What percentage do you tie?

[Eight Thumbs]

Hey Folks,

I know that this question has been asked before, in fact, I remember some previous responses from certain FAOLers. But times and people change, so I'm going to ask the question again. What percentage of the flies that you use in a given season are tied by you personally? What percentage are purchased from fly shops or stores? What percentage are gifts from friends who tie or from fellow fisherman?

I tie about 99.5% of all the flies that I fish in any given year. 0% percent of my fishing flies are from stores though I will buy some new patterns to serve as prototypes or models once in a while. About one half of one percent of my flies are "stream gifts" from people who have a fly that's working well that day and wish to share it. How about you? 8T

[SteveP]

IN the exact same boat as you 8T I tie almost all of my own flies, fish a few from friends and and buy one or two from the shops to replicate/reverse engineer. I don't know I feel like if I spent all this money on tying materials and such then it would be an absolute waste of not only the money I spent on the materials and equipment but also the money I would then speend on flies.... basically 99.5 .5 from friends and only buy for reproduction purposes.

Steve

[SteveGibson]

I tie 100 percent of the flies I fish with. Like you guys, I will buy some flies so I can tie them when I get home.

[oldfrat]

Probably tie about 80% myself and that number has been going up every year as I get more comfortable tying dries.

[Cold]

Well, considering I'm just entering my second year of fly fishing, I still have some of the flies I bought to get started. I dont fish any gift flies after the first day I get them (if they caught fish, they're now a model fly, if not, they go in a box at the bench that i'll tie up 3-5 copies of whenever I get a chance, to experiment with on the water). Right now, about 3% of the "fishing flies" in my box are self-tied, the notable exceptions being muddlers, as I havent yet caught on to spinning hair.

[Uncle Jesse]

I tied about 95 - 99% of the flies I fish. I do have someone occassionally give me a fly I with a pattern I had not previously seen. I have a friend in AZ who has given me some trout flies in the past, he is much better than I, but it has been a while.

[Panman]

90% tied by me, 10% received from fly swaps or other anglers. Can't remember when I last bought a fly other than some that came in a flybox I bought on Ebay.

Tim

[JohnScott]

What 8T said.

John

P.S. Except that thing about "lead me not into temptation ....."

P.P.S. The past year or so I have been fortunate to have a few friends send flies for me to test on our trout streams here in the Intermountain West, so for that period of time the percent of my own flies fished has dropped just a bit.

[tigfly]

I am about like 8T but I am not above begging flies from friends/or guides that I have known for a while. We all bum flies from each other which makes tying a lot more fun knowing that someone might catch a fish on something I've tied.

[darrell]

What I use : about 90% self tied, 7% waterside exchanged, 3% replica's of what I've seen elsewhere (but still tied myself).

Now ... if I can only find my tying materials .......