and there you go. You can print out each and every lesson and put them in a binder or just keep referring back to them on-line. Great course and you progress from one lesson to the next and can build a great box of flies as you do it.
When done with the beginning move on to the intermediate, then the advanced.
I have the Benchside Reference and it's a great book if you're looking for help in certain areas of tying. Skip Morri's book is also good and IMO I like the book Fly Tying by Helen Shaw, used to sign that book out of my public libarary all the time, it's older but she does a great job of teaching.
Fatman
I'd add Production FlyTying by A.K. Best. Wish I had it when I started tying, a lot of chickens and rabbits would not have given their lives in vain.
Regards,
Scott
What fish are you going to be chasing?
If it's trout, I'd agree with Norman, Charlie Craven's book has set the new standard. He goes into incredible detail, excellent photos and there's a lot of great tips for beginner and intermediate fly tyers. If you want to get a feel for the kind of detail he goes into, check out his website www.charliesflybox.com and browse through some of the fly tutorials.
For many years Skip Morris's book "Fly Tying Made Clear and Simple" and the Peter Gathercole's "50 Fail Safe Flies" were "the standards", with more of an emphasis on traditional patterns.
As tlerm mentioned there are 2 Benchside books.
"The Benchside Intro to Tying" has a unique format with pages cut in half. Pattern ingredients on the top half of the book and instructions for techniques on the bottom half and the idea is that you can flip the bottom half to see how to do different fly tying techniques-- in theory it sounds good. In practice it gets a little cumbersome.
"The Benchside Reference" is a great resource for intermediate and advanced tyers. It doesn't cover patterns, but goes into detail on how to do specific techniques-- so 30 different ways to dub a body, how to make a dubbing brush, several ways to split dry fly tails, how to marry a wet fly wing, etc.
And David Hughes has some great books including "Essential Trout Flies" and "Trout Flies" (a larger, more expensive book that "Essential" is excerpted from) that would be great for an intermediate tyer that has mastered the basics. It assumes you know how to do stuff like tie on, whip finish, dub thread and secure materials in a pinch loop etc, and uses that knowledge to walk you through tying a variety of different "styles" of flies with suggested dressings and "how to" step by steps for tying. It's a great resource, and he's an excellent writer.
If you're chasing other stuff there are other beginner/intermediate books with a focus on tying bass panfish or saltwater flies etc.
Good luck.
mark
in addition to charlie cravens new book, i would also recommend "the fly tyers benchside reference" book by leeson and schollmeyer.
master the techniques and you can master any recipe.
Hi Terry,
I would assume that you are interested in trout, and maybe brim & bass since you list Central NY as your residence. There are so many good books out there it is hard to select just one. For a general fly-tying book, I like the big, hard-cover Orvis Fly Tying Guide because of its large, step-by-step pictures. There are also a lot of specialty books that are very good to learn about a particular type of fly. Randal Kaufmann and Skip Morris each have excellent books on Tying Nymphs and another book on tying Dry Flies. I particularly like Jay Nichols book on Tying Dry Flies and David Hughes book on Nymphs for Streams and Stillwater. Most of the new books are so picture rich that it's hard to go wrong with any of them. 8T :)